Special Counsel John Durham found the FBI did not have a sufficient basis to open an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in July 2016, according to a long-awaited report the investigator called “sobering,” which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
In a 320-page report delivered to House and Senate leaders on Monday, Durham cast doubt on the FBI’s justification for opening the Crossfire Hurricane probe, the name given to the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. The FBI’s standard for opening a full investigation “arguably had not been met,” Durham writes, adding that “the matter was opened as a full investigation without [agents] “I have never spoken to anyone who has provided me with the information.”
Durham also notes that the FBI’s behavior towards the Trump campaign stands in stark contrast to the way its agents treated tips and information it received about Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign—in this case, about the Clinton campaign’s attempts to paint Trump as a Russian agent.
“Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information,” Durham writes, “in this separate matter…
