News trickled out late last week that the Department of Justice’s long-awaited Inspector General’s report would be a grab bag of goodies for both sides in the long war between supporters and critics of President Donald Trump.
The report, directed by straight-shooter IG Michael Horowitz, examined the legal roots of the Trump-Russia investigation, first by the FBI and then by special counsel Robert Mueller (after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017).
The IG report isn’t officially due out until Dec. 9, but that didn’t stop congressional sources, who had seen a draft, from spinning away on both sides.
The report’s conclusions will be turned over to John Durham, U.S. attorney for Connecticut, who has been tagged by Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible criminal wrongdoing in the same arena. The report’s biggest shocker is that an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email used as a basis for an application to renew a FISA warrant giving agents permission to tap the phone of Trump campaign consultant Carter Page.
“Hello, here we go!” Trump tweeted.
The report also noted a host of procedural mistakes and screwups along the way, failure to follow proper legal procedures in the complicated business of bringing criminal charges against someone.
But it concluded that the compromised email didn’t materially affect the FBI affidavit used to secure judicial authorization for the wiretap.
Even more significantly, it absolved Comey and senior FBI leadership of anti-Trump bias, which Trump argued had superseded normal legal procedure in opening a criminal investigation. The predicate for the investigation was legitimate, the report stated.
The report also is said to tie up a few conspiracy-theory loose ends, including the mysterious Joseph Mifsud. Durham and Barr reportedly traveled to Italy to track down Mifsud, who was the source of reports that Russia had hacked various Democratic-related email accounts and had damaging information on Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. The Trump camp circulated the rumor that Mifsud was on the FBI payroll, and spread the report to hurt Trump. But the IG report reportedly concluded Mifsud was not an FBI informant.
The full report is not complete, and Durham’s investigation is not done. Durham conceivably could still land something major. But based on what’s known about the Justice Department IG report so far, it seems more and more likely that Durham will reel in a bottom-feeding flounder rather than a marlin. Don’t be too surprised to see him back full-time in New Haven sometime soon.
Himes’ role to be determined
If, as seems likely, the House approves impeachment articles against Trump, the next stop is the U.S. Senate for a constitutionally mandated trial. In such a proceeding, Chief Justice John Roberts will preside, and the 100 senators will serve as jurors.
The prosecution will be a team of “managers” — leadership of the House committee that pursued the impeachment articles in the first place. One likely participant? U.S. Rep. Jim Himes.
Has his role on the management team been discussed? Did he get an offer?
“I have no idea,” the normally loquacious Himes answered, perhaps not wanting to jinx the outcome.
In two weeks of hearings before the House intelligence committee, Himes certainly threw his share of bouquets at the witnesses and lobbed a fair number of grenades at Republicans.
As the No. 2 Democrat on the panel, he’s a cinch for a manager position, right? “I don’t know the answer,” he said. “I assume it would be a decision the speaker (yes, Nancy Pelosi) would make.”
If offered, would he accept? “It would be an interesting role,” he answered. “I would consider it.”
So for now, nice work if he can get it. Pretty good assignment for a guy who never went to law school.
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