Matt Gaetz demands FBI agents be indicted after damning Durham report
Rep. Matt Gaetz demanded that the FBI be defunded and its agents criminally indicted after a report found that the bureau lacked evidence to launch an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in 2016.
Trump-era special counsel John Durham on Monday produced a 300-page report summing up his four-year review of the FBI’s actions, which found that the agency rushed into its investigation, relied too heavily on raw and unconfirmed intelligence, and “willfully ignored” or rationalized away information that did not support its collusion theory.
Gaetz (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, ripped into the bureau following the release of the report, which he touted in a tweet as an “absolutely DAMNING treatise on the weaponization of the FBI against President Trump.”
During an interview on Newsmax Monday night, Gaetz accused the FBI of becoming “the enforcement wing of the Democratic Party to play offense against Trump,” and argued that the agency should face harsh consequences for its wrongdoings.
“I think we have to deauthorize, defang and defund many of these authorities and entities and different task forces that actually converted the just and righteous act of protecting our country with the desire to have a particular political candidate win or lose,” the lawmaker said.
For years, Trump and his supporters had claimed that Durham’s probe would uncover the “crime of the century.”
What to know about the bombshell Durham report
Special counsel John Durham completed a four-year review of the FBI’s investigation of allegations that Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia
Durham found the FBI’s probe was “seriously flawed” and had no basis in evidence, according to a 306-page report released Monday.
The special prosecutor found that FBI officials “discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.”
Durham also found investigators put too much faith in information provided by Trump’s political opponents and carried out surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page without genuinely believing there was probable cause to do so.
Despite the scathing findings, Durham did not recommend criminal prosecutions or widespread FBI reforms, writing that “the answer is not the creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old.”
Durham’s investigation lasted more than four years, longer than the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe itself.
But despite the damning findings, it has resulted in just one guilty plea — from ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted in 2020 to altering an email in order to get a surveillance warrant against Trump campaign aide Carter Page renewed.
Two other criminal cases that emerged from Durham’s probe and were brought to trial ended in speedy acquittals.
Gaetz fumed that the lone guilty verdict against the disgraced FBI employee — who he said has already resumed his law practice in Washington, DC — was insufficient.
“If that had been a Republican operation — an operation to help a Republican candidate — it wouldn’t have ended in a report. It would have ended with real significant indictments,” the congressman added.
Gaetz said Durham’s review should result in “firings” and a bipartisan reform of the FBI.
“And I think we should claw back the $325 million that Nancy Pelosi had gifted for the new FBI headquarters in the DC area,” he added.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) agreed with Gaetz that the FBI should have its funding slashed and claimed in a Fox News interview that there was a “double standard” for Republicans and Democrats.
Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday he has invited Durham to testify before his panel next week to further discuss his findings.
Durham, the former US attorney in Connecticut, was appointed by Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, in 2019 to scrutinize the FBI’s controversial collusion probe.
The FBI has issued a statement acknowledging “missteps” in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the theorized Trump-Russia ties, but claimed that the agency has already implemented “dozens of corrective actions.”
“Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect,” the bureau added.
