Special counsel John Durham released his report on Monday on potential criminal misconduct during the Donald Trump-Russia probe.
The FBI should never have launched a full investigation during the 2016 presidential election, Durham concluded.
The 300-plus page report states the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” to launch the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. It used a different standard as it addressed questions about Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it says.
Durham who was appointed by Trump, did not recommend any specific changes.
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the [Justice] Department and FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.
Durham was critical of the Steele dossier, which was used by the FBI to obtain search warrants against a former Trump adviser Carter Page.
“Steele Reports were used to support probable cause in the FBI’s FISA applications targeting (Carter) Page, a U.S. citizen who, for a period of time, had been an advisor to Trump,” the report says.
“As discussed later in the report, this was done at a time when the FBI knew that the same information Steele had provided to the FBI had also been fed to the media and others in Washington, D.C.,” it added.
The Steele dossier had unverified allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia.
