On Wednesday, former Special Counsel John Durham finally testified before Congress regarding the findings of his investigation into the origins of the “Russian collusion” hoax against President Donald Trump.
As reported by Fox News, Durham said during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI failed to “sufficiently scrutinize information it received” regarding the claims of “collusion” between then-candidate Trump and the Russian government in 2016, and ultimately did not “apply the same standards to allegations it received about the Clinton and Trump campaigns.”
“The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research, such as the Steele dossier,” said Durham. “The FBI relied on the dossier and FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) applications, knowing there was likely material originating from a political campaign or political opponent.”
The FBI, Durham continued, “did so even after the president of the United States, the FBI and CIA directors, and others received briefings about intelligence suggesting that there was a Clinton campaign plan underway to stir up a scandal tying Trump to Russia.”
When Durham showed the intelligence on the Clinton campaign’s plot against the Trump campaign to the original supervisor of the Crossfire Hurricane team formally designated by the FBI to investigate “Russian collusion,” the agent “indicated he had never seen it before.”
The agent, Joe Pientka, “immediately became emotional, got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, and came back,” Durham added. “The information was kept from him.”
Durham’s report, released earlier this year, ultimately concluded that the official FBI investigation against President Trump and his campaign, Operation Crossfire Hurricane, never should have been allowed to take place due to being based on faulty and politically-motivated intelligence.
“We found troubling violations of law and policy in the conduct of highly consequential investigations directed at members of a presidential campaign and ultimately, a presidential administration,” said Durham. “To me, it matters not whether it was a Republican campaign or a Democrat campaign. The law ought to apply to everybody in the same way.”