WASHINGTON (CN) — Partisan tensions flared Wednesday morning as lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee grilled the lead investigator in a probe of the Justice Department's motivations in investigating former President Donald Trump.
The mood was icy on the committee as it convened to examine a May report from special counsel John Durham, whom the Trump administration tapped in 2019 to investigate what had begun as a Justice Department probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Durham's ensuing report, at 300 pages, leveled scathing criticisms at the federal investigation, and particularly at the FBI, which the special counsel said had opened its investigation into then-candidate Trump based on shaky evidence and neglected to interview key witnesses during the probe.
Just one criminal probation sentence came out of the Durham probe. Two other defendants charged by the special counsel were acquitted.
Wednesday's hearing of the judiciary panel, which followed a closed-door meeting between Durham and lawmakers, came days after former President Trump was arraigned on federal charges related to his handling of classified documents. House Republicans, who have long held that the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump was politically motivated, sought to tie the former president’s indictment to Durham’s report.
“It all started with Crossfire Hurricane,” said Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, referencing the codename of the FBI investigation eventually taken up by another special counsel, Robert Mueller. “Mr. Durham has told us how wrong that was. Now, we have an indictment of a former president … by his opponent’s Justice Department.”
Durham’s probe demonstrates that the FBI “failed its fundamental mission of adherence to the rule of law,” added Jordan, who chairs the judiciary panel.
Although Republicans held up the investigation as proof positive of political bias against Trump, Durham was more measured in his testimony, sticking mainly to the content of his report and attempting to stake out a position of political neutrality.
“I want to emphasize in the strongest terms possible that my colleagues and I carried out our work in good faith, with integrity and in the spirit of following the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor,” Durham told lawmakers. “At no time and in no sense did we act with a purpose to further a partisan political lens, and to the extent that somebody suggests otherwise, that’s simply untrue and offensive.”
The special counsel outlined some of the concerns his report unearthed, including what he said was a willingness among FBI leadership to accept as evidence uncorroborated opposition research on the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia, such as the dossier of information provided by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Steele's dossier served as the FBI's basis in applying for federal surveillance warrants, Durham said, “knowing that it was likely material originating from a political campaign and political opponent.”
The special counsel later acknowledged that the FBI should not have outright ignored information supporting Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“The FBI, when they receive information, disinformation, other information, they almost always have some obligation to assess that information,” Durham said. “That’s what the assessment is about.”
Republican lawmakers repeatedly pressed Durham on what they framed as political bias or confirmation bias among FBI investigators, arguing that they had conducted their probe based on a foregone conclusion of former President Trump’s guilt. While the special counsel noted that some federal investigators had exhibited bias, he refused to elaborate.
“There are some individuals who clearly expressed a personal bias,” Durham said, “but it’s difficult to get into somebody else’s head. I’ll leave it to others and the facts that are set out in the report as to whether that’s political bias or personal bias.”
Durham appeared to break from some Republican criticism of the Justice Department, pointing out that his report should not serve to diminish the threat posed by Russian election meddling or suggest that the FBI is no longer an important law enforcement or national security institution.
“Rather, responsibility for the failures and transgressions that occurred here rest with the people who committed them," Durham argued, "or allowed them to occur.”
Despite the special counsel’s effort at neutrality, some committee Democrats sought to discredit Durham, painting him as a political operative selected by the Trump administration to pour cold water on the Russia investigation.
“From the day that special counsel Mueller began his work, Donald Trump and his political allies have railed against an imagined conspiracy against the former president,” said New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, the judiciary panel’s ranking member. “After four years, thousands of employee hours and more than $6.5 million in taxpayer dollars, special counsel Durham failed to uncover any wrongdoing.”
California Representative Adam Schiff took the special counsel to task for his response to a separate review conducted in 2019 by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which found that there had been no political bias in its investigation of Russian election interference. Durham’s team poked holes in the inspector general’s conclusion — a move that Schiff contended violated Justice Department policy.
Durham contended that, if he had run afoul of any department policy, he wasn’t aware at the time. “If I did, then I did,” he told Schiff, “but I was not aware that I was violating some policy.”
Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal pointed out that Durham’s report stopped short of making any policy recommendations for the Justice Department. “Most of your report, Mr. Durham, is a rehashing of old news, including process-related concerns that the FBI had already addressed,” she told the special counsel.
Durham, meanwhile, told lawmakers that he was encouraged by what he said were steps taken by the FBI to reform its investigative process, but that those should only serve as a start.
“Anybody who actually reads the report … would find that the problems identified in the report are not susceptible to overnight fixes,” the special counsel said. “They cannot be addressed solely by enhancing training or additional policy requirements. Rather, what is required is accountability — both in terms of the standards to which law enforcement personnel hold themselves and in the consequences they face for violating laws and policies of relevance.”
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