Warrants . The concern grows out of the fact that all of the failures and the and The Information that shouldved been given and wasnt given. And the question being what was the intent . What what washa their intention . Their motivation there. And what we determined was we couldnt definitively say what the motivation was. Are these pretty smart people . Fairly welleducated . At least welleducated. I dont know if theyre smart. I dont know if were very smart to beow honest with you. I was b going to say they have law degrees, right . At least somehe of them do. So you think the woods review for people at this level of the organization. To be clear, the stuff that didnt happen on the woods review was basic stuff. Yeah. You didnt need to be a deeplyexperienced fbi agent to be able to do it the right way. Well, thats my point. So wouldnt you think that would almost be muscle p memory for people who are going through this process to know they had an obligation to go through that . They clearly should have. And so wouldnt it also seem
reasonable that if they didnt you cant answer this question but to me, it seems like if something is as standard as that process, before you go to a fisa court, to not do it was something they intended not to do. They didntt want to go throug it. I mean, it seems to be a logical conclusion. And then youeebe ask yourself, . Well, because we dont ever want this guy to get elected president. And if he does, sounds like they want to impeach him. I mean, i cant understand anybody working in this organization. Understanding the scrutiny that we placed under the fisa courts. And by the way, count me in. Because we now seen the abuses youve warned us about. You can smirk again because you were right. But i mean, were it it just seemse to me that this organization. This closelyheld organization of highlyeducated, highlyexperienced people, i have to believe they were handpicked for this process. They were picked because they had some of the best reputations in there. They had to know that this was
going it was going to come to this. That it was going to be scrutinized. Regardless of who the subject of the investigation was. If the if the names were changed and the parties were changed, wed still be here. And it looks like they were trying to skate along the edges and get away with something to me. And i cant imagine that they did it for any other reason than a political motivation. And i dont expect you toa respond to that because youre doing a great job of holding to the scope of your report. Re but nobody can tell me, with people of thisl caliber, with e record of partisan, vitriolic, to say we just forgot to do a standard procedural review that you would probably expect one of their staff twora or three levels down to know you need to do it. It just doesnt make sense to me. Now, youvet gottenen a lot of questions today that had nothing to do withqu your report. I think youve done a very good job of saying im here to talk about my report. You didnt do a russia collusion
investigation, did you . We did not. You Didnt Reprosecute the Special Counsel report, did you . Po we did not. Would you agree that you got a lot of questions today that had nothing to do with what you were here to talk about today . I certainly had dseveral. Yeah. So i also wonder whether or not that was politicallyo motivate. Lets focus on this. What i found interesting was that weat do have people who ar using this asav a platform on t other side of the aisle that says, well, now we need to the we need to look at the fisa process. I dont know why youd use this as a platform to do that. Unless you thought that this is a clearho case where the fisa process was abused. And then if you look at this information, this ecosystem of smart people who i think turned a blind eye to damning evidence to serve as a basis for renewing thefo fisa report. Its just beyond my comprehension. Of this evidence in yourf report, i think is prett strong. I hope that my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle, when we take up impeachment next month, have that same standard for the weight of evidence that were going to be asked tof look at. Thank you, mr. Chair. Senator rona. Thank you. You r identify significant issu with the Fisa Application Process for conducting surveillance on carter page. Before this investigation, were you aware of the use of the fisa process . I was not personally. Although, we have done reports, as you know, senator, since 9 11 my office. Well, you cant sit here and tell us that these errors only occurred with regard to this Fisa Application Process. W we weve identified problems in the past. I will sayms weve never done a dive into one as deep as this. As have a number of us, by the way. Senator lee and others of us. We understand that there are issues relating to the fisa process. And, in fact, after you pointed out your the errors, et
cetera. The director acknowledged your findings. And, in fact, he is moving ahead to make improvements to the fisa process and as he put it to make the fbi a much stronger institution. Thats correct. Would you agree that it is a major decision to seek authority from a fisa court to conduct surveillance on ant american . I agree. If fbi officials were politicallymotivated and wanting to conduct surveillance on a particular american, Wouldnt The Decision to seek Fisaee Approval be a point wher political bias could affect the process . Could. Yes. Yes. Actually, that would be a pretty good time for any kind of political bias to manifest itself. But here, you found no evidence of political bias in deciding to seek fisa approval. We did not find such evidence. When you released your report on monday, both the Attorney General and mr. Durham immediately issued public statements that challenged the
findings in your report. Attorney general barr stated, quote, the Inspector Generals report now makes clear that the fbi launched an intrusive investigation of a u. S. President ial campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. End quote. An you point to the page or pages in your report that found that the fbi launched an intrusive investigation on the thinnest of suspicions that were insufficient to justify the fbis actions . T we concluded that there was sufficient predication. Asuhhuh. Would you consider words like the thinnest of suspicions, intrusive investigation, neutral words . To describe the work. Going to let others answer for their own comments and stick to what weve written. Youve said that and everybodys entitled to characterize your investigation. Buty you know what, i think we all know what constitutes fair. A fair characterization. I would say those are not fair. Yesterday, Attorney General barr went on a tv to challenge the validity of the findings of your report. And suggested that his own fbi agents have acted in quote bad faith and with improper motives. And that it was premature to conclude otherwise. These insinuations are inconsistent with your report. And one justification that he gave foron disregarding the key finding in your report was that unlike the investigator he handpicked, mr. Durham, you could not compel testimony. You interviewed more than 100 witnesses for your investigation. In your report, youur note you were unable to compel testimony from two people. Glen simpson and jonathan winer. Were these the only two people who wouldnt testify or talk to you . Dnti those were the only two people that we asked to interview that turned us down. And do you think that the fact thatnd you did not intervi these two witnesses undermined the conclusions in your report . That you found no documentary or Testimony Evidencent of politic bias in opening the investigation or Seekingn Fisa authority for carter page . I dont believe they undermined any of i our conclusions. It would have been good to have their evidence, like it isbe normally. Is do you think that the findings inin your report are inaccurate because you r lacked the authority to compel witnesses . Not in this instance, no. In april 2019, Attorney General barr told congress, quote, i think spying did occur. End quote. When talking about the fbis investigation of the Trump Campaigns ties with the russian government in the 2016 election. And yesterday, Attorney General barr reiterated the Trump Campaign was clearly im quoting himly now clearly spd upon. Helypi claimed the fbis investigation investigative actions, which you discuss in your report, constitute spying. And the word spying carries, i would say, negative connotations. Dont you think . I mean, it sounds like Law Enforcement is doing something theyre not authorized to do. That they would spy on us. And thats why we use and only rely on the word thats in the law, which is surveillance. And yet, we have the highest Law Enforcement person in our entire country using a word not just once but twice. Using the word spying. So clearly, your report found that the, fbis investigation s for an authorized and with an adequate predicate. You would not use such a word in your report. We dont use that in our report. Do you think questioning the motivesin of your staff is possibly involving bad faith . Or accusing them of spying would be demoralizing to your people . Let me put i i would not speak to my folks about them
acting in that manner. Do you think thats i d havent seen that either characterize what you all do in your professional capacity . I think thats a rhetorical question. Yeah. You r know, so point taken, though. Law enforcement staffs investigations as intrusive and based on the thinnest of suspicions also cast dispersions on the professionalism of your people. And i think that is probably also not terribly edifying or supportive. Did the Attorney General provide you with any evidence to support his claim that the fbi agents were spying . We in terms of evidence we didnt get any evidence from the Attorney General. We did meet with mr. Durham. Had a discussion with him. But we, as i said, are standing by our conclusions. Ai does it bother you that you have the Attorney General using
words like spying to characterize what the fbi did under an authorized process . You know, as Inspector General, im going to stick to what we do and what weve said and notha try and guess the motives or ideas or thoughts of anyone else out there. I dont see you jumping up and down with use of such words. Let me go on. On november 21st, dr. Fiona hill, the former National Security council Seniorfo Direcr for europe and russia, warned that russia has, quote, geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. Even as we speak. Thats what russia is doing. She also warned congress against promoting the fictional narrative that ukraine, rather than russia, interfered in the 2016 u. S. Election. These conspiracy theories, she said, clearly advance russian interests. Fbi director stated on Monday Thatdi the fbi has no informati that would indicate that ukraine tried to interfere in the 2016
president ial election. When we talk about interfering, were talking about the kind of systemic governmentsanctioned interference with our election process that russia engaged in. And theres no way that ukraine engaged in that kind of systematic interference. So in all the documents that you reviewed, 100 witnesses. Did you find10 any evidence tha contradicts fbi director rays statement that the fbi has no information that indicates ukraine tried to interfere in the 2016 election . We didnt see any such evidence. But ieeny emphasize that was izyes, i know. But, you know what, you would think that youre looking through a million documents. Fortunately, not me but the team. There might have been something there that referenced that maybe ukraine was engaging in the kind of systematic interference that russia did. I know that senators asked you about this butha i want to maket
clear. Is there anything in your report that calls into question the conclusion of the Mueller Report that russia interfered in the 2016 president ial election in a Sweeping Andde systematic fashi . No. And of course, you all know that the Mueller Investigation resulted in 37 indictments and six convictions of trump associates. Is there anything in your report that calls into question Special Counsel muellers conclusion that the Trump Campaign not only knew about russias Election Interference but they encouraged it and expected it to and expected to benefit electorally from it . No. I know you receive a lot of requests from republican and democratic members of congress to do certain investigations. And ive been among those. I realize you have to take certain factors into consideration because you only have soca many resources to conduct all these investigations. And one of the requests that i
and my colleagues asked you to investigate was whether Attorney General barrs handling of the Mueller Report was h misleading. And whether he demonstrated bias in dealing with the Mueller Investigation. In light of the factors that i that im sure you consider, will you take another another look at the request that i, and my colleagues, sent you . Toue see whether you are able t investigate any of them. So on that, senator, first of all, id be happy to come up and meet with you andto talk about with you in person. Let me say i ive had conversations with some of the members of the committee about this issue. Its the the letters asking us to look at the conduct of senior lawyers at the department. Er directly implicate section 80 of the Inspector General act, which prohibits me from looking at conduct of lawyers in their capacity as lawyers. Senator lee has sponsored a bill that passed the house unanimously. Bipartisan, full support. Pending here. Several members of the committee
have cosponsored it. That provision prevents me from Undertaking Investigations of misconduct by Senior Department lawyers. Or actually, any Department Lawyers justny to be clear. T well, this is one time whei actually i think agree with senator lee in that needing to make that kind ofin change to enable you to makeki the kind o investigation that were asking you to make. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Id be happy to come up and talk about it with you further. Thankt you. Ill keep doing this and ill apologize. Has anyone been convicted of the crime of working with the russian government associated with the trumpng campaign . That you know of. Not that i know of. Well, they havent. So i just whatever convictions have been attained got nothing to do with colluding with the russians. Thats what got us here. And about what happened here. If the government is surveilling an American Citizen, pursuant to
a fisa warrant, and the government informations given to the government that questionsto the foundation of t warrant, is there an obligation to tell the court . Absolutely. They did not do that, did they . Correct. They lied about The Information that was exculpatory to mr. Page. They gave misleading, inaccurate information. At what point does ad can surveillance that d started lawfully become illegal . It can it can become unauthorized, inappropriate, illegal. Depending on would you apply all those terms to what happened in this case . Im going to let others, who have the ability to address some of these issues, decide what the precise level of intent was. Heres what im going to say. It may have started lawfully. It got off the rails quick. It r became a criminal conspira to defraud the fisa court. To put mr. Page through hell. And to continue to surveil President Trump after he got elected. And i hope somebody pays a price for that. Youve certainly done your part, mr. Horowitz. Thank you, mr. Chair. And thank you very much, Inspector General, for being here today and presenting this information. And i know that a couple others have focused on this. Andoc id like to dive back in. But but first. There is a lot of respect out there or there has been for the fbi. E is and i remember as a kid, you know, watching movies or shows that portrayed the fbi. And we really thought, wow, those are the good guys. And i think what we have seen through the past number of years, number of months, is that a few bad actors have really squandered that away. And i think the American People look at the fbie and they thin wow. If theyre doing this to a president ial candidate, what would they do to me, as just a
normal, American Citizen . Are they really there for me . So im just so sorry that this has led to this. Again, a few very bad actors. I heard somebody earlier saying, oh, the mistakes that were made at the fbi. The mistakes. Its not like, oops, i accidentally filed a fisa warrant or an application. A fisa application. Oops. That accidentally happened. Thats not a mistake. That it just wreaks of of ill wishes to do harm. So, again, i just think the fbi. Weve always thought of it as a such a great institution. And now, im looking at all this information. Weve all reviewed the report. And i think, for god sakes, what is going onod here . So thank you for doing this work. I think its f just really important we take a look at whats going on. Why it happened. And id like to focus a little
more just on on the discipline aspect of this because these mistakes were made by somemi people that really wanted to do bad harm.