Watchdog Report on FBI’s Russia Probe ‘Should Put to Rest’ Allegations of Bias, Prosecutor Says

Watchdog Report on FBI’s Russia Probe ‘Should Put to Rest’ Allegations of Bias, Prosecutor Says

A former federal prosecutor weighed in on the Justice Department’s report on the origins of the FBI’s probe into Russian involvement in the Trump presidential campaign, saying its findings should “put to rest” allegations of bias by Trump allies.

The department’s internal watchdog reportedly found that political bias did not taint the investigation into potential coordination between the Kremlin and the campaign. At the same time, there were “systemic failures in its handling of surveillance applications,” according to two U.S. officials, which included the altering of a document used to renew a warrant to monitor former campaign adviser Carter Page.

Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor, predicted this latter aspect of the report will be fodder for Trump’s allies.

“[Trump] and his defenders are very anxious for anything to always push back on the original Mueller probe origins,” Wu said Saturday on CNN Newsroom . “I worked with [Inspector General] Michael Horowitz at the Justice Department. He’s extremely thorough. Anything he looks closely at he’s likely to find some warts on it.”

Nevertheless, Wu said, “the real takeaway from this — if the reporting so far has been accurate — is that there was no bad motivation and that the origins were proper.” This should “put to rest any idea that there was some sort of political bias or motivation behind the origins of the Russia investigation.”

The report is set to become public December 9.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

William Vaillancourt

William Vaillancourt is a writer and editor from New Hampshire whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Progressive, Slate and Areo Magazine, among other places. He holds a BA in Political Science and History from Boston University.

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