Former FBI chief James Comey has admitted errors in the federal police investigation into the Russian affair surrounding President Donald Trump. In the FBI petition to the court to have former Trump adviser Carter Page intercepted, there was „real sloppiness“, Comey said on Fox News yesterday. The application contained „significant errors“.
Comey was fired in May 2017 by Trump, who is now threatened with an impeachment procedure because of the Ukraine affair – which the President then did with „this Russia thing“, that is, the investigation into the alleged Russian interference in Trump’s favor 2016 campaign and the Trump team’s Moscow contacts.
Response to Horowitz report
With his current statements, the former FBI director responded to a report published a few days ago by the Inspector General of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz. The latter stated that individual FBI employees had made mistakes in initiating the investigation into the Russia affair, including the request for the eavesdropping on Page.
Trump wrote in the short message service Twitter about Comey’s latest statements, the former FBI director admitted the mistakes at the time only because he had been „caught red-handed“. Trump asked the question of possible legal consequences for Comey: „Could it be years in prison?“ The President has repeatedly accused the FBI of „spying“ on his campaign team in 2016.
Investigations not politically motivated
The Inspector General also came to the conclusion that, unlike Trump, the initiation of the FBI’s Russia investigation was not politically motivated. No evidence of „political bias or inappropriate motivation“ was found. Rather, the federal police had reason to believe that Russia would interfere in the 2016 US election campaign.
The investigation into the Russian affair had been taken over by the special investigator Robert Mueller after Comey’s removal. In the course of his nearly two-year investigation, Mueller did not find sufficient evidence of illegal collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Russia. However, he expressly did not exonerate the President from suspected criminal disabilities.
