FBI’s Russia probe cleared of political bias but Trump targets its director

The central finding of the inspector general’s report — not political bias of motivation — debunks President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions over past years that the investigation was a conspiracy against him by the Obama administration and “treasonous” deep-state actors

An internal watchdog of the US justice department has said the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by Trump campaign was not politically motivated, but it did point to several procedural lapses in the filing of application for electronic surveillance of suspects.

The U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report entitled "Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurrican Investigation" about the origins of the FBI's investigation into contacts between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia was released on Monday. (REUTERS)

The central finding of the inspector general’s report — not political bias of motivation — debunks President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions over past years that the investigation was a conspiracy against him by the Obama administration and “treasonous” deep-state actors, And was, thus, denounced by attorney general William Barr.

But Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, embraced findings, earning the wrath of the president. “I don’t know what report (Wray) was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me,” he tweeted. “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 & women working there!”

Wray has welcomed the central thesis of the report that the FBI’s investigation of Russian meddling has been cleared of political bias or improper motivation” and ordered correctives for the procedural lapses pointed out in the filing of applications for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was used to monitor Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser.

The inspector general also contradicted another widely held belief among Trump’s allies that the investigation was triggered by a dodgy dossier prepared by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, as part of opposition research funded by Democrats. In fact, the probe resulted from a boast from another Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos about Russian possessing political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The report also revealed for the first time that a member of Trump’s family has been friends with the writer of that dossier for many years, but named no names. US media reports suggested that family member is the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump. “He (Steele) described their relationship as ‘personal’ and said that he once gifted a family tartan from Scotland to the family member,” the report said.