DOJ happy with IG’s findings on surveillance
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department late Monday lauded an upcoming report by the agency’s inspector general that is expected to conclude that the FBI’s surveillance of a Trump campaign aide was legal.
“The inspector general’s investigation is a credit to the Department of Justice,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec of the report, which is set for release Dec. 9. “His excellent work has uncovered significant information that the American people will soon be able to read.”
Her statement comes in the wake of a Monday night report that Attorney General William Barr has expressed disagreement with a key finding by Inspector General Michael Horowitz: that the FBI had sufficient basis to launch an investigation into members of the Trump campaign.
The Justice Department statement did not refer to that report by The Washington Post, but it urged the American people to “draw their own conclusions.”
“Rather than speculating, people should read the report for themselves next week, watch the inspector general’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and draw their own conclusions,” Kupec said in the written statement.
Horowitz is scheduled to testify about the report’s findings before the Senate panel on Dec. 11.
President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have trumpeted the report, with the president claiming it would prove the FBI abused its authority. The report is not expected to support his claim.
The president has repeatedly asserted that the inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was a “witch hunt” orchestrated by political enemies. As the report’s release has drawn near, Trump has stepped up the rhetoric. In an interview on “Fox and Friends” last week, he accused the FBI of “spying on my campaign.”
Horowitz’s report will be made public amid an impeachment inquiry into allegations that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure its government to open an investigation into the family of rival and former Vice President Joe Biden.