Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has released several hundred more documents from his committee’s investigation into the origins of the FBI investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign for president. Included in the document dump was the transcript of closed testimony given last June by former Justice Department official Dana J. Boente.
Boente was acting deputy attorney general in charge of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation for several months in 2017 and told the committee that he was briefed on the program at least six times.
“I felt that it was important to know something about it,” said Mr. Boente, according to a transcript. “I don’t know if and when I was told that. I think — I recall being told at some point, maybe not February, between February and April, because thankfully my involvement ended in April, that there was no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign.”
The FBI not only didn’t shut down the probe, they expanded it.
During this time, the FBI also won a judge’s approval for continued wiretapping of campaign volunteer Carter Page. The FBI’s affidavit was based almost exclusively on evidence provided by a Democratic Party-financed dossier prepared by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and sourced to the Kremlin.
The FBI learned in January that Mr. Steele’s main source, Russian-born Igor Danchenko, had told agents his information was unconfirmed hearsay. But the FBI continued to rely on the dossier.
Graham was obviously upset when he spoke of what was in the transcripts.
In a statement, Graham said: “I believe that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the most incompetent and corrupt investigations in the history of the FBI and DOJ.”
The senator added the committee had released “as much material as possible” – but said some material had been withheld as it was still “classified”.
Graham slammed the leadership of the FBI under James Comey and Andrew McCabe, saying it was either “grossly incompetent” or they “knowingly allowed tremendous misdeeds”.
Why didn’t the FBI and Justice drop a bogus investigation into a sitting president of the United States? Graham said: “The only logical explanation is that the investigators wanted an outcome because of their bias.”
But the FBI would never let their biases interfere with their professional judgment, right?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member