Special Counsel John Durham was the man tasked by former Attorney General Bill Barr to examine the FBI’s investigation of President Trump and the possibility of collusion with Russia.
A full 320-page report was released on Monday that found the FBI had no evidence to support a Trump-Russia scandal when it began its investigation. And this full report found “sobering” differences in how the FBI handled the Trump investigation compared to other politically sensitive probes.
The report indicated that the FBI immediately opened a full investigation based on just a brief note from an Australian diplomat saying that he had met with George Papadopoulos, a volunteer with the Trump campaign, and he mentioned that Russia might have negative information about Hillary Clinton.
At the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI did not possess any intelligence showing that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence officers at any point during the campaign,” the Durham report said.
The FBI investigation would later rely on the “Steele dossier,” but knew it was nothing but “rumor and speculation,” the report said.
It also noted, “Upon receipt of unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI swiftly opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately. Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump.”
“The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information. Further, the FBI did so without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received or (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typicallv employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.”
“Had it done so … the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of State aware of such evidence concerning the subject,” the report concluded.
