William: The long-awaited report
by special counsel John Durham
about the FBI's probe into the
2016 trump campaign and its
alleged ties to Russia was
released publicly today.
Durham was appointed by former
trump attorney general William
Barr to look into what many on
the right saw as a politically
motivated investigation.
While Durham's report offers no
significant new evidence, it is
deeply critical of the FBI.
Durham called their handling of
parts of the investigation
seriously deficient and wrote
that investigators were too
credible towards partisan
actors, writing, "Senior FBI
personnel displayed a serious
lack of analytical rigor towards
the information that they
received."
"Washington post" reporter
Devlin Barrett has been
following all this and he joins
me now.
Thank you for being here.
This is the culmination of four
years of work by John Durham.
What else to the report say?
Devlin: The report basically
goes through all the steps taken
in the investigation known as
crossfire hurricane and faults
the FBI again and again for how
they did it.
But it doesn't tell us much more
than we already knew and frankly
many of these criticisms have
been said before, years before
by others that looked at this.
William: What Durham seems to be
arguing is the FBI received a
lot of information about the
trump campaign in 2016 and the
FBI should have treated that
information as more suspect than
they did?
Is that the just?
Devlin: What they are basically
saying is the FBI did not have a
lot in terms of allegations to
go on and did not do enough
careful analysis and work to try
to stand up the kind of
allegations it was getting.
Basically their argument is the
FBI rushed forward to
investigate trump, where if you
look at past Clinton cases, the
FBI was more cautious.
The truth is the FBI ultimately
investigated both trump and
Clinton so I don't know how
powerful that criticism is.
William: Did Durham say there
was no reason the FBI should
have been looking at the trump
campaign?
Devlin: The report actually says
it makes sense for the FBI to
have examined this initial tip
they got from an Australian
diplomat that is a walk back
from other suggestions of Durham
has made in the past.
I think the report is fairly
cautious and a particular
critical on what was supposed to
be his biggest criticism, which
is that the case should never
have been opened.
But that is not what the report
ends up saying.
William: Former president trump
said on truth social that the
room concludes the FBI never
should have launched the trump
pressure probe.
In other words, the American
public was scammed.
But that is not what this report
is indicating?
Devlin: No, as I read the
report, he's basically arguing
the FBI should have opened a
preliminary report, preliminary
investigation as opposed to a
full investigation.
That is a fine distinction but I
think only lawyers and agents
care about that level of
granular detail and in the end I
don't to get matters that much.
William: Who doesn't durum
specifically point his critical
judgment at?
Senior levels of the FBI and doj
or more rank-and-file?
Devlin: Definitely the senior
level he's most critical of and
particular agents who oversaw
these cases that have been
criticized in the past and he is
even more critical of them,
arguing they essentially have a
confirmation bias, that they
were naturally suspect of trump
and that colored their thinking.
That is something that those
officials have denied and said
we as the FBI had an obligation
to investigate allegations.
William: You mentioned before,
the inspector general issued a
report several years ago that
covered a lot of this material.
Then the FBI and doj have to
respond to that.
Have the FBI or doj responded to
this revelation today?
Devlin: They have but there
point is -- their point is
they've already instituted a
number of changes to policies
and practices where there were
things found to be wrong and
should not have happened.
And frankly, most of the people
O made those decisions are
long gone from the FBI.
William: Thank you for being
here.
Devlin: Thank you.
♪♪