Bill Barr accuses James Comey’s FBI of acting in ‘bad faith’ against Donald Trump’s campaign

Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday blasted the conduct of the FBI a day after the release of an inspector general’s report that found the Russia probe was properly predicated. 

Barr, a Donald Trump loyalist who oversaw the release of the Mueller probe, said FBI agents may have acted in ‘bad faith’ – and expounded on the dangers of the head of government using the powers of the state ‘to spy on political opponents’ in a way that might affect an election outcome.

His statements came on a day when Trump, who nominated Barr, criticized his own hand-picked FBI director Christopher Wray for his comments accepting the conclusions of a 476-page inspector general’s report. 

Also on Tuesday, Democrats in the House unveiled two articles of impeachment that accuse Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in its investigation. 

‘I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,’ Barr told NBC News. He said he thought there were ‘gross abuses’ and ‘inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI.’ 

‘I think that leaves open the possibility that there was bad faith,’ Barr said. 

His comments also suggested a potential abuse of power by Obama administration officials during the 2016 elections – even as Democrats accuse Barr of contorting his own views of strong executive authority to benefit Trump. That is a theory regularly put forward by President Trump, who has inveighed against top Obama-era intelligence officials and who fired former FBI Director James Comey, whose testimony about Trump featured in the Mueller report. 

‘From a civil liberties standpoint, the greatest danger to our free system is that the incumbent government use the apparatus of the state … both to spy on political opponents but also to use them in a way that could affect the outcome of an election,’ said Barr. 

Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report Monday on the DOJ’s investigation into potential bias at the helm of the Russia investigation. ‘We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to seek [surveillance] on Carter Page,’ he wrote 

‘With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI,’ Trump claimed of Wray’s comments

FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed in an interview Monday that Ukraine did not meddle in the 2016 elections, and insisted calling the bureau and its employees part of the ‘deep state’ is a ‘disservice to the men and women who work at the FBI’

Donald Trump blasted his FBI director on Tuesday, claiming they must have read different inspector general reports 

He said it was the first time in history that ‘counterintelligence techniques’ were used against a presidential campaign.  

He also criticized the conduct of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz, who produced his report after months of investigating. Barr instead pointed to an ongoing probe being conducted by U.S. attorney John Durham, whom Barr appointed to look into alleged FBI misconduct.  

‘All he said was, people gave me an explanation and I didn’t find anything to contradict it … he hasn’t decided the issue of improper motive,’ said Barr. ‘I think we have to wait until the full investigation is done.’ 

Trump on Tuesday went after his hand-picked FBI director, claiming Christopher Wray’s claims must be the result of him reading a different Inspector General report.

‘I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me,’ Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. ‘With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!’

The area Barr mentioned – abuse of the ‘apparatus of the state’ to affect an election outcome – is the heart of an abuse of power impeachment article House Democrats rolled out Tuesday. House Intelligence Chair Rep. Adam Schiff of California says Trump abused his power over foreign policy to pressure Ukraine into undertaking investigations that would help Trump’s campaign and hurt former Vice President Joe Biden’s.

 Said Schiff: ‘The President’s misconduct is as simple and as terrible as this: President Trump solicited a foreign nation, Ukraine, to publicly announce investigations into his opponent and a baseless theory promoted by Russia, to help his re-election campaign. President Trump abused the power of his office by conditioning two official acts to get Ukraine to help his re-election: the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that nation desperately needed and a White House meeting with an ally trying to fend off Russian aggression.’

‘In so doing, he undermined our national security and jeopardized the integrity of our next election. And he does so still,’ Schiff added.    

Trump has accused the FBI of conducting a ‘major spy scandal’ by surveilling his 2016 campaign’s foreign policy adviser Carter Page. 

Horowitz released his report Monday of the Justice Department’s investigation into potential bias at the helm of the Russia investigation.

Although it found the FBI did not show political bias during critical period when the investigation was launched, it did outline 17 mistakes in the bureau’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications, which was the avenue it used to obtain a warrant to look into Carter’s devices.

‘We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to seek [surveillance] on Carter Page,’ Horowitz wrote in the report in reference to the Trump foreign policy advisor.