When Inspector General Horowitz’s report came out, the media quickly fell in line behind the notion that they found “no evidence of political bias” in the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016.
While the nation was watching Democrats and Republicans go back and forth on impeachment Wednesday, Inspector General Horowitz was also on Capitol Hill testifying before the Senate, and destroyed the lie that no political bias was found.
According to his testimony on Wednesday, his report did not make a determination on intent, and the explanations made by the FBI for their errors were not credible:
SEN. HAWLEY: “They were competent enough to deliberately mislead the FISA court, to change submissions to the FISA court, to alter emails. It doesn’t sound like they’re very stupid to me. What’s the explanation? Why over time, why would all of these people. four times over the space of half a year, deliberately mislead a federal court?”
HOROWITZ: “So we ultimately make — we don’t make a conclusion as to the intent here. So I want to be clear about that… There are so many errors, we couldn’t reach a conclusion or make a determination on what motivated those failures other than we did not credit what we lay out here were the explanations we got.
Watch the exchange here:
IG Horowitz says contrary to media claims he did NOT make a conclusion on whether the FBI was acting on political bias.
HOROWITZ: "We don’t make a conclusion as to the intent here. I want to be clear about that…"
In fact, he said the explanations they got were not credible! pic.twitter.com/Y3wFs2FsjV
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) December 18, 2019
While he was unwilling to make a determination on intent, he did testify that evidence of political bias was found. When asked by Senator Johnson (R-Wisc.), “But you definitely — in both these investigations, you found political bias?” Horowitz replied, “We found through the text messages evidence of people’s political bias, correct.”
You can watch the exchange below:
IG Horowitz confirms they found evidence of political bias in their investigation of the FBI.
SEN. JOHNSON: "In both these investigations, you found political bias?"
HOROWITZ: "We found through the text messages evidence of people’s political bias, correct." pic.twitter.com/HHFJQSotfE
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) December 18, 2019
As for the explanations given by the FBI for the deceptive applications for the FISA warrants, Horowitz said, “we didn’t find any of the explanations particularly satisfactory.” He continued, “I can’t tell you as I sit here whether it was gross incompetence, and I think with the volume of errors you could make an argument that that would be a hard sell… I can think of plenty of motivations that could have caused that to occur.”
IG Horowitz admits chalking up FBI misconduct to simply incompetence would be a "hard sell."
"I can’t tell you as I sit here whether it was gross incompetence, and I think with the volume of errors you could make an argument that that would be a hard sell… " pic.twitter.com/71A62fF4Ou
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) December 18, 2019
Horowitz also testified that the FBI attorney who doctored records had an obvious anti-Trump bias.
SEN. RAND PAUL: “But could you then specifically say the opposite, that actually in this instance there actually was evidence of political bias and evidence of record-changing that looks like malfeasance?”
HOROWITZ: “There is evidence of both, I agree with you.”
SEN. PAUL: “But could you then specifically say…there actually was evidence of political bias and evidence of record-changing that looks like malfeasance?”
HOROWITZ: “There is evidence of both, I agree with you.” pic.twitter.com/7001UWDNEy
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) December 18, 2019
So, it’s quite clear that despite the media narrative that the IG report found no evidence of political bias, they actually did, but they weren’t tasked with making a determination on intent.
The Durham investigation will be a completely different story.
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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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