The former special counsel issued a lengthy report last month accusing the FBI of acting negligently in opening the Trump-Russia investigation based on insufficient information.
Former special counsel John Durham will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about his lengthy report that criticized the FBI for its investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 election.
Durham’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee comes after he spoke with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors for more than two and a half hours Tuesday. Durham was “very forthcoming” with the panel, saying that “he has concerns, that there are reforms that need to go into place and that there are still issues that need to be addressed,” Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, the committee’s chair, told reporters after Durham’s testimony.
“I think that we were able to get some information that would be very helpful for us and the work that we have to do on both the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] renewal, FISA reforms and also reform issues with the FBI,” he said.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, agreed with Turner’s assessment of Durham’s testimony. He told reporters “we have to learn from the mistakes made in these investigations to make sure that Americans can have confidence in the prosecutorial power of the federal government and in their elections.”
Durham was tapped by former Attorney General William Barr to lead a probe into the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — an investigation Barr had been highly critical of.
Durham last month released a 300-page report after completing his four-year investigation into the Trump-Russia probe. He criticized the FBI at length in the report, accusing the agency of acting negligently by opening the investigation based on vague and insufficient information, but did not provide any new evidence that anyone in the government had acted unlawfully.
“The [Justice] Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to law,” the conclusion section of Durham’s report says. “Senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons or entities.”
Durham’s conclusions were previously disputed in 2019 by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which found that despite a series of mistakes by the FBI, the decision to open the probe was justified and not tainted by political bias or improper motivation.
In response to Durham’s report, the FBI said it had already addressed the missteps he had identified.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” it said in a statement.
One guilty plea was made during Durham’s investigation that led to a probation charge, but he fell short of convicting defendants in two trials.
Trump’s allies in Congress, including Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have seized on Durham’s report to make the argument that the Russia probe and its ties to the former president were politically motivated.