Trump’s Special Investigator Criticizes FBI Investigations
Prior to the 2016 presidential election, the FBI investigated Trump’s contacts with Moscow. In 2019, a special investigator was commissioned to review the FBI’s work – and he has now harshly criticized the agency’s investigations into the Russia affair.
John Durham, who was appointed by former US President Donald Trump in the Russia affair, submitted his final report after four years of work. He criticized the work of the FBI, stating that the agency should not have conducted the investigations in this way.
Durham was tasked in May 2019 with investigating the FBI’s Russia probes in connection with Trump’s campaign team in 2016. In the more than 300-page report released on Monday, the 73-year-old investigator concluded that the FBI should not have conducted the investigations in the way that it did.
The report stated that “the speed and manner” in which the FBI opened the investigations, based on “unsubstantiated intelligence information,” reflected “a clear deviation from the way” the FBI had dealt with similar cases in the past. Investigations against Democrat Hillary Clinton were given as an example. Durham went on to note that some individuals at the FBI had “significant hostile feelings toward Trump.”
Trump’s Justice Department came to a different conclusion in 2019. The FBI investigations were prompted by Moscow’s suspected influence on the 2016 presidential election. For several years, there were investigations into whether Trump’s campaign team made secret agreements with representatives from Russia, and whether Trump obstructed justice in these investigations. Trump always referred to the investigations as a “witch hunt.” His campaign was also allegedly subjected to unlawful surveillance.
A report by the US Department of Justice’s internal watchdog in December 2019 reached a different conclusion from Durham’s. There was no evidence that the investigations had been initiated in July 2016 due to political bias. However, the report also highlighted serious errors made by the FBI. For example, surveillance requests in connection with the investigations were found to have significant flaws.