Report exposes FBI flaws in Trump probe

A special counsel report on the FBI's investigation into former US president Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign concluded on Monday that neither US law enforcement nor the intelligence community "appears to have possessed any actual evidence of (Russian) collusion" at the start of the probe.

The 306-page document marked the end of a four-year investigation launched when then-attorney general William Barr appointed John Durham to look at potential mistakes in the FBI's inquiry into possible contacts between Trump's campaign and Moscow.

The FBI probe, known as Crossfire Hurricane, was later turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller, who in March 2019 said there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, although he was critical of Trump.

Monday's report said that FBI agents were so determined to go after Trump in 2016 that they championed "seriously flawed information" and abandoned their "own principles regarding objectivity and integrity".

"Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the (Justice) Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report," Durham wrote.

On Monday, Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform: "After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia Probe! In other words, the American Public was scammed, just as it is being scammed right now by those who don't want to see GREATNESS for AMERICA!"

Durham said that the FBI rushed to investigate Trump even as it proceeded with caution on allegations related to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate at the time.

Though the FBI warned Clinton's team when it learned of possible evidence by a foreign actor to gain influence with her, agents did not give similar briefings to the Trump campaign before opening an investigation, the report said.

As an example of bias by the FBI, Durham said it was unable to corroborate "a single substantive allegation "in a dossier of allegations, some salacious, against Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

The FBI issued a statement on Monday in response to the report saying that the conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Durham examined "was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time".

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley tweeted: "The Report's elaborate details shred (former FBI director) James Comey's claims of professionalism. Yet, Comey continues to sell books on his vision of 'ethical leadership' after overseeing what Durham calls an abandonment of 'fealty' to the law and standards of the FBI."

Emerald Robinson, a conservative journalist, was skeptical of the report's impact. "Lots of conservative media folks seem to be happy that Durham 'proved' the FBI/CIA fabricated the Russia Hoax. That's called: coping mechanism. Durham was not supposed to do a book report. He was supposed to clean up the Deep State. Instead, he's part of the cover-up," she wrote online.

The original Russia investigation was opened in July 2016 after the FBI learned from an Australian diplomat that a Trump campaign associate named George Papadopoulos had claimed to know of "dirt" that the Russians had on Clinton in the form of hacked emails.

But revelations over the following months exposed flaws in the investigation, including errors and omissions in Justice Department applications to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, and the reliance by the FBI on a dossier of uncorroborated or discredited information compiled by Steele.

Agencies contributed to this story.