The Justice Department lawyer who signed off on all of the FBI’s surveillance warrant applications during the Russia-Gate investigation admitted that he or she would not have approved the FBI’s requests had he or she known about the agency’s many “errors and omissions,” which were discovered during an investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
In his report earlier this year, Horowitz found at least 17 errors and omissions in the FBI’s FISA warrant applications and subsequent investigation, which undermined the legitimacy of the entire operation, according to Senate Republicans.
Indeed, these errors were so widespread that the DOJ lawyer assigned to the application case said that the Russia-Gate investigation would never have been allowed to move forward had the FBI acted honestly, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC revealed in a hearing Wednesday for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd conveyed the unnamed attorney’s remorse in a letter sent to Graham, the committee chairman.
“The OI attorney advises that had he/she been aware of the significant errors and omissions identified by the OIG and the errors in the Woods process, he/she would not have signed the filed Page FISA applications,” the letter said.
“The OI attorney further advises that he/she is not aware of any additional errors or omissions in the Page FISA applications or in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation more generally that were not identified in the OIG Report,” it continued.
Graham entered the letter into the record during the hearing with former FBI Director James Comey, according to the Washington Examiner.
Comey has denied any wrongdoing, but admitted to Graham on Wednesday that he also would not have signed off on the FBI’s FISA warrant applications without a “much fuller” discussion about the material being presented to the FISA court.
