An FBI investigation into potential collaboration between Donald Trump’s team and Russia in the 2016 presidential election has been criticised by a US special counsel.
The FBI allegedly ‘discounted or wilfully ignored relevant facts that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia’, according to Special Counsel John Durham’s 306-page final report, which was made public on Monday.
Durham came to the conclusion that the FBI never ought to have opened a thorough inquiry into potential connections between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling.
The FBI used ‘raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence‘ in launching the probe known as Crossfire Hurricane, according to the report. It had a ‘lack of analytical rigor’ in examining leads on Trump’s links to Russia.
‘An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the F.B.I. to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the F.B.I. was being manipulated for political or other purposes,’ wrote Durham.
‘Unfortunately, it did not.’
Additionally, the report accused the FBI of using a different standard in considering allegations of election interference surrounding the campaign of Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton.
The report did not provide major revelations about the probe.
Trump ripped former FBI Director James Comey and Democrats for the investigation into alleged collusion between his campaign and Russia.
‘I, and much more importantly, then American public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats – started by Comey,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘There must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country through this.’
Trump said the report took a long time to be released publicly ‘because John Durham is a very thorough investigator’.
‘But the result is unequivocal and an absolute disaster in terms of justice,’ said Trump, adding that the ‘national security implications of what they did are very grave’.
‘It turned out to be a giant and very dangerous hoax,’ Trump said.
Durham did not call for any ‘wholesale changes’ to the FBI’s guidelines for inquiries into politically sensitive matters.