Republican Representative Devin Nunes recently told Fox’s Sean Hannity that he expects the DOJ inspector general to find that the Carter Page FISA warrants were illegal.
Hannity broached the topic with the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee during an interview Tuesday evening, saying, “We keep hearing that the FISA report by the inspector general is going to be devastating. I would assume that he concludes that all four FISA applications and warrants were obtained illegally. Do you see any different conclusion than that?”
“No, I don’t, Sean,” Nunes replied.
Hannity was referring to the long anticipated report being worked on by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who’s been conducting high-profile probes related to the FBI and DOJ’s actions in the Russia election meddling
Nunes joins fellow Republican Rep. Jim Jordan in making this prediction along with Hannity, who on an almost nightly basis has been saying how he expects there to be “bombshells” revealed when Horowitz’s report is made public.
Hannity and Jordan have both said that they believe the FBI committed “premeditated fraud” before the FISA Court in using an unverified anti-Trump dossier to obtain the original warrant on Page, and three renewals, from October 2016 to June 2017.
Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova has gone further, saying he has “heard” that the initial FISA warrant against Page and the three renewals, which came at three-month intervals, were “illegally obtained.”
Speaking on the Washington Examiner’s “Examining Politics” podcast late last month, diGenova said that he got his insider information because the report is “being circulated inside and outside of the department for comment by interested parties.”
A draft of Horowitz’s report – was submitted to Attorney General William Barr on Friday, Sept. 13, for a classification review. Lawmakers expect to receive the report, likely with redactions, and release it to the public in the next coming weeks.
Although he is unaware of how many pages the report will be, Nunes said, “I imagine it will be long.”
Nunes has been a lead GOP investigator regarding the Justice Department’s and FBI’s behavior in the Trump-Russia investigation. He says that Horowitz’s work, including the recent report admonishing former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of sensitive memos, is essential to the “evidence gathering” process for U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked with leading a review of the origins of the Russia investigation.
Nunes concluded his interview with Hannity by saying there needs to be transparency in order to hold people properly accountable.
“We don’t want to see it all blacked out. We want the American people to see everything,” Nunes said. “In order for that to happen, a lot of the documents that we have been requesting to be declassified have got to be declassified now. I would only add on just one final point on all of this and that is that Durham needs to gather all of the evidence and needs to make sure, whatever he takes, if he’s going to actually do a prosecution of these dirty cops, he needs to have all the evidence. He needs to get it right. Because we want to make sure that justice is definitely served in this case.”
