周一，华盛顿沼泽(以及更远的地方)的游击队员将得到他们渴望已久的东西。最终，备受炒作、拖延已久的司法部监察长关于FISA可能被滥用的报告——联邦调查局获得监视美国公民卡特·佩吉的许可的过程——将最终公布。曾参与唐纳德·特朗普的总统竞选。
对共和党人来说，所谓的霍洛维茨报告(IG是迈克尔·霍罗威兹，奥巴马任命的知名人士)是反击的第一步，他们认为这是一个由奥巴马时代的情报人员和联邦调查局官员策划的阴险阴谋，目的是将特朗普塑造成一个与弗拉基米尔普京“勾结”窃取2016年大选的俄罗斯骗子。
他们希望报告中有足够的确凿细节来导致多重刑事移交。福克斯新闻每晚都在煽动他们的愿望清单:看到前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米·青蛙走出他可爱的弗吉尼亚州麦克林的家。
前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米在2018年12月7日于DC华盛顿国会山雷伯恩大厦向众议院司法、监督和政府改革委员会作证后，被记者包围。
对民主党人来说，这份报告的发布和霍洛维茨预计12月11日在参议院司法委员会的证词带来的恐惧多于希望。这份报告可能会扰乱他们在众议院撰写的弹劾陈述。
它可能包含一些关于“交叉火力飓风行动”起源的不方便的事实，联邦调查局对特朗普的调查就是这样命名的。事实上，那些看过报告部分内容的人——任何接受霍洛维茨采访的人都可以审查报告中与他们有关的部分是否真实准确——都试图以战略漏洞站在故事的前面。
这华盛顿邮报还有纽约时报据说一名“低级”司法部律师“修改”了提交给FISA(外国情报监视法)法院的文件。还有报道称，根据该报道，美国联邦调查局没有提醒FISA法官，前军情六处官员克里斯托弗·斯蒂尔(特朗普涉嫌俄罗斯犯罪的臭名昭著的“档案”的作者)提供的一些信息没有独立核实斯蒂尔的一些说法。
但泄密者表示，总体而言，该报告不会发现针对特朗普的“偏见”，并进一步声称“调查是在坚实的法律和事实基础上展开的”华盛顿邮报。
霍洛维茨的职责是审查联邦调查局做出决定的过程，然后寻求许可监视一名参与政治活动的美国公民。巴尔在去年春天的一次采访中称这一步“很重要”监视一名美国公民，窃听他的电话，搜遍他过去的电子邮件，是一项非同寻常的措施；正如司法部情报办公室负责审查FISA申请的前律师弗朗西·哈克斯所说，“这是一个繁重的过程，远不如从法官那里获得搜查令容易。”
2019年12月4日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在伦敦东北部沃特福德举行的北约峰会上发表讲话。特朗普因涉嫌对乌克兰的不当行为而面临弹劾。尼古拉斯·卡姆/法新社通过盖蒂图像
在进行这项调查时，司法部的指导方针说只有DOJ的雇员必须参加霍洛维茨和他的员工的面试。任何其他人，包括前DOJ官员或其他情报机构的官员，都可以被要求合作。但他们不必这么做。在这种情况下，科米会见了霍洛维茨，中央情报局局长吉娜哈斯佩尔和前国家情报局局长丹科茨。
霍洛维茨可以根据他的调查将罪犯移交给DOJ。据称篡改文件的律师很可能会被转介接受可能的起诉。可能还有其他人吗？两名司法部高级官员拒绝对此可能性置评。
霍洛维茨报告的反响将会在DOJ总部所称的“大法官”以及联邦调查局深深感受到。消息人士称，普遍预期该报告将会严厉批评。哈克斯说，将未经核实的斯蒂尔档案作为FISA申请程序的一部分，“太可怕了”Comey曾公开表示，标准做法只是在法庭上证明消息来源先前的可信度。联邦调查局的辩护律师说，因为克里斯托弗·斯蒂尔过去提供了有用的信息，所以档案还可以。
五位现任和前任DOJ官员认为，这种说法的问题在于它是错误的。首先，在这种情况下，斯蒂尔只是一个信使，传递俄罗斯消息来源提供的信息。他们的可信度需要评估。联邦调查局这么做了吗？到什么程度？他们发现了什么？霍洛维茨会告诉我们，来自现任和前任DOJ官员的暗示表明，这一消息对负责俄罗斯调查的科米公司不利。“这是旨在保护美国公民的程序的彻底崩溃，”哈克斯说。
这是如何或为什么发生的将是霍洛维茨发现的核心。共和党怀疑有恶意。但是，如果报告的结论是《邮报》报道的那样，有足够的“法律依据”来寻求监视令，那么最有趣和最重要的方面将是:除了卷宗之外，它会说法律依据是什么吗？因为这仍然是一个谜——可以说是整个俄罗斯之门传奇的核心之谜。
另外一个关键问题大概是霍洛维茨要解决的:他的调查是如何得出这个结论的？据说司法部长威廉·巴尔怀疑霍洛维茨有足够的信息来断言俄罗斯的调查有法律依据。他已责成美国律师约翰·达勒姆调查FISA进程之外的俄罗斯调查的起源，包括中央情报局和其他外国情报机构在向联邦调查局提供信息方面可能发挥的作用。
达勒姆现在是一个刑事调查，这意味着他可以召集大陪审团并寻求起诉(这是监察长不能做到的)。这就是为什么几名现任和前任中情局官员已经“请了律师”。巴尔怀疑中情局和外国情报机构在开发导致FISA请求的信息方面发挥了关键作用。这是达勒姆正在调查的事情。
在得出他报告的结论时，霍洛维茨是在回答调查局从其他来源获得的情报摘要吗？他显示出原始的智慧了吗？巴尔对他报道的结论持怀疑态度是对的吗？霍洛维茨报告的发布将至少回答其中一些问题。然后轮到达勒姆去探查了。
INSPECTOR GENERAL HOROWITZ'S REPORT LIKELY TO DAMAGE COMEY, FRUSTRATE TRUMP, PRESSURE BARR'S HANDPICKED SUCCESSOR
On Monday, the partisans in the swamp of Washington (and beyond) will get something they have been pining for. At last, the much-hyped, long-delayed Department of Justice Inspector General's report on possible FISA abuse--the process by which the FBI got permission to surveil an American citizen, Carter Page, once affiliated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign--will finally be released.
To Republicans, the so-called Horowitz report (the IG is Michael Horowitz, a well-regarded Obama appointee) is the first step in the counteroffensive against what they believe was a sinister plot, hatched by Obama-era intelligence and FBI officials, to frame Trump as a Russian dupe who "colluded" with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.
They hope there will be sufficient damning detail in the report to lead to multiple criminal referrals. At the top of their wish list, fanned nightly on Fox News: the sight of former FBI director James Comey frog marched out of his lovely McLean, Va., home.
ormer Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey is surrounded by reporters after testifying to the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill December 07, 2018 in Washington, DC.
For Democrats, there is more fear than hope attached to the report's release and Horowitz's expected December 11 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report could disrupt the impeachment narrative they are composing in the House of Representatives.
It may contain a few inconvenient facts about the origins of "Operation Crossfire Hurricane," as the FBI probe into Trump was named. Indeed, those who have seen parts of the report--anyone Horowitz interviewed gets to review for factual accuracy the parts of it dealing with them--have tried to get out in front of the story with strategic leaks.
The Washington Post and the New York Times have reported that a "low level" Justice Department attorney is said to have "altered" a document submitted to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court. It's also been reported that, according to the report, the FBI did not alert the FISA judge that some of the information supplied by former MI6 official Christopher Steele (author of the notorious "dossier" on Trump's alleged Russia transgressions) didn't independently verify some of Steele's claims.
But overall, the leakers say, the report will find no "bias" against Trump, and further will claim that "the investigation was opened on a solid legal and factual footing," according to the Washington Post.
Horowitz's remit was to review the process by which the FBI decided and then proceeded to seek permission to surveil an American citizen affiliated with a political campaign. Barr, in an interview last spring, called that step "a big deal." To undertake surveillance of a U.S. citizen, to tap his phone and rifle through his past e-mails, is an extraordinary measure; as Francey Hakes, a former attorney in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence, responsible for vetting FISA applications, says, "it is an onerous process, not nearly as easy as getting a search warrant from a judge."
US President Donald Trump speaks at the NATO summit in Watford, northeast of London on December 4, 2019. Trump is facing impeachment over his alleged misconduct towards Ukraine.
In pursuing this investigation, Justice Department guidelines say only DOJ employees must sit for interviews with Horowitz and his staff. Anyone else, including former DOJ officials or officials from other intelligence agencies, can be asked to cooperate. But they don't have to do so. In this case, Comey met with Horowitz, as did CIA Director GIna Haspel, and former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Horowitz can make criminal referrals to the DOJ based on his investigation. And It is likely that the attorney who allegedly altered a document will be referred for possible prosecution. Might there be others? Two senior Justice Department officials declined to comment on the possibility.
The reverberations of the Horowitz report will be deeply felt at "main Justice," as DOJ headquarters is called, as well as at the FBI. The widespread expectation is that the report will be scathing, sources said. The use of the unverified Steele dossier as part of the FISA application process, says Hakes, "is terrifying." Comey has said publicly that standard practice was simply to vouch before the court as to a source's prior credibility. Since Christopher Steele had provided useful information in the past, the argument goes, the dossier was therefore A-OK, the FBI's defenders have said.
The problem with that assertion, according to five current and former DOJ officials, is that it's false. First, in this case, Steele was merely a messenger, delivering information provided by sources in Russia. They are the ones whose credibility needs to be assessed. Did the FBI do that? To what extent? And what did they find? Horowitz will tell us, and hints from current and former DOJ officials suggest the news will not be good for Comey & Co, who ran the Russia investigation. "It was a complete breakdown of the processes designed to protect American citizens," says Hakes.
How or why that happened will be central to Horowitz's findings. The GOP suspects malevolent intent. But if the report concludes as the Post reported, that there was a sufficient "legal basis" for the surveillance warrant to be sought, then the most interesting and important aspect will be this: will it say what the legal basis was, beyond the dossier? Because that remains a mystery--arguably the central mystery of the entire Russia-gate saga.
And there is another key question that presumably Horowitz will address: how did his investigation lead to that conclusion? Attorney General William Barr is said to be skeptical that Horowitz had enough information on which to assert that there was a legal predicate for the Russia investigation. He has tasked U.S. attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia probe beyond the FISA process, including the role the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies may have played in providing information that found its way to the FBI.
Durham's is now a criminal investigation, meaning he can convene grand juries and seek indictments (something an inspector general cannot). This is why several current and former CIA officials have already "lawyered up," as the phrase goes. Barr suspects the CIA and foreign intelligence services played a key role in developing information that led to the FISA requests. That's something that Durham is looking into.
In drawing his reported conclusion, is Horowitz replying on summaries of the intelligence the Bureau received from other sources? Was he shown the raw intelligence? Is Barr right to be skeptical of his reported conclusion? The release of the Horowitz report will answer at least some of those questions. And then it will be Durham's turn to probe.
