The Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General released its highly anticipated report on the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's Russia connection on Monday.
Make no mistake: The report chronicles serious wrongdoing with respect to the FBI's surveillance of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and is ultimately a damning indictment of the the nation's top law enforcement agency.
Many in the media have focused on the fact that the IG report failed to turn up any evidence that the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russia was politically motivated.
CNN's article led with "Conspiracy theories debunked" and called the Russia probe "Legal and unbiased," before conceding "Serious mistakes" that the network predominantly attributed to a "Low level FBI lawyer." In general, the Trump-critical mainstream media has treated the faltering of the most fervent pro-Trump partisans' conspiracy theory about a deep state coup as some kind of full acquittal of the FBI. It's not.
As Scott Shackford explained in his post on this subject, the report by Michael Horowitz found 17 "Serious performance failures" relating to warrants obtained by the FBI through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment courts for the purposes of monitoring Page.
No one should feel confident that a court would block the FBI from engaging in surveillance, even if the information was flawed or faulty.
The agency itself led the charge: A spokesperson for the FBI said the report "Does not impugn the FBI's institutional integrity. It doesn't doubt-or propose any changes to-the FBI's mission or our core values. It doesn't criticize-or even question-the brand that this organization has earned over 111 years."
https://reason.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-fbi-fisa-carter-page-trump-media/
Make no mistake: The report chronicles serious wrongdoing with respect to the FBI's surveillance of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and is ultimately a damning indictment of the the nation's top law enforcement agency.
Many in the media have focused on the fact that the IG report failed to turn up any evidence that the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russia was politically motivated.
CNN's article led with "Conspiracy theories debunked" and called the Russia probe "Legal and unbiased," before conceding "Serious mistakes" that the network predominantly attributed to a "Low level FBI lawyer." In general, the Trump-critical mainstream media has treated the faltering of the most fervent pro-Trump partisans' conspiracy theory about a deep state coup as some kind of full acquittal of the FBI. It's not.
As Scott Shackford explained in his post on this subject, the report by Michael Horowitz found 17 "Serious performance failures" relating to warrants obtained by the FBI through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment courts for the purposes of monitoring Page.
No one should feel confident that a court would block the FBI from engaging in surveillance, even if the information was flawed or faulty.
The agency itself led the charge: A spokesperson for the FBI said the report "Does not impugn the FBI's institutional integrity. It doesn't doubt-or propose any changes to-the FBI's mission or our core values. It doesn't criticize-or even question-the brand that this organization has earned over 111 years."
https://reason.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-fbi-fisa-carter-page-trump-media/
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