Consensus reached after multiple days and meetings among officials. We reviewed Department Policies and concluded Assistant Director pre steps exercise of description in opening the investigation was in compliance with those policies. We also reviewed, as we detail in the report, the emails, Text Messages and other documents of those involved in that decision, particularly mr. Pre steps. We didnt find documentary or Testimonial Evidence that indicated political bias or improper motivation influencing his decision to open the investigation. While the information in the fbis possession at the time was limited, in light of the Throw Threshold established by department and fbi predication policy which, by the way, is not a legal requirement but a prudential one in the fbi and Department Policies, we found that Crossfire Hurricane was opened for an authorized
investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication. This decision to open Crossfire Hurricane which involved the activitie
disturbing about that event, which is the initial application said, as you noted, that the fbi assessed that steele was the direct source or was a direct source, and on october 14th the drafts changed to the exact opposite. what we found is the fbi had no basis for the first statement, no evidence in their file it turned out the first statement was, in fact, the accurate statement. the point is they had no evidence to support that. when they flipped that, they had no evidence to support that either. that s the kind of issue that under the basic woods procedures, the factual accuracy procedures, had someone been doing their job and following up, they would have seen that and found that. of course, had they bothered to ask mr. steele, they might have found out which of the two versions was true. maybe they weren t interested in doing their job. question three, chairman graham and i sent our referral to the fbi and doj on january 4, 2018.