“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the Mueller report infamously stated.
That one line served as fodder for the left to say that while Mueller’s report didn’t find evidence of Russian collusion, Trump’s claim of “complete and total exoneration” was erroneous.
Let’s compare that line to what Inspector General Michael Horowitz said on Wednesday about his report that allegedly found “no evidence of bias” by the FBI in their investigation of Trump’s campaign. Horowitz said, “The activities we found here don’t vindicate anyone who touched this.”
Comey and others claim Horowitz report “vindicated” them.
Horowitz today: “The activities we found here don’t vindicate anyone who touched this.”
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) December 11, 2019
Well, I’ll be… sounds an awful lot like what the Mueller report said of Trump, doesn’t it? Meanwhile, if you were paying attention to Horowitz’s testimony, you probably noticed that Horowitz acknowledged that the FBI continued to spy on Carter Page, even after being informed he was actually a CIA informant. They also went back to the FISA court repeatedly after having this knowledge to have their investigation reauthorized, and withheld information, effectively lying to the court.
Oh yeah, and an FBI lawyer literally altered a document with fraudulent information in order to justify the FISA court to renew the investigation.
An FBI attorney 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 an email he sent as evidence to a supervising agent.
The supervising agent relied on the 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 email for the final FISA application.
Horowitz: "I have not seen an alteration of an email end up impacting a court document like this." pic.twitter.com/9ZAcJLtE91
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) December 11, 2019
And then there’s this exchange between Senator Lindsey Graham and IG Horowitz, where Horowitz says he couldn’t rule out the possibility that FBI officials acted out of political bias when they refused to report exculpatory evidence regarding the Steele Dossier to the FISA court—which was required.
GRAHAM: “They have a duty to report to their supervisors and the court exculpatory information?”
HOROWITZ: “Absolutely.”
GRAHAM: “They did not?”
HOROWITZ: “They did not.”
GRAHAM: “Can you say it wasn’t because of political bias?”
HOROWITZ: “On decisions regarding those FISA matters, I do not know their state of mind at this point.”
This is another key moment from this morning's IG hearing.
After learning that Steele Dossier they used to justify the surveillance on Trump campaign was full of sh*t, FBI refused to report it to higher ups.
Was that because of political bias?
IG Horowitz can't rule it out. pic.twitter.com/qDwb43xY4D
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) December 11, 2019
Yet, based on the conclusion of the report, we’re supposed to write all these things off as a series of isolated mistakes?
James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and others might think they’re in the clear here, but they’re not.
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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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