During Tuesday’s broadcast of Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary and Intel Committees, reacted to the Department of Justice inspector general’s report released to the public on Tuesday.
Ratcliffe called the report an indictment of the FBI under former Director James Comey’s leadership, noting the abuses shown regarding the FISA court.
“The findings don’t match the conclusions,” Ratcliffe said of the report. “The findings in here are literally an indictment. They find clear, as the attorney general said, clear FISA abuse, that the FISA court was repeatedly systematically misled with false statements, misrepresentations, the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence. And really that’s what the inspector general was supposed to look at. And he did. And I think those findings really are an indictment of Jim Comey’s FBI and the leadership there throughout this process. Unfortunately, the headlines focus on the conclusion that he made about the origins of the Trump Russia investigation, where he said, you know, it was properly predicated and came to that conclusion.”
“I do think it’s interesting that immediately we heard from John Durham, who has broader jurisdiction, meaning he has greater ability to reach those conclusions, and said, look, we told the inspector general there’s more there than you’re aware of and our conclusions are going to be different with respect to predication,” he continued. “So, unfortunately, I think the headlines really haven’t underscored the facts that are contained in the inspector general’s report, which are FISA abuse was very clear and that this was a clear validation of, as you said earlier, the Nunes memo and an indictment of Jim Comey’s leadership at the FBI throughout the FISA process.”
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