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All eyes on John Durham this week as he comes to Capitol Hill to testify on FBI’s Russiagate probe

June 19, 2023 | | Print Article

All eyes will be watching Congress this week, as Special Counsel John Durham testifies before two committees in the Republican-led House of Representatives about the findings of his infamous probe into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

As BizPac Review reported in May, Durham concluded in his long-awaited report that “the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities.”

The investigation found that “senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities.”

“This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation. In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents,” it continued. “The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them, even when at about the same time the Director of the FBI and others learned of significant and potentially contrary intelligence.”

“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,” Durham wrote.

On Tuesday at 3 p.m., Durham is expected to testify on Capitol Hill before the House Intelligence Committee and answer questions about his findings, the Washington Examiner reports.

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“The Durham Report underscores what former Chairman Devin Nunes and Republican members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have been saying for years: There were serious errors and shortcomings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the alleged connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in May, shortly after the report was released.

“The report confirms that FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded critical protections established to protect the American people from unlawful surveillance,” he continued. “Such actions should never have occurred, and it is essential that Congress codifies clear guardrails that prevent future FBI abuses and restores the public’s trust in our law enforcement institutions.”

On Wednesday, starting at 9 a.m., Durham will testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which will also focus on his findings.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has made his feelings in the wake of Durham’s report well known.

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“The Durham Report revealed that the FBI dropped 4 criminal probes into the Clintons. But had no problem at all pushing a fake dossier to take down Trump,” he tweeted following its release. “What happened to equal justice under the law?”

Speaking to Fox Business last week, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R – Wis.) said the House Judiciary Committee would “more fully flesh out what is in the Durham report.”

“The American public largely does not know what’s in there,” he said. “They know it’s out there. And I think it’s important that we question Special Counsel Durham to find out more information and share it with the American public.”

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“It’s important for us to lay the groundwork for reform with the FBI,” he stated. “I mean, think about it. The FISA process, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance process, was abused by the FBI. We need to decide, are we going to continue to allow them to have the FISA process as it’s currently written? Is it reformable at this point?”

“Those are some of the questions that I’m hoping that we ask and hopefully get answers to for the American public,” he said, “because the FBI has clearly been turned against the American people.”

Melissa Fine
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