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The new report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is an absolutely damning indictment of the Steele dossier. The dossier, compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign, was a collection of damaging and unfounded rumors about candidate Donald Trump. It was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and overseen by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. It was never verified, and some of it was laughably far-fetched from the very beginning. Still, the dossier's tales were taken seriously by officials in the highest ranks of the FBI --...

Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Wednesday that he found no evidence the FBI wiretapped anyone other than former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in connection with the Russia investigation. Horowitz’s comments at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing refuted a series of tweets sent by President Trump in March 2017 in which he claimed that Obama had his “wires tapped” at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. “Did your investigation identify any evidence President Obama ordered the FBI to tap Donald Trump’s phone?” asked Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), after citing Trump’s tweets from 2017. “We didn’t find...

When Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz published his report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation, some of us began to suspect that he was the deep state’s most clever ultimate protector. The IG’s strategy was to find a long list of malfeasances with which to excoriate an institution, in this case, the FBI—abuses that might, under normal circumstances, land multiple people in jail—slap the miscreants firmly on the wrist, and then let everyone off at the end with a disingenuous excuse (in the Clinton affair, a supposed similarity to the vastly less-serious accusations against Alberto Gonzalez, for which Bush’s...

The Justice Department inspector general’s report into the Russia collusion investigation lays out incontrovertible evidence that the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court through false information and omissions, according to sources familiar with its findings. The evidence that the judges were misled is so sweeping that it could provide grounds, if Attorney General William Barr chooses, to withdraw the FBI’s application for the surveillance warrants that began in October 2016 to target ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the sources added. Such a move, while mostly legally symbolic since the probe is long since closed, would still amount to a...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding today’s Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General report : Today’s IG report on the Russiagate FISA abuse provides abundant evidence that the FBI and DOJ massively violated the law in order to obtain the Carter Page spy warrants targeting President Trump. As IG reports are both exposés and cover-ups at the same time, it is no surprise that the IG punted on implicating senior officials directly in the spy scandal. President Trump should directly appoint a special counsel from outside of the DOJ and...

President Trump on Monday hailed a new report from the Justice Department inspector general, claiming it showed FBI officials attempted an “an overthrow of government” by investigating his 2016 presidential campaign. “This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it and they got caught, they got caught red-handed,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room at the White House during a roundtable event on education. “I think I'm going to put this down as one of our great achievements. Because what we found and what we saw — never, ever...

FULL TITLE: Brennan Lied About Not Including Steele Dossier In Intelligence Community Assessment On 2016 Russian Election Interference ==================================================================== The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). The ICA, a report conducted by intelligence officials in 2016 on Russian election interference, was used to brief President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017. According to the IG report, there was significant discussion by top intelligence officials as to...

The Justice Department’s inspector general (IG) report states fired FBI Director James Comey conceded that the Steele dossier was “not ripe enough, mature enough,” to be a complete “intelligence product,” yet it was still used by the bureau to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. “According to Corney, the inclusion of the Steele election reporting as an appendix to the ICA was not a value judgment about the quality of the information. Instead, it reflected the relatively uncorroborated and incomplete status of the FBI’s assessment. Corney told the OIG that the Steele election reporting...

U.S. attorney John Durham issues a response to the DOJ IG report, saying his office does "not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz released his report on the Trump-Russia probe and FISA applications Monday afternoon. His report considers whether or not there was any wrongdoing in the probe, run by the Obama administration and launched against the candidate who ran against many of Obama's policies. The grounds for the investigation proved extremely weak, from the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier to tenuous links regarding obscure members of the Trump campaign like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the...

Against new information that U.S. Attorney John Durham has lengthened the time-frame for this investigative inquiry into the DOJ and FBI activity around the 2016 election, earlier today Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo revealed (and President Trump tweeted) the FISA report by Michael Horowitz will be released on Friday October 18th. If that time-frame for the IG report is accurate, that means the classification review has been completed; any remaining classified information not specifically authorized in the inspector general report, a decision granted to AG Bill Barr, would be placed in a classified appendix that is not available to the...

@MariaBartiromo is hearing.. IG REPORT OCT 18TH - THICK AS A TELEPHONE BOOK

James Comey immediately shared details from a post-election briefing for then-President-elect Donald Trump with the FBI’s Russia team, according to the recently released inspector general's report on the former bureau director’s actions -- in the latest indication that traditional transition briefings were used to update the incoming president and his team, as well as gather intelligence for the ongoing FBI investigation. The long-awaited report from Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz on Thursday said Comey violated bureau policies by drafting, leaking and retaining his memos documenting private discussions with the president. The report also revealed new details about the FBI director’s...

FULL TITLE: Exclusive — Devin Nunes: ‘Evidence Is There’ for U.S. Attorney to Bring Criminal Conspiracy Charges Against James Comey Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Sunday evening that the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) report on former FBI director James Comey, and the DOJ’s decision not to press charge, does not mean he is out of the woods. Nunes said that Comey, who President Donald Trump fired as FBI director in the first few months of his presidency sparking the...

The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General’s report released Aug. 29 clearly stated that James Comey violated and abused FBI policies in managing memos in which he supposedly documented confidential conversations with the president. This is a revelation that most of us have known for quite some time. However, Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz has yet again glossed over some major problems. It appears that the main reason Horowitz concludes former FBI Director James Comey only violated his FBI Employment Agreement and DOJ/FBI “policies” was because the documents he kept, disclosed, and leaked to improper parties were not considered...

The DOJ Inspector General released a report on James Comey Thursday morning on his mishandling of memos he drafted stemming from nine conversations he had with President Trump. Although it was determined that Comey violated FBI policies pertaining to retention, handling and dissemination of FBI records and information, Barr declined prosecution. The IG report revealed details on how Comey drafted the memos, printed the memos and how he stored them. Comey drafted 7 memos stemming from 9 conversations he had with President Trump beginning January 7th 2017 through April 2017. According to FOIA docs obtained by Judicial Watch, Comey drafted...

Rep. Devin Nunes called the Justice Department inspector general's report on former FBI Director James Comey a "building block" for a criminal referral he delivered to the agency. "For a long time I have been very hesitant to get too far out in front on the IG's capabilities. I believe what today is, is another example — it's a building block. It's important information," the California Republican said Thursday evening on Fox News. Specifically, he said, Horowitz's findings contain "very important pieces of evidence that would build into the conspiracy complaint that we have sent to the Department of Justice."...

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threw shade at Comey in a series of tweets following the release of the DOJ IG report. The DOJ Inspector General released a report on James Comey Thursday morning on his mishandling of memos he drafted stemming from nine conversations he had with President Trump. Although it was determined that Comey violated FBI policies pertaining to retention, handling and dissemination of FBI records and information, Barr declined prosecution. The IG report concluded that Comey “set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees.” Without mentioning Comey’s name, Rosenstein criticized the former FBI...