» A closer look at the report’s key findings,

Official: No evidence of conspiracy, but warrants criticized.

WASHINGTON — A much-anticipated report on the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia heavily criticized how the FBI obtained court orders to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign aide but found no evidence of political bias or improper motivation by the FBI..

Here are some of the key findings.

No evidence for ‘witch hunt’ theory

The report pushed back against essential elements of the president’s conspiracy theory.

The president’s narrative is essentially that a cabal of politically biased law enforcement and intelligence officials — a “deep state” — set out to sabotage and spy on his campaign because they were opposed to his election and wanted to undermine him once he won.

Trump and his allies claimed a wide-reaching conspiracy to use false opposition research funded by Democrats to justify opening an investigation that would allow them to infiltrate and spy on the Trump campaign, wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide, and sabotage Trump’s presidency.

Horowitz did not find evidence supporting that narrative.

“We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions” by the bureau, the report said.

What did the FBI get wrong?

There were procedural problems in the process of getting warrants. Horowitz cited multiple errors and omissions related in the applications to eavesdrop on Page, findings that may bring a renewed focus on the secret process to obtain and approve such warrants.

In October 2016, the Justice Department obtained permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Page, who had recently stepped down from his role as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. Page had close ties to Russia, which he had visited in the summer of 2016, and had previously interacted with Russia’s foreign spy service.

The warrant applications relied heavily on information provided by Christopher Steele, a British former intelligence agent who said his information came from a confidential source. In a serious failing, the bureau failed to inform the court that when agents interviewed Steele’s source, that person failed to back up some of Steele’s assertions, the report found.

Horowitz also found that Kevin Clinesmith, a low-level FBI lawyer, altered an email that was apparently included in the packet of information that went to the court as part of an application to renew the warrant. Horowitz has made a criminal referral about Clinesmith for possibly making a false statement that misled his colleague.

What about former officials whom Trump has vilified?

The report appeared to absolve them of taking investigative action out of bias against Trump.

Trump and his allies have demonized a group of top FBI officials who oversaw the opening and early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation. These include former director James Comey; former deputy and acting director, Andrew McCabe; Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence agent; Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer who worked on the case; and James Baker, the former general counsel.

During an earlier examination into the handling of investigations into Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, Horowitz uncovered the fact that Strzok and Page had sent text messages to each other expressing animus toward Trump while working on the Russia case. He also found messages by Clinesmith indicating that he did not like Trump or his policies. The findings led Mueller to remove Strzok and Clinesmith from the special counsel team.

But as he also did in his report on the Clinton email investigation, Horowitz said that while these text messages demonstrated bad judgment and cast a cloud over the bureau, he found no evidence that any of the actions they took with the investigation stemmed from their personal political views.