After being briefed by Attorney General William Barr, Senator Lindsey Graham says that the Inspector General report on alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses will “prove that the system got off the rails.”
“I think his report is going to be stunning. I think it is going to be damning. I think it’s going to prove that the system got off the rails and we need corrective action,” he told Martha MacCallum on Fox News.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced the investigation was completed in mid-September. A draft copy was provided to the Justice Department and FBI for a classification review.
Graham, who has used descriptors such as “ugly” and “damning” in raising expectations for the findings in Horowitz’s report, pledged to do a “deep dive” of his own into FISA, which will run concurrently with U.S. Attorney John Durham’s now criminal investigation of the early stages of the Russia investigation.
Republicans argue top Justice Department and FBI officials misled the FISA court by using an unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele to obtain warrants to electronically monitor Page. Democrats, as well as current and former FBI officials, have dismissed the allegations of wrongdoing during the Trump-Russia investigation and are concerned that Durham’s review of the early stages of the Russia investigation may be an effort to discredit the work of Mueller and deface the president’s political rivals.
Horowitz’s final report is expected to be released publicly around Thanksgiving.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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