mr. horowitz: -- mr. horowitz: yes. sen. graham: whatever league -- whatever illegal surveillance means, they did it. basis afterlegal the january 2017 data dump by the russian guy to believe that the dossier was reliable. they authored exculpatory information that would have further proven that carter page is not a russian agent. let me ask you very directly -- do you believe carter page is or ever was in agent of the russian government trying to do harm to his country? mr. horowitz: i'm going to refer to the evidence that we found. fbi at the end of these fisa's fountain for -- found no information to corroborate these. sen. graham: they continued to surveilled him. the people who continued getting warrants after they knew it was not legitimate had a bias that wreaked. how this thing was opened, i do not know. i respect your view that they may have been a -- there may have been a lawful predicate, but peter strzok was pushing this from day one. 80's ended gentlemen, we have a task at hand ear to make sure this never happen

mr. horowitz: yes. the predicate here was the information the fbi got at the end of july from a friendly foreign government, that reflected a meeting that the friendly foreign government had with mr. papadopoulos in may. sen. feinstein: who was the friendly foreign government? mr. horowitz: we don't mention that in the report. sen. feinstein: is that classified? mr. horowitz: my understanding is still classified, but as i sit here i will only speak to the report. sen. feinstein: go ahead. mr. horowitz: and as i mentioned wasy statement, the comment that mr. papadopoulos had made a suggestion that there had been a suggestion to the trump campaign that the russian government could provide information that would be damaging to candidate clinton, and then-president obama. sen. feinstein: so your report states you didn't find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation played a role? mr. horowitz: that's correct. sen. feinstein: thank you. and you didn't find a "deep state c

mr. horowitz.and i thought that was interesting not only is he saying he disagrees with the conclusion but also he has done more research and investigating mr. horowitz. i thought that was important. >> have we heard anything from the current director of the fbi on this report and potentially what changes he might make because of thehe findings. >> yes with the report it's fairly lengthy response from fbi director christopher wray and he's about a lot of reforms and that is also very key and one thing to report that found is how some of these errors happen or went unchecked was because the processes in the fbi also w were very weak, the process and procedure for doing things were almost as bad as anything else you can find. that's how these errors got away. one thing that is important and important for president trump and his allies, they been pointing the finger at jim comey, sally gates and people like that, but inspector general report cleared them of any wrongdoing saying that these mistakes we

mr. horowitz: that is correct. mr. horwitz, are you familiar with the fact that director connie had a meeting with president trump in january 2017 to talk to him about the steele dossier? mr. horowitz: i am and we referenced that about the handling of the memos. sen. cornyn: why should we believe that director comey's offensive re-think, if you want to call it that in january 2017 was anything more than an to bait the president into revealing increment tory evidence that would be useful to the fbi or potentially some criminal investigation? mr. horowitz: i have no information one way or the other to make a judgment on that, but one of the concerns about doing that here is that it opens up the possibility that people might ask, did it happen elsewhere? it fraught with danger for the director to go into the white house and oval office, not to tell the president that anything that he says could be used against him in an ongoing investigation, including criminal charges. i agree with the chairman. if this is going to happe

mr. horowitz. now, how the hell did this whole thing start? what got us here today? they open up a counterintelligence investigation in july. we know the russians are messing in our election. and it was the russians, ladies and gentlemen, who stole the democratic national committee emails, poe podest's emails, and screwed around with hillary clinton. it wasn't the ukrainians. it was the russians. and they're coming after us again. so to be concerned that the russians are messing with presidential campaigns was a legitimate concern. so if they looked around at the trump campaign and said, well, let's see if we can protect the trump campaign. carter page went to moscow a lot, made speeches. if you've ever met carter page, one thing you will not accuse him of is being james bond. this poor guy, papadopoulos, picked by sam clovis to be part of trump's national security team. this national security team was literally picked up off the street. if you've had a photo with donald trump, you spent more time

mr. horowitz. that's not my concern. three lawyers can reasonably disagree and i trust mr. horowitz to give his view. and if there was a predicate. the bar is really low and reasonable arctic can you lation is a low standard in law. let's assume it started out ok but didn't end ok. what i have seen in this report and i hope some of you will look, while there may be reasonable differenceses whether there was a lawful predicate, there will be no debate about how the system not only got off the rails but article criminal enterprise to deny cartier page's constitutional rights and continue an operation against president trump as president of the united states and was unlawful. these are statements i don't make lightly and these are statements based on the findings of the report. unfortunately at the department of justice and f.b.i., there was a period of time when they went ack to the back old days of j. edgar hoover and misled people. on page 186, it talks about the f.b.i. identifying and interviewing the primary subsource for the steele dosier. what i want you to understand, h

mr. horowitz, the fbi and others, here's what we know. strzok, the front line supervisor, february 12th, 2016, oh, he's abysmal. i keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him. the problem then is that rubio will likely lose to cruz. i never quite made it and i ccat understand why they would not consider me a serious candidate. when was the last competitive ticket they offered? march 3rd, 2016, page, god trump is a loathsome human. strzok, oh, my god, he's an idiot. and newsrooms all over the country are nodding. this representatives the attitude of a lot of people in america and you can have that attitude. but you shouldn't be in the journalism business. you shouldn't be at the fbi. if you were in the military and you said anything like this about a commander in chief, you would be charged with a crime. remember the mccrystal debacle where they had a barroom discussion from a reporter from the rolling stone. what's the takeaway, don't go to a bar with a rolling stone reporter. they started talking about how they didn't

mr. horowitz to give an honest view. let's assume for a moment there was a lawful predicate, the bar is low to open an investigation. reasonable articulation is a pretty low standard in the law. the point i want to make is let's assume for a moment it started out okay. it sure as hell didn't end okay. what i see in this report, and nobody's reported yet, i hope some of you will look, is that while there may be reasonable differences about whether or not there was a lawful predicate, i believe there will be no debate among reasonable-minded people, particularly lawyers, about how the system not only got off the rails, but in my view, became a criminal enterprise to defraud the fisa court, to deny american citizen carter page's constitutional rights, and to continue an operation against president trump as president of the united states that i think was fundamentally flawed and unlawful. these are statements i don't make lightly, and these are statements based on the findings of the report. unfortunately, at the department

mr. horowitz. you have deep -- you have three different views, two of the views is that there was no lawful predicate to begin the investigation. i think mr. durham said he had more information that mr. horowitz at that is not my concern right now. three lawyers can reasonably disagree and i trust mr. horowitz to give an honest view. let's assume for a moment that .here was a lawful predicate the bar is low to open a counterintelligence investigation and reasonable articulation is a pretty low standard in the law. the point i want to make his let's assume for a moment it started out ok. it sure as hell did not and up ok. what i see in this report and no one has reported it yet, is while there may be reasonable differences about whether or not there was a lawful predicate, i believe there will be no debate among reasonable minded people, particularly lawyers come about how the system not only got off view,ils but, in my became a criminal enterprise to defraud the fisa court, deny american citizen car

mr. horowitz. you have three different views, or i guess two of the views is that there was no lawful predicate to begin the investigation. i think mr. durham said he had more investigation than mr. horowitz. that's not my concern. three lawyers can reasonably disagree and i trust mr. horowitz to give his view. let's assume for a moment there was a lawful predicate. the bar is low to open up a counterintelligence investigation and a reasonable articulation is a low standard in the law. the point i want to make is, let's assume for a moment it started out ok but didn't end ok. what i see in this report, and nobody has reported, i hope some of you will look, is that while there may be reasonable differenceses whether there was a lawful predicate, there will be no debate about how the system not only got off the rails but in my view, became the criminal enterprise to defraud and deny american citizen carter pages countries to channel rights -- carter page his constitutional rights. and continue an oper

mr. horowitz worked in private practice. mr. horowitz. >> thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. the report that my office released last week was the product of a comprehensive review that examined over one million documents and conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses. all of which is documented in our 417 page report. it also includes a 19 page consecutive summary, which i'd encourage people to read the 19 page consecutive summary. i want to commend the team that did this. they worked rigorously through long hours to complete this review. the investigation that's the subject of our report, the crossfire hurricane investigation, was opened in july 2016 days after the fbi received reporting from a friendly foreign government, stating that in may 2016 trump campaign foreign policy advisor george papadopoulos said it had received information that would be damaging to candidate clinton and president obama. we determined the decision to open crossfire hurricane was made by the fbi's

mr. horowitz sitting in that seat.at he has come to tell us, we're not even hearing. >> as soon as we get a little more news from the hearing, senator feinstein giving the democrats' response, we'll cover some of that, as we covered some of graham. bob costa, i'm told, has been keeping in touch with his sources. bob, what are you hearing? >> talking to people close to president trump and white house advisers, they are watching this hearing. they know that the ig report, mueller report, entire impeachment inquiry has cast a shadow and now along with attorney general bar, republicans in congress fighting a political war against the department of justice and the fbi. questioning in sharp terms its own conduct. and that is setting up this entire 2020 battle, which many democrats and some republicans privately feel is muddying the water about these important institutions in the country. >> bob, because i have you and we're watching this, walk us through where lindsey graham fits in as a former political nemesis of donald tr

mr. horowitz. how the hell did this whole thing start? what got us here today? they opened up a counterintelligence investigation in july. we know the russians are messing in our elections. and it was the russians, ladies and gentlemen, who stole the democratic national committee e-mails, podesta's e-mails, and screwed around with hillary clinton. it wasn't the ukrainians. it was the russians. and they're coming after us again. so to be concerned that the russians are messing with presidential campaigns was a legitimate concern. so if they looked around at the trump campaign and said, well, let's see if we can protect the trump campaign. carter page went to moscow a lot, made speeches. if you've ever met carter page, one thing you'll not accuse him of is being james bond. this poor guy, papadopoulos, picked to be part of trump's national security team. the national security team was literally picked up off the street. if you've had a photo with donald trump, you spent more time with donald trump th

mr. horowitz. how the hell did this whole thing start? what got us here today? they opened up a counterintelligence investigation in july. we know the russians are messing in our elections. and it was the russians, ladies and gentlemen, who stole the democratic national committee e-mails, podesta's e-mails, and screwed around with hillary clinton. it wasn't the ukrainians. it was the russians. and they're coming after us again. so to be concerned that the russians are messing with presidential campaigns was a legitimate concern. so if they looked around at the trump campaign and said, well, let's see if we can protect the trump campaign. carter page went to moscow a lot, made speeches. if you've ever met carter page, one thing you'll not accuse him of is being james bond. this poor guy, papadopoulos, picked to be part of trump's national security team. the national security team was literally picked up off the street. if you've had a photo with donald trump, you spent more time with donald trump th

mr. horowitz.did you find any documentary or testimonial evidence that the decision to open the investigation was political? >> we did not. >> did you find any documentary or testimonial evidence that the decision to open the investigation was motivated by bias against president trump? >> we did not. >> your report states that in mid 2016, the fbi was investigating attempts by russia to hack into political campaigns, parties, and election interference, is that correct? >> we put that in there for background purposes. correct. >> your report also states that the fbi received information from a friendly foreign government that russia offered to assist the trump campaign, is that correct? >> correct. we lay out the precise words that mr. papadopoulos reportedly stated. >> okay. your report does outline a number of problems with the fisa process as you've elaborated on. my question, particularly when it relates to questions from the chairman regarding carter page. my question is did the fisa errors aff

mr. horowitz said yes they had probable cause to get the initial warrant. but then as the investigation continued, they came into possession of other information that cast doubt on some of that information, other information that cast carter page in a more favorable light. >> what i want you to know is that in january 2017, the whole foundation for surveilling carter page collapses, exculpatory information is ignored. they high to the court about what the interview was all about. is that a fair summary so far? >> it was misleading to the court. >> fair enough. in january about six months later when they find more information that could be helpful to mr. page, they lie about it. do you feel like mr. page was treated fairly by the department of justice and the fbi? >> i don't think the department of justice fairly treated these fisa's and he was on the receiving end. >> it is striking because jim comey would say we had other evidence by this point so it wasn't just based on the carter page warrant. why were you misleading the foreign intelligence? that is a v

mr. horowitz found. mr. horowitz found on one occasion serious and intentional misconduct on the part of an f.b.i. lawyer and he has now referred that lawyer for criminal prosecution. but the explanations they offered for the other errors were completely unsatisfactory and they should not be overlooked or excused. attorney general barr echoed that in a tv interview earlier this week, and i trust him and mr. durham to get to the bottom of it. they have more authorities than the inspector general to compel the production of evidence and testimony much like a grand jury as opposed to what the inspector general had which was basically a voluntary willingness of witnesses to come forward and to look at the f.b.i.'s internal files. so to make matters worse, even as new and exculpatory or information that tended to show innocence came to light on carter page, this information was not reflected in what the f.b.i. filed when they requested a foreign intelligence surveillance warrant from the court. you have to wonder

mr. horowitz said each campaign got the same briefing. what they were listening for and the notes sent to file were different. but the important thing is, they each got the same briefing. >> i want all panelists to stay. i want to tell viewers, if you're thinking, is the inspector general watch dog report the only thing happening in washington this week, your instincts are right. it is not. there's a ton happening on impeachment, including knew announcements that the judiciary committee is going to begin marking up the articles of impeachment against president donald trump in the capitol building you see starting this evening. we have special coverage on impeachment when we come back after the break. thbre eak. are critical skills for scientists at 3m. one of the products i helped develop was a softer, more secure diaper closure. as a mom, i knew it had to work. there were babies involved... and they weren't saying much. i envisioned what it's like for babies to have diapers around them. that's what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even

mr. horowitz. this report is a scathing indictment of the fbi, of the agents that were involved, and i want to be clear about that, because the fbi is an institution that has a long history of respect in this country. as a former federal prosecutor, i found that most of the people in the fbi to be of utmost integrity and thoroughness, and that is why i am so concerned about the report and the findings and the facts stated therein, because this is damaging to it. and there is a lot of good from the country of not only the fbi to be good, but understood to be good. the behavior outlined in your report is at a minimum negligent. i actually would say so reckless so that it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire fisa program. i don't say that lightly, but say this as someone who has long questioned the fisa program, and how it could be effused, but this is really pushing us over the edge, and i will get back to that in a minute. the report concludes way too generously in my view that there was

mr. horowitz. he's not vindicated and to be concerned about the fisa warrant process is not nonsense. >> no one is you just heard is vindicated in the report. wrong the again. comey. 17 significant failures and accuracies and omissions, every single one bolstered by the application for a warrant. oh, two back door one step, to step to spy the trump campaign. it ends up being a single source material, circular reporting, zero verification as the dirty clinton bought and paid for russian dossier was unverifiable. where did you all hear this? it wasn't the cnn or abc cbs or "new york times" or "washington post." no, it was right here. there was no corroboration, forged evidence in this case or a vital exculpatory information totally and completely omitted. and without this fraudulent opinion, no warrant had been granted.io oh, mccabe probably did say it, no dossier, no fisa warned. it's clear because it was basically the entire application, all four times. james comey signed off on 3 of 4 of those pha

mr. horowitz and get the director of the f.b.i.re to try to find out a way to make sure this never happens again to any politician in this country. it's trump today, it could be you or me tomorrow. and imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if they can do this to the candidate for the president of the united states, what could they do to you? so the trump presidency will end in a year or five years, i don't know when. i hope he gets reelected. but we can't write this off as being just about one man or one event. we have to understand how off the rails the system got. and i will leave with some optimism here. i think democrats and republicans are willing to make sure this never happens again. that if you open up a counter intelligence investigation on a presidential campaign in the future there needs to be more checks and balances. i want you to audit the fisa process. mike lee and senator leahy are probably the standard bearers for civil liberties. we all care. but these two constantly want to make sure that somebody is watching those who

mr. horowitz and i thought that was kind of interesting that not only is he saying he disagrees with the conclusion, but he has done more research and investigating than mr. horwitz. host: have we heard anything from the current director of the fbi on this report and potentially what changes he might make because of its findings? guest: accompanied with the report is a fairly lengthy response from christopher wray and he has about a lot of reforms including overhauling the processes for pfizer and that is very key. one of the things the report found is how some of these wents happened or unchecked was because the processes in the fbi were very weak, the processes and procedures were doing things were almost as bad as anything else you could find and that is how these errors got away. one thing i think is important and important for president trump and his allies is they have been pointing the finger at people like jim comey, sally -- sally-- sally eight gates -- claiming they were at such a low level, he never got to them and they were unaware how bungled this investigation was and i thin

mr. horowitz, you actually did make a finding on that very question, did you not? i direct you to page 14 of the executive summary. where you ascribe this to management and supervisory failures that were not specific to this case but that were potentially endemic. it is that not correct? >> i'm sorry. they were made by three separate handpicked teams, significant develop mints regarding the chain of commands and supervision of the process. you then go on to describe it as failure of the managers and you go on to say that her remedy is an oid audit not only of this case -- >> they attribute the failure here to a failure of management and supervision that could well go beyond this particular case. >> that was attributable, can contribute elbow deep state conspiracy, >> we make no finding and we explain in there that we did not have documentary evidence that was intentional, and we also point out the lack of satisfactory explanations. from there, i can't draw any further conclusions. other than you do what you go with. that was a failure of management and supervision

mr. horowitz, did you find any evidence that the fbi engaged in spying on the trump campaign? >> we're very careful to use the words, the legal words that are used here, which is surveillance. there was the carter page surveillance that we've identified here. we did not find evidence of other court-authorized surveillance. we found the confidential human source activity that we detail here, and didn't find additional confidential human source activity prior to the election. >> if i could close with this. did the report find that the fbi engaged in surveillance of trump tower? >> we did not find evidence of surveillance on trump tower. >> and did the report find that any monitoring of trump campaign officials occurred without necessary fbi approval? >> all were approved. >> is it fair to say that the statements by president trump and attorney general barr that i've described are incorrect? >> again, we don't use the term spying. we're not looking at whether there was court authorized surveillance or not. >> all right. thank you. >> i'll stick to what we have here. >> i want to

mr. horowitz's testimony. >> what do you think is going on in the senate when we get over there?'s going to be a trial. it lookz like it it looks like it's to be in january. it looks like it's going to be the length of it month it looks like. >> first the inspector general report absolutely demolishes all of the conspiracy theories, the claims about a right wing state cabal, a deep state coup and overthrowing the president. and i think what's going to happen here is that we're going to continue to chip away and decimate these kinds of distractions and conspiracy theories that are the ultimate resort of the republicans, and they are dangerous, profoundly dangerous to our national security. one point that the article of impeachment makes so cogently and powerfully is that this president is a continuing threat to our democratic institution, particularly our elections and to our national security around the globe and his willingness to give away our national interests to his personal benefit. >> so what do you think the senate will do when they try him? >> i think that a number of my

mr. horowitz, the 17 irregularities that you found, some of them are earth shattering. some of them should scare the hell out of all of us. i want to end sort of where i began, this is not normal. don't judge the fbi and the department of justice by these characters. we are better than this. like many of you, i have worked with the fbi a lot of my time in the government. i have a great respect for it. director wray, off problem. for this hearing to mean anything, we have got to fix it. and the way we fix it is listen to mr. horowitz and get the director of the fbi in here to try to find out a way to make sure this never happens again to any politician in this country. it is trump today. it could be you or me tomorrow. imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if they could do this to the candidate for the president of the united states, what could they do to you? so the trump presidency will end in a year or five years. i don't know when. i hope he gets reelected, but we can't write this off as being just about one man or one event. we've got to understand how off the rails the sy

mr. horowitz. >> thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. the report that my office released last week was the product of a comprehensive review that examined over one million documents and conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses. all of which is documented in our 417 page report. documented in the 117 page report. and with that executive summary and i encourage people to read the 19 page executive and working rigorously through long hours to complete this review and the subject of our report was july 2016 days after the fbi said that in may 2016 the trunk campaign foreign policy advisor suggested the campaign would be damaging to clinton and then obama. and with crossfire hurricane with a counter intelligence division director. after multiple days of we reviewed policies, and concluded the exercise of discretion and opening of the -- that the assistant director exercise discretion opening the investigation, was in compliance with those po

mr. horowitz. mr. chairman.. horowitz. thank you for inviting me to testify today. reports of my office released last week was a product of a compressive review of the examining over 1 million documents and conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses all of which is documented in our 417 page report. it also includes 19 page executive summary which if folks don't have the time to read, 400 plus pages i would certainly encourage people to read 19 page executive summary. i want to command also the efforts of the team did this. they worked vigorously through long hours and to complete this review. investigation that a subject of our report, the crossfire hurricane enunciation was opened in july 2016. days after the fbi received reporting from a foreign government spending that may 2016, from campaign foreign policy stephanopoulos, suggested top receive some kind of a suggestion from russia that it could assist in the election process with the anonymous release of information and it would-be damaging to candidate clinton and then president obama. we

mr. horowitz.sneak in a break so we can get a preview of it and talk about it on the other side as we preparet you for th senate judiciary committee hearing, department of justice inspector general. we'll be right back. tment of jue inspector general. we'll be right back. ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. i need all the breaks as athat i can get.or, at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. cut. liberty m... am i allowed to riff? what if i come out of the water? liberty biberty... cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ plaque psoriasis uncoverth clearer skin that can last. in fact, tremfya® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and

mr. horowitz? atty. gen. barr: first, let me say, i think there are sort of three parts, or issues, categories of analysis in the report. the first is, was the investigation adequately predicated? the start of it. the second one is, how was it conducted? and i would break that down into two things, how was it conducted before the election, and how was it conducted after the election? the real meat of horowitz's work and the real thrust of the report actually deals with the conduct of the investigation. where, i think, it quickly became apparent that it was a travesty. and there were many abuses, and that is by far the most important part of the report. and i think mike horowitz would agree with that. jerry: the abuses that in particular refer to the pfizer application. atty. gen. barr: and also the fact that from day one, it generated exculpatory information and nothing that substantiated any kind of collusion. the issue of whether it was adequately predicated is something of academic interest only. mike know

mr. horowitz made that there was no bias, and things were okay. but i think that's a misrepresentation by the media. mr. barr is exactly right. this was a flimsy pretext, you are looking at just in the carder page fisa application alone, 17 big egregious errors in one fisa affidavit. so when you begin look at that, and then mr. horowitz says there were serious errors in other aspects of in the origins of the investigation. when he starts talking that way and then comes out with the conclusion there was no bias. that's what drives us crazy. trish: we weren't born yesterday. for goodness sake. no corroboration, no supporting documentation. inaccurate. no verify case, failed to disclose sub service. fbi less than candid, lapse in judgment. he's telling us they are a whole bunch of idiots at the fbi incapable of doing their job. there are there was no bias. we weren't born yesterday. this couldn't have happened without bias. >> you are exactly right. we go back to the strzok-page interchange that they had. they were talking. they were revealing bias. t

mr. horowitz -- we are not all dumb. like, we know what could have been happening. but i also think on the defensive briefing that could also be true. when the report first comes out, they said the fisa warrant was warranted based on other information. then john durham who is doing the larger report says i disagree but i will have more to say later. that's a missing piece of all this. >> are we fair to question the decision of the court? >> i've never been a fan of pfizer, i got to look at it up close and personal, and i think everything that's happened here demonstrates -- and i want to be clear about this. i'm not saying that the executive branch doesn't need oversight, far from it. i think we need searching oversight and that oversight ought to be done by congress and not the courts. that's the executive function which is protection of the united states. you are putting the court impossible position, leaving politics aside, and we think al qaeda is going to be -- it's about to go up manhattan. do you want to be the judge to tell them that you can't have their war

mr. horowitz has to clearly explicitly rebut and debunk this kind of conspiracy theory. >> let me just askuse horowitz also makes sure the fisa application process was a mess. there were errors in it. there was a criminal referral on it. what changes do you want to see made in. >> i have proposed changes going back to 2013 in the fisa warrant process. to provide for greater scrutiny. some adversarial process like we have in the rest of the criminal process. so that the counterview is presented in seeking a fisa warrant and errors can be corrected. but keep in mind, john, even here the inspector general found no evidence, none, that those errors and omissions serious as they may have been had an impact on issuing the warrant. in other words, the warrants were still -- >> he did not weigh in on that. he specifically noted on whether he would weigh in had it been done properly, whether the application would have been approved. i want to shift gears because obviously you're busy in the senate today. but in the house they're busy talking about the articles of impeachment which should be approve

mr. horowitz has identified the problem, it is up to fix it. i look forward to working with democrats to make sure this never happens again, that we have rules around counterintelligence investigations, that we beef up the pfizer court. when i am dumbfounded and really upset about how this whole process was handled. being a hawkish guy does not mean you don't care about the rules, the thing that protects us from being like our enemies is that we have rules. even for trunk. even for people we don't like. trump today could be somebody else tomorrow. the goal here is to make sure it never happens again. and one of the ways to make sure it never happens again is that those who took the law into their own hands need to pay a price. >> senator another one of the key findings is critical bias. can i get response to that? >> when we get shot, i don't know -- motive. i don't know what other reason they would have to let a court on two different occasions. why would you keep the investigation going when you had every reason to believe it was no longer le

mr. horowitz?first let me say i think there are sort of three parts or issues, let's say categories of analysis in the report. the first is, was the investigation adequately predicated, a start of it? the second one is, how was it conducted? and i break that down into two things. how was it conducted before the election and how was it conducted after the election? the real meat of horowitz' work and the real thrust of the report actually deals with the conduct of the investigation. where i think it quickly became apparent that it was a travesty and there were many abuses, and that's by far the most important part of the report, and i think mike horowitz would agree with that. >> i want to go through these in detail, but you particularly refer to the fisa application -- >> also the fact that from day one it generated exculpatory information and nothing that substantiated any type of collusion. but that aside for a minute and going back to the issue. in many ways sort of the issue of whether it was t

mr. horowitz. >> thank you, mr. chair. and thank you very much, inspector general, for being here today and presenting this information. and i know that a couple others have focused on this. andoc i'd like to dive back in. but -- but first. there is a lot of respect out there or there has been for the fbi.e is and i remember as a kid, you know, watching movies or shows that portrayed the fbi. and we really thought, wow, those are the good guys. and i think what we have seen through the past number of years, number of months, is that a few bad actors have really squandered that away. and i think the american people look at the fbie and they thin wow. if they're doing this to a presidential candidate, what would they do to me, as just a normal, american citizen? are they really there for me? so i'm just so sorry that this has led to this. again, a few very bad actors. i heard somebody earlier saying, oh, the mistakes that were made at the fbi. the mistakes. it's not like, oops, i accidentally filed a fisa warrant or an appli

mr. horowitz. this report is a scathing indictment of thero fbi, of the agents that were involved and i want to be clear about that because the fbi is an institution that has a long history of respect in this country and as a federal prosecutor i've worked with the fbi and i found many of his agents to be people of the most integrity and thoroughness. that's part of why i'm so concerned by your report and its findings and the facts stated therein. i think this really damages that. there's a lot of good in this country that comes not just from mese fbi being good but also beg understood to be good. the behavior outlined in your report is at a minimum so negligent. i actually would say so reckless that it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire fisa .rogram i don't say that lightly. i say this of course is someone who has long questioned the fisa program and how it could be abuseded. this really pushes over the edge and i will get back to that in a minute. the report concludes way to generou

mr. horowitz said there was no evidence that fbi leadership was aware of those mistakes, and no evidence, there was any political bias in the decision-making process. wray here characterizing the findings accurately. >> i think it's important that the inspector general found that, in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization. >> that quickly eliciting this from president trump on twitter. i don't know what report current director of the fbi christopher wray was reelading, but it sure wasn't the one given to me. with that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the fbi, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men and women working there. in a way this is funny because it's a trump battle with his own people. but it's not funny with the director of the fbi, the leader of the intelligence agency in the united states, speaks his mind. >> it's a gloss palatable to the president, i suppose, that they then get these responses on twitter that their jobs will be terminated sometime soon. this is a sticky situation

mr. horowitz brings his report. mr. horowitz does do good work.the investigation that matters the most is the one that u.s. attorney john durham is doing. a broad look at the entire intelligence community and tell us what happened in the summer of 2016 when the f.b.i. spied on two american citizens in a presidential campaign. that's the investigation that matters the most. i'll look forward to mr. horowitz's appoint. >> bill: you know durham is at least six months away. >> it will be a while. what i hope happens next week is jerry nadler and carol maloney, i hope they have a hearing. three months ago, four months ago when we had mr. horowitz's report on comey's leak situation they didn't hold a hearing in the house of representatives. when has that ever happened? senator graham will hold a hearing next week. i hope they do in the house and get off the crazy impeachment strategy they've been on for months and months. >> sandra: the president is overseas and back at home democrats are moving forward with their push to impeach the president. house ju

mr. horowitz. >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you very much inspector general for being here today and presenting this information. and i know a couple of others have focused on this, and i would like to dive back in. but first, there is a lot of respect out there or there has been for the fbi. and i remember as a kid, you know, watching movies or show that portrayed the fbi. wow, those are the good guys. and i think what we have seen through the past number of years a number of months, it is that a few bad actors have really squandered that away. and i think the american people look at the fbi and they think, wow, if they are doing this to a presidential candidate, what would they do to me? it is a normal american citizen. are they really they are? and so i'm sorry that this has led to this, again a few bad actors. i heard somebody earlier saying, oh, the mistakes made at the fbi. the mistakes. it's not like, oops i accidentally filed a fisa application, that accidentally happened. that is not a mistake. that just reeks of

mr. horowitz, do you believe every politician in america should be concerned? >> i believe every american should make sure this process wants to work the right way. >> finally to those of us in politics, how easy it could be for someone to come into our lives and our campaign as volunteers, i hope the fbi would tell me he's got a reasonable suspicion is a bad actor. i can do something about it. what scares me the most is the power to hold a counterintelligence investigation is almost unlimited. the power to abuse it is exactly what your report tells us about. thank you, this hearing is adjourned and finally this is the beginning, not the end, of this committee's involvement in this matter. much more to follow. thank you. >> neil: michael horowitz with a good part of the day. the inspector general looking for the origins of the probe into the trump campaign. he says we are clearly influenced by bias but to the extent that it went up happened regardless, that's in the eye of beholder. he was saying the foreign intelligence surveillance act, the so-called fisa war

mr. horowitz did the country a great service.r wray got a really hardh job, it got to come to the judiciary committee and convince republicans and democrats you are going to fix this crap. >> sean: not easy to get out of the way. that's my honest assessment here. okay, you heard the comments of the inspector general today. i thought they were powerful and added clarity to his report. he also was working within a bubble, both prosecutors durham and attorney general barr, their comments, i do not believe, senator, would be made but were knowledge of they have that we do not have to this is far deeper and far worse than anybody does and it has taken them overseas to italy, great britain, and other places. where do you imagine this ends up? because i can't see this ending up any other way but people being indicted and going to jail.er't >> all i can tell you is that durham is looking at whether there is criminality here. we know that kleinsmith, the fbi lawyer in charge of the fisa process, altered an email from the cia saying that b

mr. horowitz, senator graham, and senator coons. take a listen. >> it was opened with the proper predicate, sufficient predication, by a person who was not one of the text message persons. and senior to those people. the confidential human source operations, while permitted by fbi policy, should cause everybody to give pause as to whether that policy's sufficient to provide accountability over decisions. and finally, that the fisa process here was not used appropriately, properly. and the rules were not followed. >> for a moment, let's assume that there was a lawful predicate to open up a counterintelligence investigation. what has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy. >> president trump has called the entire russia investigation a witch hunt and a hoax. but your report found that the fbi had an authorized purpose when it opened its investigation into whether individuals associated with that campaign were coordinating with the russian governments' broad efforts to interfere in our 2016 preside

mr. horowitz was walking the senators through this yesterday, you seen parallels between the horowitz reportueller report. >> i do. i do. if you go back to the first indictments from the mueller special counsel team, it was against the russians for conspiracy to defraud the united states. and what they said was that you had these russian operatives creating fake news and then distributing it through social media to the american public for the purposes of influencing an election. what you have here at the fbi in 2016 is several people at the top of the fbi manipulating the government, taking a fake dossier and then leaking that to the press to generate news to influence an election. if you ask me, that is conspiracy to defraud the united states. that is a crime. now, go back -- go further to when trump is actually elected. they continued doing the same thing, leaking stories to the press, all to help derail the trump presidency. that is conspiracy to defraud the united states. now, whether you are able to prove that in a court of law, whether you are able to get a conviction, that's another s

mr. horowitz, thank you for being here. you guys do great work. i have agu lot of confidence in the igs across the hall of government and i h commend your staff for the top-notch effort here. i don't think anybody's questioning the -- the quality of your work.to i am -- i'm not an attorney. i've neveran argued a case befo the supreme court. i'm not a prosecutor, solicitor general. i'm a business person. so i've been trying to figure out how the average citizen would look at this -- at this hearing. and trying toloth understand wh we're -- what we're trying to get to here. you've mentioned once or twice that when people ask you about political motivation, when it has topo do with the renewal request for the fisa warrants, you've said it gets a bit murky. i just decided, you know, being somebody that used to do a lot of organization charts, that i'd try and explain to the american people why this gets a little bit murky. i'm going to focus mainly on the doj chart. this is roughly the organization structure that wasis in place wh the doj. before i do