Former DOJ Official: Durham’s Reaction to IG Report Means ‘he’s got the goods on somebody’
published on CVine, on December 10, 2019
Former Justice Department official Ian Prior said on Tuesday that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation would potentially unveil evidence of surveillance abuse against President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign team.
“I think you’re going to see some indictments,” Prior said on “Fox & Friends,” referring to Durham as “non-partisan” and a “serious prosecutor.”
US ATTORNEY DURHAM OBJECTS TO IG FINDINGS ON RUSSIA PROBE ORIGINS IN STUNNING STATEMENT
In the hours after Durham announced he did not “agree” with key findings by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, speculation swirled over what he has uncovered in his own ongoing review into potential surveillance abuses against President Trump’s team.
Durham’s inquiry has had a broader scope than Horowitz’s, including a focus on foreign actors as well as the CIA, while Horowitz’s concentrated on the Department of Justice and FBI.
Prior said that, unlike Horowitz, Durham is not limited in scope to the existing DOJ or FBI officials. He said the striking statement by Durham Monday means “he’s got the goods on somebody.”
“Durham can subpoena former employees, former DOJ members; Durham can go and look at what the CIA was doing, what the [National Security Council] was doing, what foreign countries were doing. Durham’s scope is so much bigger,” Prior said.
In his report released Monday, Horowitz said his investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding efforts to launch the 2016 probe and to seek a highly controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early months of the investigation. Still, it found that there were “significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised.”
FISA REPORT: DOJ WATCHDOG RELEASES FINDINGS ON RUSSIA PROBE SURVEILLANCE
As Horowitz conducted his review of DOJ actions during the Russia probe, Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, conducted a wider inquiry into alleged misconduct and improper government surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
Fox News reported in October that Durham’s ongoing probe has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation.
Monday’s FISA report had long been expected. Horowitz in September submitted a draft to Attorney General William Barr and the FBI so they could identify any classified information. But it had not been publicly released until now.
Prior called the FBI’s overall handling of the Trump-Russia probe a “big problem for America.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
