Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Putin hails Russia’s ties with China as ‘stabilizing’ force in the world

Who is Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister who was shot?

Middle East conflict live updates: U.S.-built pier anchored in Gaza;  ICJ due to hear arguments on Rafah

Netflix will air NFL’s Christmas games, a major step for streaming service

Sam Feist, longtime CNN executive, will become CEO of C-SPAN

Michael Cohen testimony ties Donald Trump to hush money payment

When budget flights actually make good budget sense

Cruise ships to return to Baltimore two months after bridge collapse 

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

Cruise settles with person dragged under one of its robotaxis

Senators studied AI for a year. Critics call the result ‘pathetic.’

 Key Senate matchups set for November in Maryland, West Virginia

The Post’s choices in Northern Virginia’s U.S. House primaries

States see legalized sports betting as a tax windfall — but at what cost?

Haiti’s plight is a case study in the ‘responsibility to protect’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

Biden and Trump agree to CNN debate in June, ABC faceoff in September

The incomprehensible, unattainable scale of Trump’s deportation plan

Miss Manners: Co-worker lies to avoid doing her job

Ask Amy: I’m scared of my adult stepson who keeps losing his temper

Carolyn Hax: Fiancé plans to have a baby with someone else

Commanders will start a new era with a palatable 2024 schedule

The 26 best new restaurants in the D.C. area

The new dining reality: Smaller groups and shorter weeks

Look to the cloud to protect the life documents saved on your computer

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Best Places to Work in the Federal Government 2023

How America tried and failed to stay White

Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen testifies about lying while questioned by defense in Trump hush money case

Samuel Corum

A Justice Department inspector general’s report examining the FBI investigation of President Trump’s 2016 campaign rebutted conservatives’ accusations that top FBI officials were driven by political bias to illegally spy on Trump advisers but also found broad and “serious performance failures” requiring major changes.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-inspector-general-s-report-on-the-trump-russia-investigation/f97e93ca-d5b4-4d8f-a37f-8b2cdfdcdc88/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">434-page report</a> issued Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the FBI had an “authorized purpose” when it initiated its investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into the Trump campaign. In doing so, Horowitz implicitly rejected assertions by the president and fellow Republicans that the case was launched out of political animus or that the FBI broke its own rules on using informants.

[Read the inspector general’s report on the Trump-Russia investigation]

As the probe went on and the FBI sought court approval to surveil a former campaign aide, officials repeatedly emphasized damaging information they heard about Trump associates and played down exculpatory evidence they found, the report said. The bureau promptly indicated that it would implement dozens of corrective measures in response to Horowitz’s report and that disciplinary action remains a possibility.

Conservatives and liberals alike claimed victory after the report’s release — with Republicans asserting that it exposed serious wrongdoing while Democrats said it validated the Russia investigation. Trump called the report’s findings “far worse than anything I would have imagined.”

“This was an overthrow of government,” he said. “This was an attempted overthrow, and a lot of people were in on it, and they got caught, they got caught red-handed.”

The report, which was based on more than 1 million documents and more than 170 interviews, is the most exhaustive assessment to date of the investigation that roiled Trump’s presidency and would ultimately be overtaken by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. But in the minutes after the document was released, it became clear that the report would not be the last word.

In a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-william-p-barr-inspector-generals-report-review-four-fisa" title="www.justice.gov">statement</a>, Attorney General William P. Barr disagreed with one of the inspector general’s key conclusions, saying the FBI launched an investigation of a presidential campaign “on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.”

[Post Reports: The fight over the FBI’s Russia probe]

So, too, did Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr handpicked to conduct an investigation similar to that of Horowitz. “Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.,” Durham said in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/statement-us-attorney-john-h-durham" title="www.justice.gov">statement</a>. “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Durham’s investigation is ongoing — and what evidence he has to rebut Horowitz remains unclear. Some involved in the Russia case said they were mystified by his statement.

A draft of the inspector general’s report contained a footnote saying <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/barrs-handpicked-prosecutor-tells-inspector-general-he-cant-back-right-wing-theory-that-russia-case-was-us-intelligence-setup/2019/12/04/17e084dc-16a9-11ea-9110-3b34ce1d92b1_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Horowitz had asked Durham</a> whether he had evidence to support a right-wing theory that the investigation began as a setup by U.S. intelligence using a Maltese professor to entrap the Trump campaign, according to people who saw the draft. Durham said he did not, the people said. That note about the probe’s origins, though, does not appear in the publicly released version of the document. The report has some redactions, but it is unclear if that section was removed or blacked out.

Speaking Monday on MSNBC, former FBI director James B. Comey took aim at Durham, saying he “can’t make any sense” of Durham’s statement disagreeing with the inspector general and predicting that if the prosecutor does not find information to satisfy Trump, someone will be assigned to investigate him.

“Don’t be a part of the sliming of the IG and the department as a whole,” Comey said. “Do your work.”

Politicians of both parties seized on various portions of the report that supported their long-held views on the Russia probe.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the inspector general had “completely demolished” some of conservatives’ assertions about the origins of the probe, though investigators did find problems. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted that Trump had called the case a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” and she said the report “shows that simply isn’t the case.”

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a strong Trump ally, meanwhile, said, “This is not a good day for the FBI.”

“There’s more than enough evidence in this report that would suggest a major overhaul in terms of policies and procedures,” he said.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said the inspector general’s report showed that a previous assessment, authored by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, of the FBI’s surveillance activities directed toward the Trump campaign “was accurate and actually understated the FISA abuse the dirty cops engaged in.” FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

[‘The enigma of the entire Mueller probe’: Focus on origins of Russian investigation puts spotlight on Maltese professor]

Representatives for those who led the probe and who have become frequent targets of attacks from the president said Horowitz’s findings vindicated their clients.

Michael R. Bromwich, a lawyer for former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, noted that the inspector general “found an ample factual basis for the launching of the Russia investigation” and that those errors that were documented “took place at multiple layers below” McCabe.

“Mr. McCabe did not know about any of these issues, and the report makes clear that there is no way he could have known unless someone specifically brought them to his attention,” Bromwich said. “The report makes clear that no one did.”

Aitan Goelman, a lawyer for former FBI deputy assistant director Peter Strzok, said, “This independent Department of Justice report confirms what everyone who has worked with Pete Strzok already knew — in 25 years of protecting our country, his personal opinions never impacted his work as an official of the FBI.”

“Those who recklessly deny this truth for political gain do a grave disservice,” he said.

Horowitz was particularly critical of applications the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, asserting that those applications contained “significant inaccuracies and omissions” and that agents “failed to meet the basic obligation” to ensure the applications were “scrupulously accurate.”

The inspector general found that “so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI,” he concluded that there was a failure of “not only the operational team, but also of the managers and supervisors, including senior officials, in the chain of command.”

Victoria Jones

Among those failures was the growing body of information the FBI had gathered suggesting that former British spy Christopher Steele — whose reports were a key element justifying the surveillance of Page — was not as reliable a source as officials had described to the court.

“As the FBI obtained additional information raising significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting, the FBI failed to reassess the Steele reporting relied upon in the FISA applications, and did not fully advise” Justice Department officials of those issues.

[Ivanka Trump was friends with former British spy Christopher Steele, according to person familiar with the situation]

As a result of those findings, Horowitz has launched a broader audit of FISA work, to study how systemic those problems may be for FISA applications in counterintelligence and counterterrorism cases. He did not, however, conclude that the bureau’s applications to monitor Page should have been rejected.

“We do not speculate whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omission, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome,” the report said. “Nevertheless, the Department’s decision-makers and the court should have been given complete and accurate information so that they could meaningfully evaluate probable cause before authorizing the surveillance of a U.S. person associated with a presidential campaign.”

The FBI also used informants to surreptitiously record conversations with Trump associates, including one person described in the report as “a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.”

Agents used informants, also known as confidential human sources, “to interact and consensually record multiple conversations with Page and [former Trump campaign adviser George] Papadopoulos,” the report said.

While the inspector general concluded that the FBI followed its procedures regarding investigations, it also recommended that in the future, such sensitive investigations involving major presidential campaigns be more closely supervised by the Justice Department. FBI officials told the inspector general that they heard political information in the course of their work, though one senior official said they considered it “extra crap.”

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said the bureau accepts the findings and plans to make a host of changes, including to how it gathers and submits information for surveillance applications.

“I have ordered more than 40 corrective steps to address the Report’s recommendations,” Wray said in a <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-director-christopher-wray-response-to-inspector-general-report" title="www.fbi.gov">statement</a>. “Because our credibility and brand are central to fulfilling our mission, we are also making improvements beyond those recommended,” adding that the FBI “will not hesitate to take appropriate disciplinary action if warranted at the completion of the required procedures for disciplinary review.”

He noted to ABC News, though, that it was “important that the inspector general found that, in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”

[Justice Dept. watchdog finds political bias did not taint top officials running the FBI’s Russia probe but documents errors]

The report also took aim at the FBI’s handling of a key piece of information about Page: that he had previously provided information to another U.S. agency. The report doesn’t identify the agency, but people familiar with the matter said it was the CIA.

Willy Sanjuan

Though the agency told the FBI in August that it had a relationship with Page, including in the time frame that the FBI found Page was acting suspiciously, that information was left out of the FISA application, the report said.

In preparation for an application to the FISA court to continue surveillance on Page, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith forwarded to an FBI agent a prior email from a CIA liaison, but Clinesmith added the words “not a source” to the liaison’s email, making it appear that the liaison had denied that Page was a source for the CIA, the report said. That conduct is now being investigated as a possible crime by Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The inspector general also found instances of Page and Papadopoulos making exculpatory statements to FBI informants, but those were not provided to the lawyers overseeing the Page surveillance. At one point, Papadopoulos told an FBI informant that the Trump campaign “of course, [does not] advocate for this type of activity because at the end of the day it’s . . . illegal” and that “our campaign is not . . . engag[ing] or reaching out to WikiLeaks or to the whoever it is to tell them please work with us, collaborate because we don’t, no one does that.” The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks obtained and published stolen emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, a subject of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/roger-stone-jury-weighs-evidence-and-a-defense-move-to-make-case-about-mueller/2019/11/15/554fff5a-06ff-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">intense interest within Trump’s campaign</a>.

Another key finding by the inspector general is that the FBI used a national security briefing to the Trump campaign in August 2016 to try to further its collusion investigation. The FBI provides intelligence briefings to major-party candidates to warn them about the risks posed by foreign intelligence operatives, but in this case, the briefing had a secondary, unstated purpose: to put an agent working on the Russia collusion investigation in the room with Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and report back on what ­Flynn said.

“The FBI’s use of this briefing for investigative reasons could potentially interfere with the expectation of trust and good faith among participants in strategic intelligence briefings,” the report concluded.

Horowitz is scheduled to discuss his findings Wednesday during a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

<email></email>
<email></email>
<email>devlin.barrett@washpost.com</email>

<email>matt.zapotosky@washpost.com</email>

<email>karoun.demirjian@washpost.com</email>

<email>ellen.nakashima@washpost.com</email>

Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that an FBI lawyer sent an altered email to a Justice Department lawyer. The altered email was sent to an FBI agent.

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for Feature Writing, 2017

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for International Reporting, 2017

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2018

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022

"October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election"

McGill University, BA 

Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. 

Devlin Barrett

Shared in a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for reporting in 2021 on the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol 

Shared in a George Polk Award, for reporting in 2017 on ties between the Trump campaign and Kremlin-connected Russians 

Ohio University, bachelor's degree in journalism

Matt Zapotosky is Deputy Metro Editor, responsible for overseeing criminal justice and breaking news coverage and other strategic initiatives. Before moving into editing, he spent 15 years as a Metro and National reporter. He was part of The Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. 

Matt Zapotosky

David Lynch Regional Reporting Award, Washington Press Club Foundation

Harvard University, AB cum laude in history

Fletcher School at Tufts University, MA in law and diplomacy

Karoun Demirjian is a Pentagon correspondent for the Post. She was previously a national security reporter covering Capitol Hill, focusing on defense, foreign affairs, intelligence and policy matters concerning the Justice Department. She began working for The Post based in its Moscow bureau.

Karoun Demirjian

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2014

Gerald Loeb Award 2014, NSA stories

Society of American Business Editors and Writers enterprise award 2009, for the story "Banking Regulator Played Advocate over Enforcer"

Daily Californian Alumni Association Alumna of the Year, 2017

Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, 2018

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2022 for an investigation of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol

The Prince of Tennessee

City University, London, MA in international journalism

University of California at Berkeley, BA in humanities

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter with The Washington Post. She was a member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, in 2022 for an investigation of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, in 2018 for coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and in 2014 and for reporting on the hidden scope of government surveillance. 



Ellen Nakashima

The Washington Post

IG report: Bias didn't taint FBI leaders running Trump-Russia probe, but inspector general finds other problems

Reuters

The U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General's report on the origin of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia is seen after its release by the Justice Department in Washington