Long-awaited inspector general report on FBI’s Russia investigation set to be made public

WASHINGTON - A long-awaited Justice Department inspector general's report examining the FBI's investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia is expected to be released Monday, clearing the bureau's top leaders of conservatives' most serious allegations while providing some fodder for President Trump and his allies to renew their attacks on the probe.

The report, which spans hundreds of pages, is expected to conclude that the top FBI officials running the Russia investigation were not tainted by political bias and that they had adequate cause to open a probe ahead of the 2016 election, according to people familiar with drafts of the document.

But it will also find fault with applications FBI officials prepared to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser, and it will allege that a low-level FBI lawyer doctored a document in connection with those applications, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the document before its public release.

Democrats and Republicans alike have eagerly anticipated the assessment from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, hopeful that the Justice Department watchdog with a reputation for being nonpartisan will validate their respective views on one of the most politically volatile investigations in FBI history.

The president and other conservatives have asserted that the FBI and the officials who once led it acted unfairly in investigating Trump's campaign, motivated by political bias against him. On Sunday, Trump tweeted of the report, "That will be the big story!"

Liberals, meanwhile, have been hopeful that Horowitz will dismantle what they see as unfounded GOP theories about the bureau's work.

According to people familiar with drafts of Horowitz's report, the inspector general is not likely to satisfy either side entirely. He has concluded that bias did not taint top FBI leaders running the investigation who have been frequent targets of Trump attacks - including former director James Comey, former deputy director Andrew McCabe and former deputy assistant director Peter Strzok, the people said. He also concluded that the FBI had adequate cause - commonly referred to in law enforcement circles as "predication" - to open a case, and he found no evidence to support a theory pushed by conservatives that the probe began as a setup by U.S. intelligence.

That theory posited that Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor whose interaction with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos helped spark the Russia investigation, was actually a U.S. intelligence asset. Horowitz queried U.S. intelligence agencies, who told him that was not the case, people familiar with the matter said.

But on other scores, Horowitz found impropriety on the part of the FBI. He uncovered, for example, that a low-level FBI lawyer assigned to the Russia case, Kevin Clinesmith, doctored an email that was used as the bureau applied with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

That conduct is now being investigated as a possible crime by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was tapped by Attorney General William Barr to conduct an investigation of the Russia case similar to Horowitz's review. Durham's work is ongoing.

Horowitz also found that the FBI omitted some information from its applications to renew the warrant to monitor Page.

The applications relied at least in part on information provided by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was hired to investigate Trump by an opposition research firm working for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Relying on a network of sources and subsources, Steele claimed he had information on connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. But when FBI agents interviewed one of Steele's subsources, they found that Steele's information - which he had said was raw intelligence in need of further investigation - was not entirely reliable, people familiar with the matter said.

Horowitz determined in the draft of his report that the FBI failed to convey as much in some of the later applications to surveil Page, the people said.

The report will land in the heart of Democrats' impeachment inquiry; the House Judiciary Committee has announced it plans to hold a hearing Monday to "receive presentations from counsels to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee." Some Republicans have suggested that hearing is meant to distract from Horowitz's potentially damaging findings.

"Doubt it's a coincidence Democrats rushing to hold their next impeachment hearing Monday at 9:00am," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., one of Trump's staunchest allies, wrote on Twitter. "Same day the IG report on FISA abuse expected to drop..."

FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law under which the FBI sought a warrant to monitor Page.

Horowitz is scheduled to discuss his findings Wednesday during a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.