Former special counsel John Durham revealed that FBI agents apologized to him for his handling of the Trump-Russia investigation as he confirmed he saw bias among key officials in charge of the probe, such as Peter Strzok.
“I’ve had a number of FBI agents that I’ve worked with over the years, some of us retired, who have come to me and apologized for the way the investigation was conducted,” Durham revealed at the top of the high-profile Justice Department hearing.
To him, this proves that most of the FBI are ‘good, hard-working people’ who ‘swear to uphold the law.’
The FBI has come under fire since its investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and Russia over the raid on Mar-a-Lago, Operation Crossfire and allegations that the agency slowed its investigation of Hunter Biden.
Former special counsel John Durham revealed that FBI agents apologized to him for his handling of the Trump-Russia investigation as he confirmed he saw bias among key officials in charge of the probe, such as Peter Strzok.
‘It will take time to rebuild public confidence in the institutions, the changes, the reforms they have made are certainly changes that will at least prevent a repeat of what happened at Crossfire,’ Durham stressed.
Justice Department Chairman Jim Jordan denied Durham’s claims that the FBI had made significant reforms. ‘I don’t think anything has changed,’ the Ohio Republican said.
Durham insisted that his four-year-long investigation was conducted ‘in good faith’ and ‘did not serve a partisan political purpose.’
‘We found alarming violations of law and policy in the conduct of highly productive investigations, directed and conducted by members of the presidential campaign and ultimately the presidential administration. It doesn’t matter to me whether it was a Republican campaign or a Democrat campaign or a presidential campaign.’
Ranking Democrat Jerry Nadler, N.Y., insisted Durham’s report was political and was only invited to testify Wednesday because Trump has been accused of keeping quiet about his handling of classified documents and payments.
‘Mr. Durham, your report reads like a defense of the Trump campaign and an attack on Hillary Clinton because that’s exactly what it is!’
Durham was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019 to look into misconduct related to ‘Crossfire Hurricane’, which investigated the now-excluded Trump-Russia collusion allegations. Four years later he concluded that the FBI had opened the flawed investigation based on ‘raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence.’
Members of the Judiciary Committee are expected to dig into the aspects of confirmation bias outlined in the report on Wednesday.
Chair Jordan stated that Section 702 of FISA needs to be completely revised in order to be renewed this year. Section 702 was used by the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign – specifically adviser Carter Page.
Rep. Darrin LaHood, who leads the committee’s working group on Section 702 on FISA reform, said the hearing revealed that more work remains to be done.
He tweeted that the closed-door hearings are “essential work Congress and our HPSCI 702 Working Group must do to codify clear fences that will prevent future FBI abuses and protect Americans’ civil liberties.”
FISA’s Section 702 authorization must be completed by the end of 2023 It allows US federal intelligence agencies to conduct targeted searches of foreigners, but sometimes Americans are wrongly searched in the process – something Congress wants to fix.
The hearing comes days after the FBI is investigating Biden for allegedly mishandling classified documents and Trump appeared in court in Miami and was arrested on 37 federal counts related to the files found at Mar-a-Lago.
Republican senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley are also pressing Durham for answers about why top FBI officials — including Comey and McCabe — refused to cooperate with his probe into the agency’s opening of a probe into Trump-Russia collusion.
Durham issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed 500 search warrants and conducted hundreds of interviews with key officials, including Hillary Clinton and her campaign aides, Trump campaign officials and hundreds of FBI officials involved — but notably some top FBI officials refused to cooperate. did With Durham’s Inquiry.
Durham did not interview James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Bill Priestap, Kevin Kleinsmith – who was convicted by Durham of illegally altering an email – and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, who Republican senators called ‘odd’ .
Republicans are pressing Durham to provide information on whether he has issued subpoenas to those specific individuals and whether the DOJ has ‘impeded’ any of his office’s investigative practices.
While Durham’s report does not recommend any ‘wholesale changes’ to the Judiciary’s guidelines or policies, it says there is a ‘continuing need’ for agencies to recognize a lack of ‘analytical rigour’ and clear ‘confirmation bias’.
The FBI responded to the report in a statement to Newstimesuk.com saying it now has ‘corrective steps’ that could prevent ‘missteps in 2016’.
‘The conduct examined by Special Counsel Durham in 2016 and 2017 is because current FBI leadership has already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have been in place for some time now,’ the FBI told Newstimesuk.com.
‘If these reforms had been made in 2016, the mistakes identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring that the FBI continues its work with the rigor, objectivity and professionalism that the American people deserve and rightly expect.’
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