Special Counsel John Durham has finally released his long-awaited report on the FBI’s “Russia Collusion” hoax — declaring that the bureau should have never even begun the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
On Monday, Durham published his 300-page report with a damning conclusion: “Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
“Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities,” the report stated, referring to the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Fusion GPS “Steele Dossier” that the FBI relied on to investigate Trump.
Durham noted that — prior to an Australian diplomat’s claim that then-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had told him that the campaign had dirt on Clinton — there was no evidence at all that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia. According to Durham, despite this “unevaluated intelligence information,” the FBI “swiftly opened an investigation, known as ‘Crossfire Hurricane.’”
“In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately,” the report continued. “Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information.”
Durham went on to note that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had acted without “appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign and a foreign power” — adding that the FBI had used a different standard in regard to investigating the Clinton campaign.
“The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign,” the report stated.
Durham’s report further stated that a trusted foreign source had given the FBI “highly significant intelligence” that Clinton had concocted a plan to “vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.”
“Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information…the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” the special counsel said.
There was a “predisposition to open an investigation into Trump,” the report added.
Durham went on to call out the integrity of the FBI.
“The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI’s guiding principles of ‘Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity’ are not ingrained in the hearts and minds of those sworn to meet the FBI’s mission of ‘Protect[ing] the American People and Uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States,” he wrote.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded to the report in a tweet, revealing that Republican lawmakers have contacted the DOJ to schedule testimony from Durham “next week.”
We’ve reached out to the Justice Department to have Special Counsel John Durham testify next week.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) May 15, 2023
