The hearing will come back to order. And for the outstanding work you have done, thank you this has to be one of the hardest jobs in government to be the impartial watchdog and with those Government Agencies as important as department of justice and fbi i want you to know how much we appreciate your work and your teams work likewise it is important even though we are critical of the leadership of the fbi during the last administration the way they mishandled this counterintelligence investigation and the colleagues need to know that we are there for them and support them in the faithful discharge of their responsibilities. I served that there is no more ardent supporter. And i believe that general hayden when he wrote his book had it right it is called playing to the edge not over the line but up to the edge so that also makes it important for us to root out the illegality and the exercise of those that are given to the Intelligence Community. So let me ask you about that. Because i cannot think of anything more damaging to the Intelligence Community than what you have uncovered in this 400 page report on what we have seen here. Its very troubling. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as you have pointed out is a warrant for the fbi working with the National Security division with the department of justice do you believe the court knew what you knew now that it ever would have issued the fisa warrant in the first place quick. We are careful not to find probable cause i know they would not find a warranty if they were not told all relevant information was included. And certainly if they were lied to. Is the court currently considering this matter that they have a report and a followon letter about this matter. Because this misbehavior i agree with senator graham it is the end of the authorities that congress has granted that would be damaging to National Security fisa includes the word surveillance you cannot surveillance an american citizen except under specialized and exacting circumstances. Because the right to given to the american citizen are laid out in the bill of rights and there is a higher standard to wiretap to investigate than a foreign agent. There are circumstances. So the whole exception with the surveillance of mister page is based on some proof or indication he was an agent of a foreign power. They had to show probable cause. As you pointed out it was incomplete and misleading information in the process. In inaccurate and incomplete. What is the difference between surveillance and spy clack. Surveillance and the term that i will use in the report is what is in the law of fisa. I will stick to what we do as ig is look at the law. To my mind there is no difference although it is legally authorized according to fisa it is an act of Covert Intelligence gathering against a foreign power or any agent of a foreign power. Let me ask you about the defensive briefing can you explain in response to senator graham to the counterintelligence investigation and at some point during the last few years Loretta Lynch said defensive briefings were routine and counterintelligence investigations. Would you agree quick. I dont have enough experience. I have heard that said that i dont know specifically. You have no reason to disagree. So if they are routine as the attorney general lynch is correct then head of the Counterintelligence Division but that briefing to candidate trump and his campaign would be unusual. If it is usual not doing it it is unusual. Even more is the fact when the director of National Intelligence had a perfunctory briefing to the Trump Campaign lasting 13 minutes that they had implanted and fbi agent part of the Investigative Team for crossfire hurricane. Correct they chose the agent from the counterintelligence investigations. Instead of providing that candidate trump and campaign to arm them with information so they could prevent the russians from infiltrating the campaign this briefing had a dual purpose. The agent on page 342 prepared himself going through mock briefings led by lisa page. Correct. This wasnt just an incidental sort of thing there were plans made for the agent to go in as part of that defensive briefing and get general flynn to inadvertently offer information helpful to the fbi in their investigation. It was dualpurpose for what anybody said in response to the briefing that would be useful across for crossfire hurricane but also for purposes of the future interview of mister flynn. So he was clearly the target. He was the only one of the three that was the subject of the fbi investigation. And he was told he was under investigation or the agent was there hoping to providing crematory incriminating information or had no admonishment of his miranda rights. It looks like director ray was so concerned and said this will never happen again. Thats correct. Mister horowitz are you familiar with the fact director comey had a meeting with President Trump january 2017 to talk to him about the teeten quick. We did and we reference that in response to the preparation. Why should we believe director comey defensive briefing if you want to call that of the president january was anything more than an attempt to fake the present with incriminating information useful to the fbi and counterintelligence or future investigation quick. I have no information one way or another but as mentioned earlier the concerns with doing that here resulting in the possibility it could happen elsewhere. It is fraught with danger just like general flynn for the director to go into the white house not to tell the president anything he uses could be used in the investigation with criminal charges. The final thing i would say is i agree with the chairman if this happens to a president ial candidate what kind of protection that this power could be put up against them and ruin their lives . That is a concern with your investigation. Picking up on that editorial comment talking about the fisa court we now have ample record in this case in 2002 the court identified 75 cases it was misled by the fbi internal fbi review has dozens of inaccuracies and the list goes on so lets have a fulsome conversation about the future of the fisa court thank you for being here. The chairman gave the uncharacteristic heated opening that went on for 40 minutes and produced a lengthy record of emails from lisa page and peter struck of statements of hostility toward candidate trump to say these are the people in charge when i read the summary of your findings you find either to be in charge. Did you clack. Not on this investigation. When it comes to expletives you found some agents at the fbi had opposite viewpoints and was positive toward candidate trump and was open and that use of expletives to demonstrate that. And those individuals. I hope we can all concede the point in this capacity with lifechanging decisionmaking that would be so politically biased to call into question. Thats correct and i made the point last year that the Justice Department can have their political views they are allowed to be engaged citizens that they cannot tie their personal views. Im sure thats what you chait on shared with director ray. Talking about the fact the Trump Campaign was not notified of this Ongoing Investigation and tell a much later date. Be careful what you wish for because there are those of us that look at the comey declaration of the Hillary Clinton investigation to be deadly in terms of the outcome of this election so the notion to the fbi publicizing can cut both ways its good to know im sure but as more people come to know it it becomes public knowledge. We wrote about that last year and what director comey did in that regard to control information information director comey did in that. Let me go back to the era principle everpresent Rudolph Giuliani becse heres something during the 2016 campaign Rudy Giuliani was a Trump Campaign circuit and bragged about having access to the investigation in Hillary Clintons emails. He knew h in october 2016th 16 that the surprises coming in after director comey sent a letter reopening investigation giuliani said and i quote i expected this. Today hear about it . Are darn right he heard about it he said. How can we be dealing with those kinds of statements that long ago and still not have resolution as to whether or not he was just bluffing or in fact he had molson at new york office. One of comeys rationales for his public announcement was i couldnt do it through the new york t office because it leaks sieve. Is there no investigation or has there have been no investigation into this . So as i mentioned last year when i released her information on the clinton email this occasion we are looking at still that question and the challenge of that investigation i mentioned that then and i will mention again is proving who spoke to whom and when based on records of the fbi and understanding that theres rarely going to be substandard information we will get works both from records and others but we will find out conducts. We will follow up we will followup in we continue to that follow up and we continue to that the grief issued two reports so far about findings we had of weeks of misconduct and we have investigations ongoing. Mr. Giuliani professes to be mr. Trumps lawyer and now the president acknowledges that and sometimes he doesnt. Or the concerns mr. Giuliani may bebekn attempting find informatn that is not authorized to . Im not going to speak to what we have learned what we know about our ongoing itinvestigation but im not investigating matters related to the ongoing ukraine issues that i think you are referencing. With me ask if i can on this question of the problems within this case particularly as they relate to the treatment of individuals who are engaged in it and im thinking particularly the ongoing questions about whether or not one particular individual was treated fairly. Is it your conclusion that he was not a russian agent or i should say did not have important context that were not in the best interest of United States with the russian leadership . And not in a position to assess that. What i can assess is looking at the evidence that the fbi put forward to the fisa court. Significant numbers of pieces of evidence did not support that thats the case and i was never told to Justice Department lawyers who are the ones who are the gatekeepers and have to know that information to make that decision. They are the experts. Can we speak for a moment to the steele dossier. I believe you have a definitive statement about what impact that steel file had on the initiation of this investigation. What was your conclusion . In terms of the initiation of theth u. S. Investigation it hado impact. It was not known to the team that opened the investigation at the time they opened it. Gave concluded in several different ways that there was no evidence of political influence at the opening of this crossfire hurricane investigation. Is that correct . Correct. On this fisa reform issue and ill get back to that later but one thing thats interesting here and senator lee is not with us at this moment but these introduced a bill which would give the Inspector Generals Office in the circumstance the authority to investigate attorneys in the department. Right now thats not allowed under the law. That is correct. It is not in thank you for cosponsoring the bill as of several other members of the committee. E. It seems the obvious question do you know what the theory is behind them being separated and not subject to this investigation . This is a legacy ing history in the 1988 when the ig was created attorneys with be carved out and so would the fbi and we would have jurisdiction. After the Aldrich James spy scandal attorney general ashcroft change that it gave us the authority over dea and fbi. Congress codified it in 1992 but attorneys were the only ig they cant review conduct of all the employees in our organization including attorneys. And attorney general ashcroft was authorized to give you that . Under the statute as it existed he had the authority to do that. The statutory change took that away. Mr. Chairman i hope you understood that as youre putting together an agenda. Just 30 seconds here. Does anybody in charge with working with the russians illegally working with the russians that were part of a Trump Campaign that you know of . Not that i know of. Senator lee. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. I find the conclusion that some have raised that your report mr. Mr. Horowitz somehow exonerates the fbi in this matter to be crazy. Absolutely crazy. To the point that it almost makes me wonder whether those who are making this argument have read the same report that we are talking about today. Perhaps they are talking about a different report. There is no planet on which i think this report indicates that things were okay within the fbi in connection with this investigation. They most certainly were not in yet stunningly former fbi director jim comey took to the pages in the Washington Post to declare that this report, youres report show that quote te fbi protected the American People and upholding the u. S. Constitution. I dont understand that. I find it absolutely stunning that he would reach that conclusion. This is nonsense. I dont care where you sit on the political spectrum, if you are a politician or if you are a nonpolitician, if youre a liberal or conservative a republican or a democrat or regardless of your age, your views you should be deeply concerned about what is in your report mr. Horowitz. This report is a scathing indictment of thero fbi, of the agents that were involved and i want to be clear about that because the fbi is an institution that has a long history of respect in this country and as a federal prosecutor ive worked with the fbi and i found many of his agents to be people of the most integrity and thoroughness. Thats part of why im so concerned by your report and its findings and the facts stated therein. I think this really damages that. Theres a lot of good in this country that comes not just from mese fbi being good but also beg understood to be good. The behavior outlined in your report is at a minimum so negligent. I actually would say so reckless that it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire fisa. Rogram i dont say that lightly. I say this of course is someone who has long questioned the fisa program and how it could be abuseded. This really pushes over the edge and i will get back to that in a minute. The report concludes way to generously in my view that the report quote did not find testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the agent who were involved in investigating the Trump Campaign. But the report goesca on to call the conduct of the agent and the supervisors involved to be quote serious performance failures which you noted were failures for which you did not receive a satisfactory explanation. Is that right . That is correct. Serious performancere failur, failures without any type of satisfactory explanation. This is the failure that jim comey stunningly irresponsibly considers a fulfilled mission, mission that includes among other things protecting the Constitutional Rights of the American People . I think notul. Hithis is what the former head f the fbi considers protecting the American People and upholding the constitution. I just cant understand it. Its simply not good enough. Maybe its good enough for mr. Comey but its not good enough for the American People. Every american should be terrified by this report to the fbi team that investigated the Trump Campaign was as has been pointed out handpicked. After all they couldnt and wouldnt and wasnt the case that they would just. Any ordinary investigators to investigate a president ial campaign especially the president ial campaign of a major party nominee. What was acknowledged in the report have been one of the most sensitive if ai investigations his agents were supposed to have been the best m of the best ande wouldnt expect any thing less in that circumstance. They are supposed to be the highest character and professionalism committed to protecting the Civil Liberties of all americans. Our privacy is not with their security. Our privacy is inextricably intertwined with an inseparable part of our security. We cannot be secure unless our privacy is guaranteed. We certainly cant be secure in a republican form of government if after all a republican form of government is imperiled by people who politicize the intelligence gathering and Law Enforcement apparatus that our federal government has. They are basically two possibilities. Either one, fbi agents purposely used the power of the federal government to wage a political war against a president ial candidate they despised or two these agents were so incompetent that they allowed a paid foreign political operative to weaponized the fisa program into a spying operation on our rival campaign. Al political im not sure about you but im not sure which one is worse. I am sure that neither conclusion is acceptable. They are both horrifying for slightly different reasons. Im not sure theres a substandard distinction and im not sure that one can conclude that the biasf evidence between some of these investigators, the fact do you said there wasnt a causal connection between them and the council changed between those medications in the opening of the investigation itself is beside the point. The fact is these were agents who made their bias clear and they went after someone in part because they did not like his candidacy and thats inexcusable their port in the fbis abuse. I believe its longstanding abuse and i believe its inevitable abuse of pies and