John Durham testified on the impact of bias on Crossfire Hurricane, contended there was no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and rejected calls to defund the FBI.
Durham, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee during his first public testimony on Wednesday, released his May report revealing the FBI had no proper basis for launching the 2016 election inquiry into unfounded collusion claims, which soon transformed into special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation.
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Durham’s report revealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wrongdoing related to the FBI's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited and Democratic-funded dossier to obtain flawed FISA surveillance against Trump campaign associate Carter Page during and after the 2016 election.
The Durham report also concluded that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign played an outsize role in pushing such collusion claims to the media and the FBI.
For hours on Wednesday, Durham defended his “sobering” report on wrongdoing committed during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, even as he was critiqued by Democrats and some Republicans.
Bias in the bureau
Durham said “bias” within the FBI posed a “national security” challenge, arguing that the Crossfire Hurricane team repeatedly expressed “confirmation bias” but declining to say whether some key FBI officials, such as fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok, had expressed clear “political bias” rather than just “personal” bias.
“Many of the most significant issues documented in the report that we have written — including those related to lack of investigative discipline, failure to take logical investigative steps, and bias — are relevant to national security interests that this committee and the American people are concerned about,” Durham testified on Wednesday. “If repeated and left unaddressed, these issues could result in significant national security risks and further erode the public’s faith and confidence in our justice system.”
Strzok authored the “opening electronic communication” for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation had “sufficient factual predication.” Then-Attorney General William Barr and Durham disagreed.
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) pressed Durham on Strzok: “Here this wasn’t innocent, unintentional human tendency, was it? It was overt political bias, was it not? Peter Strzok, for example.”
Durham said, “There were some individuals who clearly expressed a personal bias” but that “it’s difficult to get into somebody else’s head.”
“Unless we have their emails, right?” Johnson said. “Peter Strzok, for example, had pronounced hostile feelings toward President Trump. Everybody knows it. … How can we not say he had political bias?”
In one early August 2016 exchange, just days after the Trump-Russia investigation was launched, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page told Strzok, “Trump should go f himself.” Strzok responded, “F Trump.” Two days later, Page texted, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok replied, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
Horowitz wrote in 2019 that “we concluded that Strzok's text messages with Page indicated or created the appearance of bias against Trump.”
On Wednesday, Durham said, “I know that it clearly reflects a personal bias that he had” but that “I’ll leave it to others and the facts that are set out in the report as to whether that is political bias or personal bias — but there is clearly bias.”
Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) asked Durham, “I think the phrase ‘political bias’ or ‘confirmation bias’ has been used a number of times — is that a crime?”
Durham replied, “Confirmation bias is not a crime. It’s part of our human condition, I suppose.”
Reform, not defund, the FBI
Durham rejected calls from some Republican quarters to defund the Justice Department and the FBI, arguing that much less drastic measures were needed to fix the bureau.
“I don’t think any of these discussions about defunding the police make any sense at all for the security of the nation. And I don’t think defunding the cornerstone law enforcement entities make a whole lot of sense,” Durham replied. “Maybe more oversight, but defunding our cities and streets and so forth, no, that doesn’t make sense to me. But I’ve only been at this for 40 years.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted that Congress should “DEFUND THE FBI!” in the wake of the unprecedented raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort home of Mar-a-Lago last August.
“REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES,” Trump argued on his Truth Social site in April.
On Wednesday, Durham added, “I don’t believe the Department of Justice or the FBI should be defunded. I think there maybe ought to be some changes and the like, but defunded? No.”
The special counsel said, however, that fixing the problems at the FBI would not be easy.
“While I’m encouraged by some of the reforms that have been implemented by the FBI, the problems identified in this report … are not susceptible to overnight fixes,” Durham testified on Wednesday. “As we said in the report, they cannot be addressed solely by enhancing training or additional policy requirements, rather what is required is accountability, both in terms of the standards which our law enforcement personnel hold themselves and in the consequences they face for violations of laws and policies.”
He argued that “the real difficulty … is trying to figure out how to hold people accountable for their conduct,” as he called it “not a simple problem to solve.”
Durham said FBI agents should understand signing off on a FISA application means "penalties of perjury" and if they intentionally misstated information, "their employment will be terminated."
He also suggested “red teaming, which we tried to do in our investigation” — what is essentially an approach to investigations that includes adversarial approaches to preconceived notions and challenges to conventional wisdom.
Durham backed the use of an “ombudsman” to review high-profile FBI investigations but lamented, “Ultimately, I don’t know how you hold people responsible absent their integrity and that kind of overview of what the investigation is doing.”
No collusion
Durham’s report and testimony argued that the FBI did not have evidence of Trump-Russia collusion when Crossfire Hurricane was launched, nor did the FBI or Mueller unearth any during yearslong investigations.
Durham testified on Wednesday that “as to collusion or conspiracy, I’m not aware of any” evidence existing related to Trump colluding with Russia.
Mueller’s 2019 report said that Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion,” but the special counsel's team “did not establish" any criminal collusion between the Russians and anyone in Trump's circle. No Americans were charged with collusion.
On Wednesday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) went through a list of collusion claims made by House Democrats, and Durham rejected all of them.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who was censured by the GOP-led House on Wednesday evening for his role pushing Trump-Russia claims and for his touting of the discredited Steele dossier, claimed in 2018 that “I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.” Schiff added, “Now, that's a different statement than saying that there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy. Bob Mueller will have to determine that.”
Kiley refused Schiff’s request to yield and asked Durham if Schiff’s collusion claims were supported by the Mueller report, and the special counsel replied, “I don’t believe so.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), ranking member on the committee, said in 2018, "It’s clear that the campaign colluded, and there’s a lot of evidence of that. The question is, was the president involved?"
Durham said Wednesday that “I don’t believe they are supported by the Mueller report.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) claimed in 2018 that “we saw strong evidence of collusion.”
Durham again said that “not to my knowledge” was this claim true.
“Mr. Durham, did you see evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016?” Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) asked.
“No,” Durham replied simply.
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“So the American public that has been told this hoax for years — it was just that, a hoax, is that correct?” Tiffany asked.
Durham replied, “Our investigation showed that there were a lot of failures at the FBI in how they did this investigation that did not disclose or reveal information or evidence concerning any conspiracy or collusion between Mr. Trump and Russian authorities.”