Trump, FBI Director Wray, and ex-FBI chief James Comey all like the DOJ's FBI-Russia report for wildly different reasons
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a 476-page report Monday detailing his conclusions about the FBI's investigation of Russian election interference and people associated with President Trump's 2016 campaign. The report had a little something for everyone, disclosing "significant inaccuracies and omissions" at the FBI but also dismantling Trump's accusations that the FBI investigated his campaign for political reasons, broke the law, and launched its investigations without sufficient legal or factual basis.
The reactions to Horowitz's report were mostly positive and wildly divergent.
FBI Director Christopher Wray emphasized to ABC News that he doesn't see any evidence that his agency "unfairly targeted the Trump campaign," but acknowledged the FBI's shortcomings and said he has proposed 40 corrective actions.
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"I think it's important that the inspector general found that in this particular instance the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization," Wray said, and without "political bias or improper motivations" in "opening the investigation or the decision to use certain investigative tools," including electronic surveillance.
Trump claimed Horowitz uncovered FBI malfeasance "far worse than what I ever thought possible" and said incorrectly that the report pointed to "an attempted overthrow" of his government. He suggested the "overthrow" might have succeeded if he hadn't taken certain unspecified actions, likely meaning his firing of FBI Director James Comey.
Comey claimed vindication in a Washington Post op-ed and on CNN Monday night. "On all the important things," the report "tells the truth," he said, and the truth is that Trump has been lying about the FBI for two years. "People have internalized the lies they've heard," including his mother-in-law, Comey said. "Good people believe when a president says something, so they've heard 'treason' and they've heard 'spying' and they've heard 'informants in the campaign' for two years," and "it's a risk we've become so numb to the lying that we just move on to the next outrage, and we can't do that."
Comey took responsibility for the errors uncovered in the report, but insisted they didn't affect the investigation and the FBI had no choice but to act: "The facts were there, and we should have been fired if we didn't follow up on the facts that we received in late July — and we followed up, as you know, quietly, we didn't reveal it to anyone, we didn't leak it to anyone."
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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