Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499488
14 WORLD maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 17 MAY 2023 FBI criticised over handling of Trump- Russia collusion investigation A long-awaited report found the FBI rushed into its investigation of ties between Russia and Don- ald Trump's 2016 campaign, and relied too much on raw and un- confirmed intelligence. The report from special counsel John Durham is the culmination of an investigation that Trump and his allies had claimed would expose massive wrongdoing by law enforcement and intelligence officials. Instead, Durham's investigation delivered underwhelming results. Prosecutors secured a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee for altering evidence while apply- ing for permission to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign of- ficial, but they lost the only two criminal cases they took to trial. The report catalogues what Durham says were a series of mis- steps by the FBI and Justice De- partment as investigators under- took a politically explosive probe in the heat of the 2016 election into whether the Trump cam- paign was colluding with Russia to tip the outcome. It criticised the FBI for opening a full-fledged investigation based on "raw, unanalysed and uncor- roborated intelligence," saying the speed it did so was a depar- ture from the norm. It also said investigators repeatedly relied on "confirmation bias," ignoring or rationalising away evidence that undercut their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the probe forward. The FBI has since announced dozens of corrective actions, in- cluding steps meant to ensure the accuracy of secretive surveillance applications to eavesdrop on sus- pected terrorists and spies. "Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps iden- tified in the report could have been prevented," the FBI said in a statement. It also stressed the report focused on the FBI's prior leadership, before current Direc- tor Christopher Wray took the job in 2017. Still, Durham's findings are like- ly to amplify scrutiny of the FBI at a time when Trump is again seek- ing the White House as well as of- fer fresh fodder for congressional Republicans who have launched their own investigation into the purported "weaponisation" of the FBI and Justice Department. After the report was released, Re- publican House Judiciary Com- mittee Chairman Jim Jordan said he had invited Durham to testify next week. Trump, on his Truth Social plat- form, claimed the report showed the "crime of the century" and re- ferred to the Russia investigation as a "Democrat Hoax." Durham was appointed in 2019 by Trump's attorney general, William Barr, soon after spe- cial counsel Robert Mueller had completed his investigation into whether the 2016 Trump cam- paign had colluded with Russia to move the outcome of the election in his favour. The Mueller investigation re- sulted in roughly three dozen criminal charges, including con- victions of a half-dozen Trump associates, and determined Rus- sia intervened on the Trump campaign's behalf and that the campaign welcomed the help. But Mueller's team did not find they conspired to sway the elec- tion, creating an opening for crit- ics — including Barr himself — to assert it had been launched with- out a proper basis. Revelations over the following months laid bare flaws with the investigation, including errors and omissions in Justice Depart- ment applications to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, as well as the reliance by the FBI on a dossier of uncorroborated or discredited information compiled by an Brit- ish ex-spy, Christopher Steele. Durham's team delved into those mistakes, finding investigators opened the investigation hastily, without doing key interviews or a significant review of intelligence databases. The report says the FBI, at the time the investigation was opened, had no information any Trump campaign officials had been in touch with any Russian in- telligence officials. The original Russia investiga- tion was opened in July 2016 after the FBI learned from an Austral- ian diplomat a Trump campaign associate named George Papa- dopoulos had claimed to know of "dirt" that the Russians had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of emails. But the report faults the FBI for not having done important leg- work before opening the investi- gation. It also said the FBI did not cor- roborate a "single substantive al- legation" in the so-called Steele dossier and ignored or ration- alised what it asserts was excul- patory information that Trump associates had provided to FBI confidential informants. That includes, the report said, mini- mising the importance of a con- versation in which Papadopoulos denied to the FBI informant he had any knowledge of ties be- tween the campaign and Russia. Donald Trump had claimed the report would uncover the 'crime of the century' Prosecutor points to series of mistakes by the FBI and Justice Department in probe over whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia