On Monday, Special Counsel Robert Durham released a report detailing the genesis of the FBI’s investigation into claims that former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia. The report concluded that the FBI and Department of Justice “did not and could not corroborate” the claims made in the now-disproven Steele Dossier.
According to Durham’s assessment, FBI agents violated the law that regulates domestic monitoring, the Foreign Intelligence Monitoring Act (FISA), during their investigation of Trump. During former President Trump’s successful campaign in 2016, the FBI used the Steele Dossier as evidence to obtain warrants under FISA to monitor communications by Carter Page and other allies of the Trump campaign.
After her opening monologue, MSNBC commentator Nicolle Wallace welcomed panelist Andrew Weissmann, who has previously criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation for not aggressively pursuing Trump. When discussing the Durham report, Weissman referred to it as “a big, fat nothing.”
Weismann said he would be willing to accept Durham’s findings if he thought they resulted from a “good faith” investigation. He said he would have supported John Durham’s probe of the FBI if he had simply been looking into ways to improve the agency’s procedures without inserting politics. No government organization would be perfect without more oversight. This report, he said, was an attempt to try and imply that there was something there when there was no “there there.”
According to Wallace, Durham’s report, which investigated whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, was founded on a “rabbit hole conspiracy.”
But, according to Durham, there were flaws in the probe due to confirmation bias and an eagerness to rely on statements from people connected to political opponents.
Frank Figliuzzi, an ex-FBI agent, and Weissman were among the panelists criticizing Durham and the report, saying they were founded on a “conspiracy.”
