A former lawyer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly under criminal investigation for allegedly altering a document that was used in the application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant to spy on Carter Page, an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the 2016 elections.
CNN reported Thursday evening:
A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.
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Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham’s criminal probe.
Read the full CNN article here.
Not much more is known. CNN’s sources speculated that Horowitz would find errors in the FBI’s conduct, “but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI’s investigation.”
The “premise,” however, was the unsubstantiated and salacious “Russia dossier,” which was prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele for the Fusion GPS opposition research firm, which was being paid indirectly by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced Wednesday that Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an appointee of President Barack Obama, will release his report on alleged FISA abuse on December 9, and testify in the Senate on December 11.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.