By Steve Neavling
Special Counsel John Durham, who investigated the origins of the FBI’s investigation into possible links between Russia and former President Trump’s 2016 investigation, met behind closed doors with House Intelligence leaders on Tuesday.
The session is expected to “serve as a basis for laying down reforms to an agency whose work must withstand scrutiny,” The Hill reports.
Durham’s report was critical of the FBI, concluding that agents showed “confirmation bias” and that the impetus for launching the investigation was “seriously flawed.”
“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 Hurricane investigation,” the report said, referring to the codename for the FBI’s Trump investigation.
After the closed-door session, Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-Conn., said the FBI’s high-profile investigations of political candidates needs to be reformed.
“The committee really was focused on — particularly on something so sensitive as an investigation that pertains to political candidates — how can we make sure that the behavior of the investigative authorities, in this case the FBI, is beyond reproach,” Himes said.
Himes referred to both the Trump investigation and then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision to disclose information about the probe into Hillary Clinton days before the election.
“We have to learn from the mistakes made in these investigations to make sure that Americans can have confidence in both the prosecutorial power of the federal government and in their elections,” Himes said.
