IG Whitewash Report Concludes “FBI Had An Authorized Purpose” To Spy

IG’s whitewash report on FBI spying against Trump has been released.  Here’s the entirety of evidence the FBI used to justify opening a comprehensive spying operation against the Trump campaign:

…the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, just days after its receipt of information from a Friendly Foreign Government (FFG) reporting that, in May 2016, during a meeting with the FFG, then Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).” The FBI Electronic Communication (EC) opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation stated that, based on the FFG information, “this investigation is being opened to determine whether individual(s) associated with the Trump campaign are witting of and/or coordinating activities with the Government of Russia.”

That’s it.

They didn’t contact Papadopoulos to find out if he was actually told that.  They didn’t contact the Trump campaign to alert them about this issue.  They didn’t try to confirm the information first.  No.  They decided the best course of action was to open up an unprecedented spying operation on a presidential campaign based on the hearsay testimony of a foreign government agent who overheard Papadopoulos saying “suggestions” of “some kind” may have been received from Russia.

The IG concludes:

We did not identify any Department or FBI policy that applied to this decision [to open the massive spying operation against the Trump campaign] and therefore determined that the decision was a judgment call that Department and FBI policy leaves to the discretion of FBI officials. We also concluded that, under the AG Guidelines and the DIOG, the FBI had an authorized purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain information about, or protect against, a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity.

What a joke.