It looks like we’ll get to see the Inspector General FISA report pretty soon, as AG Barr is saying its release is imminent:
DC EXAMINER – Attorney General William Barr said a release is “imminent” for the Justice Department inspector general’s report on alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses.
The product of a year-and-a-half-long investigation, Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings are poised to create a new rift between Republicans and Democrats in their clash over the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“It’s been reported and it’s my understanding that it is imminent,” Barr told reporters Wednesday in Memphis, Tennessee. “A number of people who were mentioned in the report are having an opportunity right now to comment on how they’re quoted in the report. And after that process is over, which should be very short, the report will be issued. That’s what the inspector general himself suggests.”
President Trump’s GOP allies assert Horowitz’s report will show top Justice Department and FBI officials misled the FISA court by using an unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele to obtain warrants to electronically monitor onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Democrats, as well as current and former FBI officials, dismissed allegations of wrongdoing and have raised concerns that information about U.S. intelligence gathering could be weaponized to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller.
Touting Horowitz as a “fiercely independent” and “superb” investigator who “conducted this particular investigation in the most professional way,” Barr said he expects his report to be “a credit to the department.”
If the report is devastating for Democrats, the MSM will probably sideline it in favor of Schiff’s phony impeachment hearings. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if that was part of the strategy of these hearings.
What will be unavoidable will be the criminal referrals that will be made by the IG. I just hope Barr doesn’t go soft and take a pass on them. That would be disappointing.