That report could be released within the next two weeks, according to Rep. John Ratcliffe, who sits on both the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees.
Horowitz’s report is important because it could confirm what many critics have been saying for years: The origins of the investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign were unreliable, and the intelligence bureaucrats we trust with our national security have been unaccountable for too long.
Hopefully, Horowitz’s report will shed some light on three important allegations against the FBI and DOJ:
- The FISA court turned down the FBI and DOJ’s original request to surveil Page. Because FISA warrants remain hidden and uncontested, they require a higher burden of proof than typical criminal warrants. The court determined the FBI had not met its standards and turned the agency away. It wasn’t until the FBI bolstered its original request with details from Christopher Steele’s dossier that the court granted its request.
- In its second application for a FISA warrant, the FBI assured the court Steele was a reliable source despite the fact that not a single U.S. intelligence agency had verified his claims. Another important detail the FBI neglected to tell the court was that the agency had fired Steele six months earlier for misconduct.
- The FBI also conveniently forgot to tell the FISA court that the Steele dossier it had used as evidence in its application for a warrant had been bought and paid for by key Democratic firm Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s law firm, and Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm used by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
If these allegations are indeed true, then it is also true that the FBI intentionally withheld and lied about information in order to investigate Trump’s campaign. And if the FBI did indeed lie, the origins of the Russia investigation can rightly be decried as irresponsible and unnecessary.
FISA court abuses do indeed exist. And they point to a disturbing rot in the justice system: unelected political appointees taking power into their own hands to surveil and investigate political opponents topics under the guise of national security. This goes beyond Trump, Mueller, and the rest. This is about a total lack of transparency and accountability in a government that is supposed to work for us. We need answers, and it looks like we’re about to get them.