From Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez:
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s long-awaited report on the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation is finally out, and notwithstanding furious efforts from all quarters to claim otherwise, it fails to neatly validate anyone’s favored political narrative. Contra the hopes of Donald Trump’s more ardent admirers, it fails to turn up anything resembling a Deep State cabal within the FBI plotting against the president, or deliberate abuse of surveillance authorities for political ends. Yet it also paints a bleak picture of the Bureau’s vaunted vetting process for warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), documenting a host of material omissions or misrepresentations in the government’s case for wiretapping erstwhile Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, whose privacy was invaded for nearly a year on disturbingly thin grounds. Though it does not describe an investigation motivated by political bias, it is a textbook account of confirmation bias that should raise disturbing questions about the adequacy of the FISA process—and not just in this investigation.