IG Horowitz Ready to Exonerate RussiaGate Plotters After Over 1 Year Of Stalling, Reports Suggest

Attorney general disputes inspector general's finding that FBI was justified in opening probe of Trump's 2016 campaign https://t.co/2QVGWxWh7J

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 3, 2019

Attorney General William Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the prelude to a major fissure within federal law enforcement on the controversial question of investigating a presidential campaign.

Barr has not been swayed by Horowitz’s rationale for concluding that the FBI had sufficient basis to open an investigation on July 31, 2016, these people said.

[...] It's not yet clear how Barr plans to make his objection to Horowitz's conclusion known. The inspector general report, currently in draft form, is being finalized after input from various witnesses and offices that were scrutinized by the inspector general. Barr or a senior Justice Department official could submit a formal letter as part of that process, which would then be included in the final report. It is standard practice for every inspector general report to include a written response from the department. Barr could forgo a written rebuttal on that specific point and just publicly state his concerns.

[...] The attorney general has privately contended that Horowitz does not have enough information to reach the conclusion that the FBI had enough details in hand at the time to justify opening such a probe. He argues that other U.S. agencies, such as the CIA, may hold significant information that could alter Horowitz's conclusion on that point, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Barr has also praised the inspector general's overall work on the matter, according to one person familiar with the matter. The inspector general operates independently of Justice Department leadership, so Barr cannot order Horowitz to change his findings.

People familiar with the draft language of Horowitz's report said while it is critical of some FBI employees, and found some systemic problems in surveillance procedures, it overall does not agree with Trump's charge that the investigation was a "witch hunt" or a politically motivated attack on him first as a candidate and then as president.

Instead, the draft report found that the investigation was opened on a solid legal and factual footing, these people said.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed Attorney General William Barr was misquoted in a news report stating that the Justice Department chief disagreed with a key finding in his agency's watchdog review of the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign.

"I think he was quoted incorrectly. I do believe that because I'm hearing the [inspector general's] report is very powerful," Trump told reporters at the meeting of NATO leaders in London. "But I'm hearing that by reading lots of different things, not from inside information. It's really from outside information. I think all we have to do is wait."

[...] While Trump speculated that Barr has "perhaps" read the report detailing inspector general Michael Horowitz's findings -- which has not yet been made public and is expected to be released in the coming days -- the president insisted he had not yet seen the highly anticipated document himself.

Trump purported to have heard that "there's a lot of devastating things" in the report, and acknowledged that it "would be a little disappointing" if the Post's story on the inspector general's findings proves accurate. But he stressed that "it was just ... one aspect of" Horowitz's finished product.

"We'll see what happens. We'll see," Trump concluded. "It's coming out in a few days. I hear it's devastating. But we'll soon find out."