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U.S. special counsel censures the FBI's handling of the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation.
The FBI lacked "real evidence" to investigate Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on leads provided by Trump's political opponents, concluded US special counsel John Durham in a report released Monday.
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According to Durham, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI "failed to fulfill their mission" when they launched the so-called 'Russiagate' investigation against former President Donald Trump.
In an expected 300-page report released Monday, John condemns the FBI for treating incriminating information about Trump with a "serious lack of analytical rigor, especially information received from politically affiliated individuals and entities."
The jurist's brief primarily refers to the 'Steele Dossier,' a compilation of rumors about the former president and his alleged ties to Russia that was compiled by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
BREAKING: Special Counsel John Durham has released his conclusion that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into the connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 15, 2023
This conclusion comes in contrast to a Justice Department inspector general investigation,… pic.twitter.com/u1vetFyDJ0
The Steele Dossier was used by the FBI to obtain judicial permission to spy on the Trump campaign. The FBI made "basic, fundamental and serious errors" in applying for a warrant to surveil Trump, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified in 2019.
The document dismissed the FBI's 2016 counterintelligence investigation against Trump - code-named "Crossfire Hurricane" - that would spiral into special counsel Robert Mueller's "Russiagate" probe. Mueller would later conclude that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The report marks the end of a four-year investigation that began in May 2019, when then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham, a veteran prosecutor, to investigate possible mistakes by the FBI when it launched its early-stage "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into possible contacts between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
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