political opponent but will we get satisfaction? i don't think so. >> it almost worked. thank you so much. you'll be on "outnumbered." >> you have a radio show coming up. >> i will pick up my dog. >> keep it here, thanks for watching. stay within yourself. >> get dressed quickly. >> bill: thank you, guys, good morning, everybody. the latest we have underwater noises have said to be detected in the frantic search for this missing sub. that sub intended to explore the wreck of the titanic. a canadian airplane picked up some sound. breaking news on the hill inside the house committee room. the moment four years in the making. special counsel john durham about the testify how the f.b.i. mishandled the russia investigation. house republicans are raring to

go. could be fireworks. welcome to our broadcast today. i'm bill hemmer. >> dana: i'm dana perino and this is "america's newsroom." what i like about when republicans run the committees, they're on time. allegations the f.b.i. bias will be front and center. the judiciary committee chairman will question durham on his report. he concluded the bureau had no business investigating the trump campaign. republicans are touting that be in their push to reform the justice department. committee chairman jim jordan. >> i think today for mr. durham you will hear why it's necessary. he will give detail and add more color to what we already knew, this whole trump/russia thing was a lie. dossier was garbage. they used it anyway to sfie on four american citizens. >> bill: right now jim jordan is sitting in his seat and could get rolling any moment.

one of the democrats is adam schiff. the house could vote to censure him today for pushing the debunked claims of the trump-russia collusion. >> dana: what a coincidence? aishah hosni covering this on capitol hill. >> representative schiff is right here in the hallway talking to chad pergram. we'll get it to you as soon as we can. the first time for many of us that we'll get to see and hear john durham in the flesh as members really try to get as much information out of him as possible. he just walked in a few moments ago. i asked him if he believes the d.o.j. is being weaponizeed against republicans. watch. house republicans want to use durham's testimony today to say we need some major reforms at

the f.b.i. and d.o.j. durham's scathing 300 page report concluded the f.b.i. had really no actual evidence of collusion between the former president and russia when it launched its crossfire hurricane investigation. the gop wants to use the questioning to show the f.b.i., one, wasted taxpayer money to go after a political target. then the former president and then candidate hillary clinton were treated differently. nothing has changed within the f.b.i. despite all its recent reforms. finally, any american out there could be victimized by this agency. democrats including adam schiff are expected to point to the fact that durham's only been able to indict three people with only one conviction. he is not expected to give very long answers and we may not hear an opening statement from him. this is expected to go into the afternoon as members have about

five minutes of questioning each. we have over 40 members here. it will be an interesting hearing, guys. >> dana: thank you for setting us up on that and we'll get back to you if anything else breaks. >> bill: as we wait for this to begin let's bring in john ratcliffe. former director of national intelligence. a couple basic questions. what do we learn today from this witness? >> when i became dni, i met with him and we reviewed the intelligence i had from the i.c. and intelligence he was finding from the department of justice and f.b.i. and asked him where is the evidence or intelligence that justifies opening crossfire hurricane and he said there isn't any. that's reflected in the report. what is significant about that and the focus today will richlyy be on the fact that when you talk about spying on a presidential campaign, the

highest level of scrutiny and standards should have been applied by the department of justice. instead they have applied the lowest. they opened a full field investigation based on a conversation in a bar. really from that point forward, it was a series of prosecutors committing abuses and crimes in order to try to prosecute crimes. at the same time, what i think john durham will also focus on is the fact that when i declassified the intelligence from john brennan's notes where he briefed president obama and vice president biden and national security team about the fact the russia collusion came from the hillary clinton campaign, the fact that the f.b.i., jim comey, peter struts, they concealed it and obstructed it from the public view. so i think those are things you'll hear focused on in

greater detail by republicans today. >> bill: well done. thank you for your time. jim jordan, chairman of this committee began his opening remarks as we stand for the pledge of allegiance and we will have an opportunity to hear from a man who frank life a lot of americans could not even identify him or his voice. >> dana: a moment ago you got a video and photograph of him smiling, which i don't think we've seen, here we go underway with jordan gaveling this hearing. >> opening statement. three years ago and 11 months, july 24, 2019, bob mueller sat in this room in that chair and told this committee no collusion, no conspiracy, no coordination between president trump and russia. none. what did democrats say? we don't care. we are going to keep going after president trump. they didn't even wait one day.

the next day the phone call between president trump and president zelensky became the basis for their impeachment. republicans said maybe, maybe instead of the never-ending attacks on president trump, maybe the country would be better off if we figured out how the whole false trump/russia narrative started. after 2 1/2 years of the mueller investigation, 19 lawyers, $30 million where they found nothing, maybe, maybe we should figure out how the whole lie started. that's what mr. durham has done. he told us how the dossier was funded. he told us who funded it. either the f.b.i. was to use it, how they put the dossier in a fisa draft application two days after receiving it. he told us not one-dshl not one single allegation in the dossier was ever corroborated, every

validated, yet it was used, used to spy on an american city associated with a presidential campaign. he told us there was no proper predicate for opening the crossfire hurricane investigation, most importantly, he told us the f.b.i., the preeminent law enforcement agency failed in its mission to the rule of law. i think once again the democrats will say we don't care. it doesn't matter. we're never going to stop going after president trump. in fact, eight days ago we saw how far they are willing to go with the indictment of president trump. but frankly this shouldn't surprise us. they told us their objective. in fact it was an agent on the case of crossfire hurricane who told us what their objective was, we all remember the text

message from peter where he said don't worry, we'll stop trump. it started with the crossfire hurricane investigation, mr. durham has told us how wrong that was, now we have an indictment of a former president who is winning in every single poll by his opinion opponent's justice department. in opinion those two events we had the mueller investigation, impeachment, we had 51 former intel officials falsely tell us the biden laptop was russian disinformation, we had a raid on president trump's home, and, of course, we got alvin bragg's ridiculous case in new york. seven years, nothing has changed. don't believe me? we interviewed a former head of the washington field office when the trump classified document case began. he told the committee interviewed him two weeks ago today, he told the committee that when he asked the department of justice why is there no u.s. attorney assigned

to the trump classified document case? headquarters said because we're running it. he suggested the miami field office should do the raid instead of sending the washington field office folks. have the folks in the miami field office do it. they said no. he said they should continue to work with the lawyers not a raid. headquarters said no. he even said how about when we get there, when we arrive at president trump's home, we then call his lawyer and we do the search together. again headquarters said no. another interesting fact. the lawyer who turned down his request happens to be the same person who is alleged to have pressured the attorney representing a trump employee about a judgeship. nothing has changed and frankly they are never going to stop. seven years of attacking trump is scary enough. what is more frightening, any

one of us could be next. in fact, it's already started. parents at school board meetings are terrorists. pro-life catholics are extremists. e even journalists and safe. one letter to twitter said who are the journalists you are talking to? they named four people. two testify in front of this commity. while they're in front of this committee democrats are asking them to reveal their sources, violate first amendment principles. one of them while he is sitting at that table testifying to the judiciary committee, the i.r.s. is knocking on his door. parents, catholics, journalists, guess who gets it the worst? guess who gets it the worst? whistleblowers. if you dare come forward and tell congress what is going on, look out. they will come for you. they will take your clearance,

your pay, they will even take your kids' clothes. ask mr. o'boyle who testified in front of this committee as well. we'll hear the facts and details about the whole false trump/russia narrative. crossfire hurricane investigation, and hopefully -- hopefully it will help change things at the department of justice. regardless of what the biden administration and garland justice department do, i know what republicans in the house are committed to doing. we will work to dramatically change the fisa law and we will do everything we can in the appropriations process to stop the federal government from going after the american people. now recognize the ranking member for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. on june 8th, grand jury in miami indicted former president trump on 37 counts related to his

mishandling of extraordinarily sensitive national security information. including information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the united states and foreign countries. united states nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the united states and its allies to military attack, and plans to possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. according to the indictment, the unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the united states, foreign relations, the safety of the united states military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods. indeed, indictment goes on to describe how the former president made such unauthorized disclosures. even if you believe, as chairman jordan claims, that president trump has committed no crime, surely we can agree that it is dangerous and profoundly irresponsible to have taken these documents from the white

house and left them unsecured in mar-a-lago. don't take just my word for it, trump's secretary of defense said the former president's handling of this information put u.s. service members' lives and national security at risk. trump's handpicked attorney general, bill barr, with whom i agree on very little, hit the nail on the head when he described the former president's legal troubles entirely of his own making. he had no right to these documents. the government tried for over a year quietly and with respect to get them back and he jerked them around. when he faced a subpoena he didn't raise any legal arguments. engaged in a course of deceitful conduct that was a clear crime if those allegations are true, close quote. the former president could have at any time for months simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution. house republicans do not want to talk about any of that. they seem incapable of assigning

any agency or responsibility to donald trump for problems that are trump's and trump's alone. instead, republicans have planned this hearing and constructed an entire narrative around the work of special counsel durham in an effort to distract from the former president's legal troubles and mislead the american public. to be clear, the durham report is by itself a deeply flawed vessel. after four years, thousands of employee hours, and more than 6 1/2 million dollars in taxpayer dollars, special counsel durham failed to uncover any wrongdoing that justice department inspector general horowitz had not already found in 2019. he brought just two cases to trial and lost them both. both defendants were acquitted in mere hours. the single conviction of special counsel durham obtained involved a single charge of lying to the

f.b.i. case developed and handed to him by the inspector general and one resolved by a quick plea bargain. the report itself outlines some fairly glaring investigative missteps. the f.b.i. apparently never looked at a thumb drive of key evidence related to allegations of contact between the trump campaign and the russian government via a russian cell phone nor says the report did the f.b.i. ever examine questionable computer contacts between the trump organization and alpha bank, one of the largest banks in russia. the report also fails to recommend a single remedial measure that the justice department or f.b.i. might take to address certain process-related concerns. largely because d.o.j. and f.b.i. have already implemented the changes recommended by the inspector general 3 1/2 years ago. now i understand that, like the former president, many maga republicans have a lot riding on

the durham investigation and might be disappointed with where it landed. that is no excuse for making things up. first, the durham report concludes that the f.b.i. not only had the evidence to open an investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election but had an affirmative obligation to investigate ties between the russian government and the trump campaign. it is simply not true, as some republicans have claimed, that the durham report suggests there should not have been an investigation. obligation, those are mr. durham's words, not mine. second, the durham report shows the f.b.i. began its investigation when an aide to the trump campaign disclosed in may 2016 that the campaign knew that russia had thousands of emails that would embarrass hillary clinton. the aide bragged about it at a bar. australian diplomat who overheard the remark reported it and the investigation began.

it is simply not true as the most extreme voices in the room have claimed, that the investigation was somehow launched by the clinton campaign. that particular conspiracy theory is off by several months. nor is it true that the f.b.i. walls opposed to trump from the beginning. for example, the durham report tells us that the f.b.i. encouraged the confidential human source to infiltrate the clinton campaign, not the trump campaign. and take steps to entrap unsuccessfully aides to secretary clinton. pages 74 and 75 of the report. i suspect we won't hear a word about it from house republicans today. it doesn't fit the maga narrative. finally, nothing in the durham report disputes the central findings of special counsel robert mueller, namely, russia interfered in the 2016 election. it did so to help donald trump. and the trump campaign welcomed

this interference. the last point is important because it tells us how mr. durham became special counsel in the first place. it goes to the heart of the fully false narrative of maga victimhood. from the day special counsel mueller began his work donald trump and his political allies have railed against an imagined conspiracy against the former president. the russia investigation was a setup. it was a witch hunt, obama did it. we need to investigate the investigators . then came the mueller report. it was delivered to attorney general barr on friday, march 22, 2019. the next monday mr. durham was in barr's office. a week later, a colleague emailed mr. durham to ask about the project that durham and barr were working on. while we on this committee were fighting to get access to the mueller report, mr. durham was already working on an investigation to undercut its central findings. a few weeks later, the trump

administration announced mr. durham's investigation into the investigators. by august 2, 0919, mr. durham and general barr were oh a plane to europe looking for evidence on many donald trump's deep state conspiracy theories. the evidence didn't make it into the durham report. it has alleged they found evidence implicating the former president in certain financial crimes during their trip. incidentally, that information, too, is missing from mr. durham's final pages. when he did not give donald trump evidence of a deep state conspiracy mr. durham gave him a public narrative with hillary clinton as the villain. over the ensuing years mr. durham constructed a flimsy story to far right conspiracy

theories. although he lost both times he took a case to trial. by prolonging his investigation durham was able to get donald trump's talking points in the news long after trump left office. with a loose approach to d.o.j. norms. protecting the reputation of the agency and cavalier disregard for the privacy and reputation rights of others mr. durham's investigation operated as headline generator for maga republicans. less than half a year into his investigation mr. durham publicly disappointed whore with it's conclusion that the f.b.i. was warranted in opening a full investigation protecting invest investigations -- he flouted guidelines designed to proper being tecti third parties from reputational injury using two indictments to accuse the clinton campaign of a vast conspiracy to tie trump to russia. at the end of the day mr. durham

never found what he was looking for and can't dispute a single conclusion in the mueller report. he cannot prove a magnificent deep state conspiracy and cannot say the f.b.i. investigation into the trump campaign's many ties to russia never should have happened. again, i can see why this would be disappointing to some. but instead of owning up to his failure, the durham report doubles down on theories that lost spectacularly before juries. it references classified material that has been called likely disinformation to lay out a series of accusations against the former president's perceived enemies. by presenting so-called findings in this way hiding an inconvenient truth in footnotes the durham report gives donald trump one last talking point. it did not have to be this way. it may be hard to remember but at the outset of the durham

investigation mr. durham was a well-respected career prosecutor with a solid reputation. the attorney general is supposed to appoint a special counsel to prevent the appearance of politization in a criminal investigation. mr. durham could well have lived up to that expectation. instead, we got a political exercise to perpetuate donald trump's unfounded claims. investigation failed in its political objectives but did real damage to a department that is still recovering from the excesses of the trump administration. despite mr. durham's best efforts, a reckoning is well underway. don't be misled. former president donald trump is not a victim. he did this to himself. for all of its flaws, the durham report does not show that anyone else is responsible for the president's legal woes past, present or future. anyone who tells you otherwise is simply making it up.

i thank the chairman and i yield back. >> today's witness is john durham. he was appointed as a special counsel in 2020 to investigate intelligence activities investigations arising out of the 2016 presidential campaigns. he is a career prosecutor having served as a u.s. attorney for the district of connecticut and various other roles with that office since 1989. prior to that he served with the department of justice, boston strike force on organized crime and state level prosecutor's offices. we welcome our witness and thank him for appearing today. we'll swear you in. rise and raise your right hand, mr. durham. do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief so help you god? let the record show the witness answered in the affirmative. you may be seated. know your written testimony will be entered into the record in

its entirety and please summarize your testimony in five minutes and extra time if you need it. you may begin. hit your mic and keep it on if you can throughout the day. it's on now. >> good morning. chairman jordan, ranking member nadler and members of this committee. as the committee knows, on may 13th, 2019, attorney general barr directed me to conduct the preliminary review into certain matters related to federal investigations concerning the 2016 presidential election campaigns. that review subsequently developed into several criminal investigations and gave rise to my subsequent appointment as special counsel in these matters. many of the most significant issues documented in the report that we have written, including those relating to lack of investigative discipline, failure to take logistical and

logical investigative steps, and bias are tell vanity to important national security interests that this committee and the american people are concerned about. if repeated and left unaddressed, these issues could result in significant national security risks and further erode the public's faith and confidence in our justice system. as we said in the report, our findings were sobering and having spent 40 years plus as a federal prosecutor they were particularly sobering to me and the number of my colleagues who spent decades in the f.b.i. themselves. they were sobering. while encouraged by some of the reforms implemented by the f.b.i. the problems identified in this report, anybody who actually reads the details of the report, that documented portions of the report i think would find that the problems

identified in the report are not susceptible to overnight fixes. as we said in the report, they cannot be addressed solely by enhancing training or additional policy requirements. rather, what is required is accountability both in terms of the standards to which our law enforcement personnel hold themselves, and in the consequences they face for violation of laws and policies of relevance. i'm here to answer your questions and appreciate the opportunity to. i will answer them to the best of my ability. and i hope to be of service to your oversight function. as i'm sure you know, the department of justice has issued some guidelines as to what i'm authorized to discuss and those things i'm not authorized to discuss. in this regard, accordingly i will refer principally to the report. i do want to emphasize the three points at the outset, however. first i want to emphasize in the strongest terms possible that my

colleagues and i carried out our work in good faith. with integrity and in the spirit of following the facts wherever they lead without fear or favor. at no time and no sense did we act with a purpose that further partisan political ends to the extent that somebody suggests otherwise, that's true and offensive. second, the findings set forth in this report are serious and deserve attention from the american public and its representatives. let me just briefly highlight a few of those. for one, we found troubling violations of law and policy in the conduct of investigations directed at members of the campaign and administration. it matters not whether it was a republican or democrat campaign. it was a presidential campaign. our team comprised dedicated and experienced prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked day in and day out through the entire covid epidemic, in the

office trying to interview people. all in an effort to try to get to those facts and the truth. that such a group of people made these findings. experienced f.b.i. agents and experienced prosecutors, not people from washington but from other parts of the country. the fact that these people made these findings as reflected in the report is of concern and should be of concern to any american who cares about our civil liberties, the rule of law, and the just and proportionate application of the law to all of us, whether we're friends, foes, the law ought to apply to everybody in the same way. we charged a former f.b.i. agent for altering and fabricating a portion of a document used to obtain a court order, a fisa order of surveillance of a united states citizens. that's a significant problem in our view. several of the relevant fisa

application else at issue in the crossfire investigation omitted references to what was clearly relevant and highly exculpatory information that should have been disclosed to the fisa court. multiple f.b.i. personnel who signed or assisted in preparing renewal applications for the same fisa warrant acknowledged they did not believe the target, mr. page, was a threat to national security much less a knowing agent of a foreign power, which is what the law requires. it appears from our investigation that the f.b.i. leadership dismissed those concerns. another aspect of our findings concerned the f.b.i.'s failure to sufficiently scrutinize information it received or apply the same standards to allegations it received about the clinton and trump campaigns. as our report details, the f.b.i. was too willing to accept and use politically funded and

uncorroborated opposition research such as a steele dossier. the f.b.i. relied on the dossier in fisa applications knowing there was a likely material originating from a political opponent. it did so even after the president of the united states, the f.b.i. and c.i.a. directors and others received things about intelligence suggesting there was a clinton campaign plan underway to stir up a scandal tying trump to russia. the accuracy of the intelligence was uncertain at the time but the f.b.i. failed to analyze or even assess the implications of the intelligence in any meaningful way. when the f.b.i. learned that the primary source of information for the steele dossier, which was basically the guts of the narrative about their being a well-coordinated conspiracy involving trump and the russians. when they learned that danchenko was the primary sub source for

those reports, it was a time when the f.b.i. already knew that danchenko had been the suspect of an f.b.i. espionage investigation suspected of being a russian asset. and nonetheless they signed him up as a paid informant without further investigation of that espionage concern, to say nothing of resolving that espionage matter before using danchenko and his information. when the f.b.i. and special agent mueller's office learned that steele's primary sub source likely had gathered important portions of the dossier information during travels to russia with one charles dough dolan, it decided not to interview him or investigate his activities. finally, i would like to add although our work exposed deep concerns concerning facts about the conduct of these investigations, our report should not be read to suggest in

any way that russian election interference was not a significant threat. it was. nor should it be read to suggest that the investigative authorities at issue are no longer served important law enforcement and national security interests. they do. rather, responsibility for the failures and transgressions that occurred here rest to the people who committed them or allowed them to occur. again to my mind the issues raised in the report deserve close attention from the american people and their elected representatives here in washington. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. durham. we'll now proceed under the five-minute rule for questions. chair recognizes mr. johnson from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman & for being here today. we have lots of questions for you. i will try to set the table at the outset from 20,000 feet. the american people rely on the f.b.i. to abide by its guiding principles, fidelity, bravery,

integrity and uphold the constitution and protect the american people. americans deserve and respect from our law enforcement agency tomorrow villi justice blindly without ulterior motives. your report famously states. based on the review of crossfire hurricane and related intelligence activities, you can re you concluded the d.o.j. and f.b.i. failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law. no other way to put this. the report illustrates actions on behalf of the f.b.i. that have further eroded faith in our institutions. in your report and again here today you said that your findings and conclusions are sobering. could you unpack more what that means? why do you stay sobering? >> let me give you some real life views on that. i have had any number of f.b.i. agents who i've worked with over the years, some retired, some still in place, who have come to

me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken. i take that seriously. these are good, hard working majority of people in the f.b.i. decent human beings who swear under their oaths to abide by the law and the like. and i think that typifies the concern here. there are investigative activities undertaken or not undertaken which raise real concerns whether or not the law was followed, the policies in place of the f.b.i. were followed. >> you wrote in your report, quote, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters including the instant investigation neither u.s. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the crossfire investigation. to date has any evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia ever been

uncovered? >> there is information in the report that was prepared by director mueller but as to collusion or conspiracy, i'm not aware of any. >> let me stop you. when the f.b.i. opened crossfire hurricane, the issue at hand, it did not have any information that anyone in the trump campaign had ever been in contact with russian intelligence officials, right? as we wrote in the report and talked to director of the c.i.a. and deputy director there. people within the f.b.i. and n.s.a. there was no such information they had in their holdings at the time they opened crossfire hurricane. >> i will go quickly. you detail how f.b.i. personnel working on fisa applications violated protocols, cavalier at best as you said in your own words toward accuracy and completeness. senior f.b.i. personnel

displayed -- especially information received from politically affiliated persons or entities. you said a significant reliance of leads provided or funded by trump's political opponents were relied upon here. the most alarming things you referred to in the report is the impact of confirmation bias. i said at page 303 stands for the general proposition there is a common human tendency mostly unintentional for people to accept evidence to what they believe is true. this wasn't innocent, unintentional human tendency. it was overt political bias. peter strock, for example. >> some individuals who clearly expressed a personal bias. it's difficult to get into somebody else's head. >> unless they have their emails. if he have pronounced hostile feelings toward president trump everybody in the country knows it. he was in charge of this.

he was the deputy assistant director of counter intelligence officially opened the investigation at the direction of f.b.i. deputy andrew mccabe. he said horrible things about president trump and all his sporters, by the way. how could we say he did not have political bias? >> it clearly reflects a personal bias. i will leave it to others and the facts set out. there is clearly bias. >> the f.b.i. and d.o.j. have been turned into activated political weapons against citizens and former president because of their opposing viewpoints, sir. they failed to follow protocols in 2016. you suggested new protocols may be affixed to this. how can the american people have confidence if they didn't follow protocols in 2016 that they will with the new protocols? >> that's why i said in the opening remarks this is not an easy fix. it will take time to rebuild the public's confidence in the institution.

the changes and reforms they have made are certainly changes that are going to guard to some extent against the repeat of what happened in crossfire hurricane. >> i yield back. >> chair recognizes the chairman from new york. can you pull the microphone real close? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. durham your report reads like an attack on hillary clinton because that's what it is. donald trump wanted you to investigate the investigators to show the deep state conspiracy. you never found one. instead you gave him and his maga republicans. someone else to blame for donald trump's problems and why you are here today. the chairman and his colleagues need someone, anyone, to deflect from the mounting evidence of trump's misconduct. let me remind you that donald trump was federally indicted on 37 counts for mishandling classified information. 37 counts. that's why you are here today not because of anything that happened in 2016. mr. durham, your investigation

cost more than six half million and some resigned in protest and took four years to complete, is that correct? >> no. >> it's not correct. >> there were multiple parts of that. >> did it take four years to complete? >> correct. >> with all these resources and people you were sent to help you investigate the investigators you only filed three criminal cases. you only brought two cases to trial, correct? >> correct. >> you lost all the cases you brought to trial, correct. ? >> correct. >> two your ephors acquitted your defendants of all charges. the one conviction the defendant pleaded guilty to a single count that never went to trial. >> correct. >> the prime investigative steps were completed by horowitz. perhaps you were better when it came to your report. from my reading your report did not make any specific concrete recommendations to improve d.o.j. or f.b.i. poll seals or procedures. in fact. your report repeatedly

references the recommendations made by horowitz all of which d.o.j. and f.b.i. have already implemented. your investigation lasted four years, four years and untold sums of money and one conviction. you proed a 300 page report given my republican counterparts plenty of material to spin. george papadopoulos was with the campaign in 2016. may he told a diplomat the trump received a suggestion from russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to secretary clinton. this is a fact that came out during the mueller investigation and your investigation found nothing to dispute this fact, correct? >> thrill is more detail to that in the report. >> did you find anything to dispute this report? -- this fact? >> no.

>> okay. page 50 of your report you wrote that on july 28, 2016, f.b.i. headquarters received australian information that formed the basis for the opening of crossfire hurricane. correct? >> correct. >> so this than fantasy that some maga republicans created where the investigation was started for any reason other than a trump campaign operative bragging to intelligence assets that things damaging hillary clinton is not true. when the f.b.i. received that information it had not just the predication to investigate. no question that the f.b.i. had an affirmative obligation to closely examine the australian information. isn't that right? >> if f.b.i. had an obligation. >> that's correct. the origin of the investigation was not the steele dossier, not alpha bank, a trump aide's loose lips about a hack that had a profound effect on the 2016 election. that information supplied by the

australian government gave the f.b.i. predication to begin the investigation. another false conclusion that made it to the maga republican talking points. some of my colleagues started calling it the russia hoax. the theory that russia did not actual interfere in the 2016 presidential election. that's false. in 2017, during the trump administration the director of national intelligence declassified report on russian activity in the 2016 election. you are aware of this report, correct? >> correct. >> in this report the intelligence community found russian president vladimir putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the u.s. presidential election. russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the u.s. democratic process, denigrate secretary clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. we further assess putin and russia government developed a preference for trump.

you did not -- did you? >> as i said, there was a threat. no. >> special counsel mueller indicted 12 russian intelligence officers in july of 2018, right? >> correct. >> the 12 intelligence officers were indicted for attacking the clinton campaign. page 55 of your report you acknowledge the press conference in 2016 donald trump on camera said russia, if you are listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, is the that correct? >> that's correct. >> trump told the press that he believed russian president putin his own intelligence officials when he told them russia did not interfere during the 2016 election season. i see my time expired. i yield back. >> witness can respond if he chooses to. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from south.

>> we're here to provide trance pairer re en see to the american people. seven years ago the if f.b.i. launched crossfire hurricane funded by the hillary clinton campaign caused americans to believe that then candidate trump was colluding with russia in order to win the 2016 presidential election. mr. durham has spent four years investigating this, 480 witnesses, 6 million pages of documents, 190 subpoenas and executing seven search warrants. he completed this report a month ago that instigated a baseless investigation and launched a partisan attack on president trump despite having no true justification, the f.b.i. within three days of receiving the information from a diplomat in australia the f.b.i. opened an investigation into the trump campaign. let's get into this. the f.b.i. opened up to crossfire hurricane without speaking to the people who provided the initial

information, that true? on a p sunday, only will three days after reviewing that information. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> think about that for a moment. an investigation, full investigation into a presidential campaign over a weekend. mr. durham the f.b.i. opened crossfire hurricane without interviewing any of the essential writ necessarys. >> true. >> or without using any analytical tools used to evaluate that evidence. true? >> that's true. >> the f.b.i. never talked to the fem who gave them the intelligence information or examined their own witnesses or interviewed the witnesses or corroborated the dossier. mr. durham, if the f.b.i. had done these things and done their homework, would it have found that its own russian experts had no information about president trump being involved with russian leadership or russian intelligence officials? >> yes. >> so then was there adequate predication for the f.b.i. to

open crossfire hurricane as a full investigation? >> on july 31st in my view based on our investigation there was not a legitimate bases to open a full investigation. an assessment is something that had to be looked at, gather information such as interviewing the people who provided the p papadopoulos information checking their own databases, the databases of other intelligence agencies and the standard kinds of things that you would do in an investigation like this. >> i think it's safe to conclude based on that report and anyone who read it that they did not have that adequate basis as you talked about to launch the investigation. a second troubling aspect of your findings. from the report, i gathered that key f.b.i. leaders all the way to the top were pre-disposed to go after candidate trump. this bias likely affected the conduct of f.b.i. personnel in this investigation, is that

true? >> yes. >> can you describe that for a moment? how did confirmation bias play into this? >> confirmation bias as alluded to has to do with our human tendency to accept things that we already think are true and to reject anything else. in this instance, there were any number of sting knife can't red flags that were raised that were ignored. if there is evidence that was inconsistent with the narrative, they didn't pay attention to it. they didn't explore it or take the logical investigative steps that should have been taken >> assistant director strzok approved the crossfire hurricane opening communication. your office discovered text messages between strzok and page who was a special assistance to the f.b.i. director mccabe expressing strong bias against candidate trump. >> that's true. >> for the record let me read aloud generated by staff.

this was text messages. august 18, 2016, page texted trump is not going to become president, right, right? strzok spooned responded by saying no, he is not. we'll stop it. the american people deserve the truth and proud to serve on this committee to uncover these lies that were perpetuated for far too long. with my remaining 30 seconds i will yield to you, mr. chairman. >> chairman yield back. we'll wait for my time and recognize the lady from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you, mr. durham for being here this morning. the ranking member explored an item that i wanted to explore with you, which is based on the information provided to the u.s. government by australia that a campaign aide had told one of

their diplomats that the russians had dirt on clinton in the form of thousands of emails that -- this is a quote from your report -- as an initial matter there is no question the f.b.i. had an affirmative obligation to closely examine the australian information. that's in your report. i think the issue might be preliminary versus full because you agree that there was an obligation to look at it based on that, is that correct? >> based -- some of the premises of the question are inaccurate. >> the question is do you days avow what you said in your report that you had an the f.b.i. had an affirmative obligation. >> they had to look at it, yes. >> i want to look at some of the other things that i didn't find in your report. in looking at the f.b.i.'s behavior, did you find any

evidence that the f.b.i. was taking a look at the hacking of the democratic national committee and their investigation of that? if so, where is that in your report? >> that was outside of the scope i was asked to do. >> in the mueller report, we found -- he found that the campaign manager, mr. manafort, was giving inside information, private polling data to the russians. that there was a meeting in trump tower with the president's son-in-law and his son where the russians had promised they had dirt and the email from the president's son was something to the effect if so, we love it. did the f.b.i. look at that? did you examine that? if so, where is that in your report? >> that is not something i was asked to look at and we didn't look at that. >> did you look at how the f.b.i. evaluated the alleged ties to alpha bank?

did you hire cyber experts to actually take a look at those alleged ties? >> yes. i didn't hire them. they were f.b.i. experts. >> and where is that in your report? >> i can't -- it is in there. i can find the page. my colleagues can find the page. there is an entire section on alpha bank, the white papers and the data that were provided by mr. sussman to the f.b.i. >> my question was did you take a look, did you hire experts to evaluate the f.b.i.'s evaluation? >> i did not hire experts to look at what the experts said. >> i thought it was down a rabbit's hole but you and attorney general barr went to italy to take a look at some allegation about foreign servers and italian officials gave you evidence that they said linked

donald trump to certain financial crimes. did the attorney general ask you to investigate that matter that the italians referred to you and if so did you take any investigative steps and did you file charges or if not, did you file for a decision not to charge in this case? >> the question is outside the scope of what i'm authorized to talk about. not part of the report . i can tell you this. investigative steps were taken. subpoenas were issued and it ca im to nothing. >> i want to yield my time to mr. schiff. >> d.o.j. policy provides you don't speak about a pending investigation. and yet you did, didn't you? >> i'm not exactly sure what you are -- >> when the inspector general issued a report saying that the investigation was properly predicated, you spoke out in violation of the department of

justice policy to criticize the inspector general's conclusion, didn't you? >> i issued a public statement. i didn't do it anonymous lie. >> you violated department policy by issuing a statement while the investigation was ongoing. >> if i did, i did. i was not aware i was violating some policy. >> you also sought to get the inspector general to change his conclusion, did you not, when he was concluding that the investigation was properly predicated. did you privately seek to intervene to change that conclusion? >> this is outside the scope of the report. if you want to go there. the inspector general we asked him to look at the intelligence included in the classified appendix that you looked at and said that ought to affect portions of his report. >> you have thought it was appropriate for you to intervene with an inat the den pent investigation by the inspector general because he was reaching

a conclusion you disagreed with. >> the inspector general circulated a draft memo to a number of agencies and persons. our group was one of them. we were asked to review that draft and bring to his attention any concerns that we had or disagreements. >> time of the gentleman has expired. >> i insist on regular order. >> it is not even his time. the gentleman yields back to miss lofgren. time has expired. >> did our government text message -- >> was that intelligence important enough for director brennan too brief the viteae of the united states, vice president and the director of the f.b.i. was that intelligence put into a memorandum, a referral memorandum? >> yes. >> was it given to director comey and agent strzok? >> that's who it was addressed

to. >> did director comey share that memorandum with the fisa court, director comey? >> i'm not aware of that if he did. >> did he share it with the lawyers preparing the fisa application? >> not to my knowledge. >> did he share it with the agents on the caseworking the crossfire hurricane case? >> no. >> didn't share with the agents on the case. can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo agent and shared it with special agent number one? >> we interviewed the first supervisor of the crossfire investigation, the operational person. we showed him the intelligence information. he indicated he had never seen it before. he immediately became emotional, got up and left the room with his lawyer. spent some time in the hallway, came back, and -- >> he was ticked off because this is something he should have had as an agent on the case.

important information that the director of the f.b.i. kept from the people doing the investigation. >> the information was kept from him. >> who is charles dolan? >> he is a public relations person here in washington, d.c. he had prior involvement, professional involvement with russian government representing russian government interests. he was the person who was associated with danchenko. >> also buddies with the clintons, wasn't he? >> he had held positions when president clinton was president. >> their campaign advisery and the same charles dolan we're talking about? and a key source for information in the dossier. >> he provided some. >> the crossfire hurricane investigation when the f.b.i. interviewed mr. dolan, what did he have to say? >> to my knowledge they didn't interview him.

>> they didn't interview this guy, source for the dossier, key information in the dossier, buddies with the clintons. they didn't talk to him? >> we report on that. even christopher steele in october 16th identified dolan as somebody that might have information. >> i find it interesting they didn't talk to him. were there agents on the case who wanted the talk to mr. dolan, mr. durham? >> yes. >> what happened to analyst number one. she kept pushing to talk to mr. dolan. she was ultimately turned down. what happened to her the day she was turned down and said we're not talking to dolan. what happened to her? >> at or about the same time she was assigned to a different project. >> they moved her. we can't look into the clinton butte re buddy. theyry assigned her and what did sthe do? >> she entered a memo to the fire. the inspector general will want to know this information and make sure it's recorded and put

it in the file. didn't talk to the key source, they kept key intelligence from the investigators. how bad this investigation was. i don't think anything has changed. the day your report came out you got a letter, mr. durham addressed to you from the general counsel at the f.b.i., mr. jason jones, writes you this six-page letter and he says not to worry, everything is fine. it has all been worked out at the f.b.i. and says on page two he says had the reforms implemented by current f.b.i. leadership summarized in 2016 never would have happened because of the reforms we implemented in 2019 and 2020 on an page 41 of the specific refireless. forms. investigations should be run out of the field and not from headquarters. that statement is not true.

five weeks ago the f.b.i. wrote you and said everything is changed when it hasn't. the statement in there is false and we know it's false because two weeks ago today, we interviewed a former head of the washington field office and here is what he said in his transcript. when the trump classified document investigation began that case was handled differently than i would have expected it to be and any other case was handled. we learned a lot of stuff from crossfire hurricane that headquarters should not work the investigation, supposed to be the field offices. my concern is the department of justice was not following these principles. that's the thing that scares me the most. nothing has changed. i'm finished with this. 60% of americans now believe there is a double standard at the justice department. you know why they believe that? because there is. that has got to change. i don't think more training, more rules is going to do it. i think we have to fundamentally change the fisa process and we