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Perino warns IG report may be ‘very underwhelming’ for Trump supporters, Jesse holds out for Durham

November 23, 2019 | | Print Article
Fox News' "The Five"
(Screenshot)

Emerging liberal media reports suggest that Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s upcoming FISA report may not be the bombshell that President Donald Trump and his most passionate supporters have been expecting.

“A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department’s inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation,” The New York Times reported on Friday, citing inside sources.

But, the paper continued, the report will “absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump.”

In short, nothing is reportedly slated to happen to the top brass, i.e., no bombshell arrests of former Obama administration officials such as James Comey, James Clapper and John Brennan; no victorious “I told you so” proclamations from President Donald Trump; and no, some would argue, justice.

The report could however reportedly lead to the criminal prosecution of Kevin Clinesmith, an obscure, low-level attorney whom Horowitz found had altered an email that DOJ officials reportedly used when seeking to renew their FISA warrant against Trump.

“Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge,” The Times reported. “Mr. Clinesmith left the Russia investigation in February 2018 after the inspector general identified him as one of a handful of F.B.I. officials who expressed animus toward Mr. Trump in text messages and resigned about two months ago, after the inspector general’s team interviewed him.”

According to Fox News, Clinesmith worked “beneath” disgraced fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who too was pulled from the Russia probe because of bias issues. For some unclear reason, The Times neglected to mention this in its write-up. It should be noted that Strzok has become a folk hero of sorts to the left.

No matter, because all of this is mere speculation and will remain that way until Horowitz releases his actual report on Monday, Dec. 9. Though to be clear, The Washington Post’s sources have also corroborated The Times’ report.

“The Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to find in a forthcoming report that political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, while at the same time criticizing the bureau for systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications, according to two U.S. officials,” The Post reported on Friday.

The Post’s report also mentions Clinesmith but fails to mention that he worked “beneath” Strzok. It does contain one new revelation not seen in The Times’ write-up though.

“As a part of the process to renew one of [their FISA warrants], an FBI agent asked FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith whether Clinesmith could document a certain claim, people familiar with the matter said. Clinesmith, the people said, asserted that he could with an email from someone at another agency,” the report reads.

But before “providing that email to the FBI agent,” he reportedly “added text to it.”

And that, The Post’s sources claim, is a “serious error in judgment.”

One serious enough that the matter has reportedly been forwarded to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who’s conducting his own investigation into the wider Russian collusion delusional probe and its predicates. It’s unclear when his investigation will conclude.

Regarding Horowitz’s report, which pertains only to the potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on the president’s 2016 election campaign, The Post claims it’ll “conclude that the application still had a proper legal and factual basis, and, more broadly, that FBI officials did not act improperly in opening the Russia investigation.”

Fact-check: FALSE.

While the Post’s first claim may be accurate, the second one is a bald-faced lie. As noted earlier, Horowitz’s investigation pertains only to potential FISA abuses and not the entirety of the Russia collusion delusion probe.

This sloppy reporting by The Post may be one factor to consider when deciding whether to believe its and The Times’ reporting concerning Horowitz’s investigation. Another factor to weigh is that Fox News host Dana Perino seems to believe them.

“The New York Times reported it looks like the Horowitz report, the IG report, will say, ‘yes, this happened at this low level,'” she said Friday on FNC’s “The Five.” “But apparently it is going to say that they made no finding of politically biased actions by Comey, McCabe, the former deputy, of course, we know, and Peter Strzok.”

She added, “This IG report, I think, is going to be very underwhelming for the president’s supporters.”

Fellow co-host Jesse Watters wasn’t deterred by this.

“I don’t know put a lot of stock in the IG. I think the real action is Durham, and we can wait for that in 2020,” he said.

Listen:


(Source: Fox News)

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Vivek Saxena
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