Sen. John Kennedy Questions DOJ Inspector Michael Horowitz About His Report Outlining FBI's Misuse Of FISA Report

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) questioned Michael Horowitz, the inspector general of the Department of Justice, today about his report outlining misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  Horowitz conducted an investigation into how and why the FBI investigated the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. 

During his exchange with Horowitz, Kennedy said that even though he was not quite finished reading the complex report--after reading roughly 15%, it made him want to heave, and after reading about 25%, Kennedy said he thought he had dropped acid--the report was so surreal. 

The report revealed some 17 oddities, mistakes, and omissions by the hand-selected FBI team responsible for FISA investigation. 

The following is a portion of the exchange between Sen. Kennedy and Inspector General Horowitz:

Kennedy: “Let’s talk about the people involved in the initial FISA application and the renewals. These are experienced people, right?”

Horowitz: “In this case, these were experienced people.”

Kennedy:  “Many of them had professional degrees, including but not limited to, law degrees, right?”

Horowitz: “I actually don’t know what all their degrees were.”

Kennedy: “They knew the law?”

Horowitz: “They should have not only known the law; they should have known every single policy they had to deal with here.”

Kennedy: “I mean they were hand-picked by Mr. McCabe right?”

Horowitz: “They were hand-picked.”

Kennedy: “This wasn’t their first rodeo.”

Horowitz: “It certainly wasn’t with maybe an exception or two towards the end of relatively new agents coming on board.  But that should not have been an excuse, just to be clear.”

Kennedy:  “It just seems to me that it has to be one of two things: incompetence or intentional conduct.”

Horowitz:  “I agree.  It’s either sheer incompetence or intentionality or something in between.”

Kennedy: “So which do you think it is?

Horowitz:  “… I think it’s fair for people to sit there and look at all of these 17 events and wonder how it could be purely incompetence.”  

Senator Kennedy told Inspector Horowitz that despite the unflattering FBI mistakes, he did a good job with the report and that its findings are not a reflection on him.

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