Horowitz "Finding of No Bias"

Posted on: December 15, 2019 at 14:36:29 CT

Here is a quote from the Horowitz report describing the FBI motivation in the FISA applications. “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.”

Many are concluding that meant he concluded there was no bias. That is incorrect, as illustrated by Horowitz’s comments during the Senate hearing when he was being asked about this statement in his report: “That so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand- picked teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI, and that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command's management and supervision of the FISA process.”

This is Horowitz’s response to questioning by Senator Mike Lee on whether or not bias was a factor: “On the FISA side, we found, as you noted, a lack of documentary and testimonial evidence about intentionality, but we noted the lack of satisfactory explanations, and in fact, leave open the possibility, for the reasons you indicated, it is unclear what the motivations were. On the one hand, gross incompetence, negligence; on the other hand intentionality, and we’re in between—we weren’t in a position with the evidence we had, to make that conclusion, but we are not ruling it out.”