FBI Crossfire Hurricane Investigators Had Clear ‘Personal Bias,’ Ignored ‘Red Flags,’ Durham Testifies

Appearing before the House Judiciary committee on Wednesday, Special Counsel John Durham defended his probe into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, asserting he found “troubling violations of law and policy” as well as bias among key officials.

The report was published in mid-May and determined that the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia was improperly opened. Durham also found several examples of the agency mishandling the investigation once it was opened. The special counsel added that in the intervening years, FBI employees have come to him and apologized for the agency’s conduct.

“I have had any number of FBI agents who I’ve worked with over the years — some of them retired, some of them still in place — who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken. I take that seriously. These are good, hardworking people — the majority of the FBI,” Durham explained.

Durham said the American people ought to pay attention to his report because of the violations of civil liberties. While the agency still serves vital national-security interests, said Durham, “responsibility for the failures and transgressions here rest with the people who committed them here.”

“There were some individuals who clearly expressed a personal bias,” Durham said to Representative Mike Johnson (R., La.), adding that he’ll leave it to others and the facts to determine whether the bias against Trump was also political in addition to being personal.

Representative Russell Fry (R., S.C.) asked Durham whether key FBI leaders were predisposed to go after candidate Trump and whether this predisposition also affected the personnel assigned to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Durham replied in the affirmative.

According to the special counsel, “confirmation bias as alluded to has to do with the human tendency to accept things we already think are true and to reject anything else. In this instance, there are any number of significant red flags that were raised that were simply ignored.”

“If there was evidence inconsistent with the narrative, they didn’t pay attention to it, they didn’t explore it, they didn’t take the logical investigative steps that should have been taken,” Durham explained.

“The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically-funded and uncorroborated opposition research such as the Steele Dossier,” explained Durham. “It did so even after the president of the United States, the FBI and CIA directors and others received briefings about intelligence suggesting there was a Clinton campaign plan underway to stir up a scandal tying Trump to Russia.”

This intelligence regarding the Clinton campaign was put into a referral memorandum addressed to then-FBI director James Comey and agent Peter Strzok. However, the information was not shared with the lawyers preparing the FISA application to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page or even the agents working the Crossfire Hurricane case.

The committee’s chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) asked Durham how “Supervisory Agent No. 1” responded to being confronted with this fact.

“We interviewed the first supervisor of the Crossfire investigation — the operational person — we showed him the intelligence information. He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional, got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway and came back,” explained Durham, adding that “the information was kept from him.”

Durham reiterated that the FBI did not seek to resolve espionage concerns regarding Igor Danchenko, a subsource of the Steele Dossier, before the agency signed him up as a paid informant. The special counsel said the FBI also inexplicably decided not to investigate Charles Dolan, an associate of Danchenko who also had ties with the Clintons.

According to Durham, “even Christopher Steele identified Dolan as someone who had information.”

The special counsel explained there were agents on the case who wanted to talk to Dolan. When “Analyst No. 1” pushed strongly for the Crossfire Hurricane team to talk to Dolan, “she was assigned to a different project,” said Durham. She would go on to put her treatment on paper.

In Jordan’s view, the reforms that have been instituted don’t go far enough and are still not being respected. Jordan promised to fundamentally change the FISA process and use the appropriations process against the FBI, as he has also argued in the past.

Regarding the FISA warrant the FBI attained against Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Durham explained the FBI improperly opened a full counterintelligence investigation instead of first assessing suspicions about George Papadopoulos or opening a preliminary investigation, as first prescribed by Gerald Ford’s Attorney General Edward Levi. Durham also found troubling that intelligence had been altered by FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith and that corroboration was sought after the warrant was obtained.

Democrats centered their questioning on the prosecutions Durham has launched and the amount the investigation cost. One member, Representative Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.), claimed that Durham’s reputation had been damaged through his association with Trump, having been appointed by him as a U.S. attorney. “[Trump] is damaged goods.  There’s no good dealing with him so you will end up on the bottom of a pyre,” Cohen said.

The special counsel explained earlier the investigation had been conducted by career prosecutors in good faith. He also asserted that the report does not suggest Russian election interference was not a legitimate concern.

Durham responded directly to Cohen, saying: “My concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect, and my family, and my Lord, and I’m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them, sir.”