WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th May, 2023) US Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should have never launched the probe into the alleged collusion between former President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 election, according to a report compiled by Durham over the course of three years.
"Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane (investigation) and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department (of Justice) and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report," the report said on Monday.
According to Durham, the FBI should have ignored "raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated" intelligence that allegedly indicated that connections existed between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The Special Counsel notes that at the outset of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the FBI possessed no information that would indicate that at any time during the presidential campaign in 2016 anyone in the Trump team had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials.
The Durham report indicated that the FBI reacted differently to the Russia collusion case and to information about the Clinton campaign's plan to smear Trump.
"Unlike the FBI's opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton campaign plan (to vilify Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin), the FBI never opened any type of inquiry... in connection with the information," the report said.
Moreover, the Special Counsel also found that the speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign.
However, Durham does not recommend any new charges against individuals or "whole charges" regarding the way the FBI handles politically charged investigations, the report added.
Durham was appointed as a Special Counsel by former US Attorney General William Barr in May 2019 to review the FBI's actions in the alleged Trump-Russia collusion probe, including the FBI spying on Trump's former campaign adviser.
In August, the Wall Street Journal reported that Durham's team of prosecutors also focused the probe on individuals outside the FBI who provided information that helped fuel the 2016 investigation into the alleged collusion and whether tipsters knew the information they provided was false.�
