Trump’s special counsel objects to FBI investigations into Russia

Four years ago, then-US President Donald Trump hired a special investigator to re-examine an FBI report. The report was about the US federal police investigation into Russia surrounding Trump’s campaign team in 2016. John Durham, the special counsel, was asked to check whether the FBI’s investigation had been conducted properly at the time. After years of work, Durham presented its final report on Monday – and criticizes the work of the federal police.

The more than 300-page report criticized that “the speed and manner” with which the FBI opened the investigation reflects “a marked departure from the manner” with which similar cases have been handled in the past be. Durham also points out that investigators relied on “unconfirmed intelligence information.”

He cites the investigation of Democrat Hillary Clinton as an example of how this case was handled differently. Individual FBI officials had “strong hostile feelings toward Trump,” Durham said.

The background to the FBI investigation was Moscow’s suspected influence on the 2016 presidential election campaign. For several years there were investigations into whether Trump’s campaign camp made secret agreements with representatives of Russia at the time and whether Trump was obstructing the judicial investigation. Trump had always described the investigations as a “witch hunt”. His election campaign at the time was itself the target of illegal surveillance.

However, a report by the US Department of Justice’s internal regulator in December 2019 came to a different conclusion than Durham now. No evidence was found that the July 2016 investigation had been launched on the basis of political bias. However, the report also acknowledged the FBI’s serious mistakes: for example, requests for surveillance as part of the investigations had shown significant deficiencies.

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