Could an independent watchdog's FBI report banish Trump's conspiracy theories? No chance

If Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz hoped his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee would enable him to put an end to Republican claims that the entire FBI investigation into potential ties between President Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia's efforts to swing the 2016 election his way was politically motivated, the opening statement delivered by Chairman Lindsey Graham would have disabused him of that notion almost immediately.

Mr Horowitz was on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to present the results of his long-running investigation into, among other things, whether FBI officials' decision to open the initial counterintelligence investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was influenced by those officials' political views.

Up to the moment of its release on Monday, numerous Trumpworld figures had spoken of Mr Horowitz's 467-page opus in reverent tones, with Mr Trump himself being one of those who promised that the results of the inspector general's report would validate his claims that more than two years of investigations into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia were a baseless "witch hunt" conducted by rabid partisans, including former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Peter Stzrok and ex-FBI attorney Lisa Page.

Mr Strzok and Ms Page have become two bêtes noires to Mr Trump and his followers because the pair exchanged text messages in which they expressed disdain for the president, who was then a candidate for office. The president has frequently claimed that the two former FBI officials started the investigation as part of an "insurance policy" against his winning the White House.

But rather than validate Mr Trump's accusations, Mr Horowitz's report rejected the idea that anyone's political bias played a role in the FBI's decision to open an investigation into the Trump campaign. Moreover, it ascribes the decision to open the investigation to Strzok's then-supervisor, FBI Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director William Priestap.

"We concluded that Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision," Mr Horowitz wrote, though he also noted that his team found irregularities in paperwork filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain authorisation to surveil a onetime Trump associate, Carter Page.

Mr Graham did not appear to accept Mr Horowitz's finding that the investigation into the Trump campaign was "properly predicated," nor his characterization of "irregularities" in the process used to obtain the FISA warrant on Mr Page.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham brandishes a copy of the Steele dossier as he questions Michael Horowitz, Justice Department Inspector General, over his report into the conduct of the FBI in investigating potential links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia (Getty Images)

"What has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy over time to defraud the FISA court, to illegally surveil an American citizen, and keep an operation open again a sitting president of the United States, violating every norm known to the rule of law," Mr Graham said while delivering a theatrical, rambling 45-minute opening statement that seemed more for the consumption of cable news viewers than anything else (with Mr Trump's 2020 campaign blasting CNN for not covering the statement live).

He described what Mr Horowitz's team had discovered as an "abuse of power I never believed would actually exist in 2019 ... as if J Edgar Hoover had come back to life".

"These aren't a few irregularities – these are a few bad people – they couldn't believe Trump won, didn't want to him to win, and when he won they couldn't tolerate it," Mr Graham continued before moving into a detailed description of how former MI6 agent Christopher Steele became involved in the investigation.

Mr Graham noted that one of the sources for Mr Steele's infamous "dossier" later disavowed the material he'd delivered to the ex-spy before positing that perhaps the reason FBI officials had endeavoured to keep the probe into the Trump campaign active was "because they were on a mission – not to protect Trump, but to protect all of us from Trump – protect all of us smelly people from Donald Trump".

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For his part, Mr Horowitz stressed that the decision to open the investigation had been proper.

"While the information in the FBI's possession at the time was limited, in light of the low threshold established by the Department [of Justice] and FBI predication policy, we found that Crossfire Hurricane [the investigation's code name] was opened for an authorised investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication."

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