Global Courant 2023-05-16 03:19:01
HOUSTON, USA
Special counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should never launch a full investigation into former US President Donald Trump’s campaign and its alleged ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential election, according to a report compiled over a three-year period released Monday.
“We conclude that the (Justice) Department and the FBI have failed to exercise strict adherence to the law, which has important missions in connection with the specific events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.
Durham, a Trump administration appointee, said the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed and unverified intelligence” to launch the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia. By contrast, he said the agency uses a different standard when weighing concerns about alleged election interference with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“At the beginning of the Hurricane Crossfire investigation, neither US law enforcement nor the intelligence community appear to have any evidence of collusion at their disposal,” Durham said.
Despite his findings that the FBI was wrong, the special counsel did not propose any new charges against individuals or “overall changes” to how the FBI handled investigations of a political nature.
However, Durham fiercely criticized the agency’s behavior, saying that senior FBI personnel “did not show serious analytical rigor with the information they received, particularly information from politically connected individuals and organizations.”
“The Office’s assessment is that the FBI did not consider or deliberately ignore material information that does not support the narrative of a secret relationship between Trump and Russia,” the report continued. “An objective and honest assessment of these strings of information should have caused the FBI not only to question the prediction of Crossfire Hurricane, but also to consider whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not.”
Following the report, the FBI said on Monday that the agency was taking steps to correct its mistakes during the Trump-Russia investigation.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017, which Special Counsel Durham examined, is why the current FBI leadership has already implemented dozens of corrective measures that have already been implemented for some time. If these reforms had been implemented in 2016, missteps were identified. Reporting could have been blocked,” it said.
“This report reinforces the importance of ensuring that the FBI continues to do its job with the rigor, objectivity and professionalism that the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
Trump hailed the report’s findings in a post on the Truth Social platform.
“WOW! After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes that the FBI should never have initiated the Trump-Russia Investigation! So the American People have been duped into being defrauded by those who don’t want to see AMERICAN GREATNESS right now!” said.
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