foreign affairs subcommittee looks at u.s. quality it -- policy in iraq with the deputy assistant secretary for near eastern affairs. >> the justice department inspector general michael horowitz released a 400 34 page report and found the russia probe was justified and not biased against president trump. the fbi mishandled part of its applications to monitor a campaign aide. the chairman of the judiciary committee, lindsey graham, reacts to these findings. he is followed by senate minority leader charles schumer. sen. graham: thank you all for coming. number one, i would like to thank mr. horowitz and his team at the inspector general's office.

for doing a very thorough, professional job. i think the country owes him a debt of gratitude and i look forward to hearing his testimony in detail about his findings. wednesday the first thing i would like to address is you have a statement by mr. durham, the u.s. attorney in connecticut, who is looking at potential criminal liability regarding this matter. attorney general barr and mr. horowitz. you have three different views, or i guess two of the views is that there was no lawful predicate to begin the investigation. i think mr. durham said he had more investigation than mr. horowitz. that's not my concern. three lawyers can reasonably disagree and i trust mr. horowitz to give his view. let's assume for a moment there was a lawful predicate. the bar is low to open up a counterintelligence investigation and a reasonable

articulation is a low standard in the law. the point i want to make is, let's assume for a moment it started out ok but didn't end ok. what i see in this report, and nobody has reported, i hope some of you will look, is that while there may be reasonable differenceses whether there was a lawful predicate, there will be no debate about how the system not only got off the rails but in my view, became the criminal enterprise to defraud and deny american citizen carter pages countries to channel rights -- carter page his constitutional rights. and continue an operation against president trump as president of the united states and was unlawful. these are statements i don't make lightly and these are statements based on the findings of the report. unfortunately at the department of justice and f.b.i., there was a period of time when they went back to the back old days of j. edgar hoover and misled people.

-- the good old days of j. edgar hoover and misled people. on page 186, it talks about the f.b.i. identifying and interviewing the primary subsource for the steele dosier. what i want you to understand, is that christopher steele had a primary sub source and this person had other people reporting to him, and that formed the basis of the dossier. what did the fbi find in january of 2017? once they identified the sub source, and actually interviewed the sub source, the sub source , the primary sub source he/she didn'that see christopher steele's report and that he/she made statements

made statements that christopher steele misstated the statements in multiple sections of the reporting. the primary subsource told the f.b.i. that basically this was rumor and speculation, hearsay, bar talk, and he never believed that steele would use the information provided in any official document. that should have been a red light for the department of justice and the f.b.i. ladies and gentlemen, in january 2015 and thereafter, the primary sub source of the steele dossier was telling the department of justice and the fbi that the russ and -- the russian dossier is not reliable, that it was never meant to be used as an official document, rumor, bar talk, all hearsay and he specifically talks about the episode involving president trump in sexual activity inside

was alla and says that rumor and speculation, word of mouth and hear say. what should have happened? once the f.b.i. and the department of justice was told by the primary subsource that the information in the dossier was not reliable, they had a duty in my view to report to the fisa court exculpatory information. not only did they not tell the court that the subsource trashed out their document, this is what they told the court on page 190. carter page's renewal applications numbers two and three, advised the court that following the january interview with the primary subsource, the f.b.i. found the russian based subsource to be truthful and cooperative. that's a lie.

the subsource said exactly the opposite. not only did they continue to get a warrant against mr. page after being told by the primary source of the document that it is all garbage hearsay, bar talk, not reliable, they got two more warrants using that document and they described to the court the interview in january found the russian based sub source to be truthful and cooperative. i don't know who told the court that. i don't know who was in the meeting in january and february, but i want to find out who these people are and need to be held accountable. because what they did was obtain -- this whole endeavor came a a criminal became conspiracy to defraud the court, to trample on the rights of an american citizen, mr. carter

page, and continue in operation against the president that i think was unwarranted. i cannot stress enough, all of us rely on the power of those to check on us to be honest and truthful. nobody has mentioned a word about this yet. on page 186 to 190 in the horowitz report, it describes in great detail how the f.b.i. found out that the subsource of the steele dossier disavowed it. they used it twice more to get warrants. they never told the court and they actually lied to the court about the interview. if that doesn't bother you, you hate trump way too much. that should bother every american and it gets worse. , excuse me, 2017, one

of the lawyers in the fbi, who ,s supposed to review warrants is told by the cia that carter page is a source. what does he tell the fisa court? that he is not a source. he took the information supplied to him by the f.b.i. and doctored the email so the court would not be aware of the fact that carter page is not a source -- is a source for the cia. why is that important? in building a case against carter page, they used the dossier. they couldn't get a warrant. somebody thought of the great idea of using the dossier to get a warrant and it apparently worked. but here's the problem. three people named in the dossier as having talked to carter page, believed to be foreign agents, carter page, while being wired, unknown to him, said, i don't know these

two people. proofs day, there is no he met the two people he denies meeting. that was one of the reasons they classified him as a foreign agent. the third contact was with a person known to be a foreign agent and he told the cia about the contact because he was there source. why is it important that they lied to the court? if the court had known that he had a reason to be talking to this person, it would have been completely different. that's why mr. kleinsmith lied. because if that ever got confirmed, that would change the predicate they set up to the court as to whether or not .arter page was a foreign agent you can't survey also one unless you have proof they are a foreign agent. wednesday, we will have a hearing and we will get the good, bad and ugly and find a way this never makes sure this

never happens again. here is what i hope people in your business will do. read the entire report. not focus on the debate on whether or not there was a legal predicate. i'm here to tell you that doesn't drive my thinking. i will assume for the sake of argument there was a legal foundation. but what i will not tolerate is how it got off the rails and the fbi and the department of justice to continue this investigation continually lied to the court, mislied to the -- misled the court, manufactured evidence to hurt an american citizen and continue an operation against the president of the united states. that should bother all of us. what is this akin to? i have been a prosecutor and a defense attorney and a judge. this would be like giving a lab report saying that the person you are investigating, the fingerprints don't match and the d.n.a. doesn't match.

instead of telling the court that, you say that it does. that obvious. the sub source, the person who prepared all of the information for the dossier, told the f.b.i. in january, 2017. this is a bunch of garbage. not only did they not stop using the garbage, they lied to the court about what the man said. somebody needs to be held accountable for that, because the people who knew about that scenario, the people who knew knew the sub source that disavowed the reliability of the dossier should be held liable to defraud the fisa for a criminal conspiracy to defraud the fisa court. i don't know who knew but we need to find it out. if i were carter page, i would hire a lawyer. and i would sue the hell out of the united states. this is a sad day.

this is a dangerous set of circumstances, but there are better days ahead. mr. horowitz has identified the problem and it's up to us to fix it. i look forward to working with democrats to make sure this never happens again, that we have rules around counterintelligence investigations, that we beef up the fisa court. i'm a pretty hawkish guy but i am dumbfounded and really, upset about how this whole process was handled. being a hawkish guy doesn't mean you don't care about the rules. the thing that protects us from being like our enemies is that we have rules. even for trump. even for people who we don't like. it's trump today, it could be somebody else tomorrow. the goal is to make sure it doesn't happen again.

one of the ways to make sure it never happens again is that those who took the law into their own hands need to pay a price. >> another one of the key findings aside from the fact that it was lawfully predicated, there is no critical bias. can i get your response to that? sen. graham: when you go -- when you get shot, i don't know why somebody come a motive. i don't know what other reason they would have to lie to the court on two different occasions. why would you keep the investigation going when you had every reason to believe it was no longer legitimate? what were they thinking when the sub source told them, all of the stuff, nothing is accurate, it is all hearsay and bar talk and speculation? none of it is none of it is reliable. what would make people to get a warrant. you have to talk to them. but i'm to the not going to accept that politics is not part

it given what we know about charge.le in we know that strzok and page hated trump's guts. and there was political bias given what these people say. mr. klinesmith's email -- he says viva la resistance. the man at the department at the f.b.i. who lied to the court about carter page's association the c.i.a. is known to say viva la resistance. have your political opinions all day long, you just them.act on and here's what i would say. there was a million stop signs. there were numerous stop signs that were run. they seemed to want to get an outcome. why did they want it so badly -- what drove them so much to

lie and to turn the process upside down? i don't think it's much of a biases didsay their come into play. but we need to make sure we know what happened and it doesn't again. [indiscernible] >> came to this conclusion -- doesn't matter agree. i don't know why they didn't tell the court about the subsource's statement in january. any normal system would have stopped. when you're told that the person who helped prepare the document will not verify it, disavows it, you need to slow down and figure out what is going on here. down,ly did they not slow they falsified the results of the interview to the court to actuallyook like he was truthful when they know he wasn't. what made them do this. i don't want to get into speculating. arejust saying the facts clear. the motives maybe not.

but it's not a stretch when it comes to these people, when it to trump, they were out to get him. but that doesn't matter to me. >> you looked at the dossier -- [indiscernible] senator graham: this is a good question. fact thatok with the they did investigate -- senator graham: i'm perfectly ok with counterintelligence investigations of any of it. like dianne feinstein, she had an employee that worked there for years and they found out he was associated with the chinese intelligence service. that can happen to anyone in this building, on campaigns. papadopulous,d let's put it this way. they were not senior leaders, i know if trump knew any one of them. they were volunteers.

i could see someone volunteering for my campaign vouched for by somebody i don't know. this could happen to all of us. my beef is not that they looked. my beef is that they lied, that they didn't tell the court what they found and ran the stop sign. when i got the dossier, i remember very well, but john the halifaxto security conference and somebody told him about this explosive document. and john said, ok, yeah, send it me. i think somebody -- i can't toember who went over england. who was it? someone went over to england on behalf of senator mccain and they got the dossier and they brought it back. john showed it to me and let me tell you that when i read it, i said, i can't say what i said. it was scary. i thought they had compromised president trump.

if you read this document, it is chilling. i told john we live in a weird world. i don't know if this is misinformation by russia, i don't know if trump did all of this stuff but i know that you determine it. and john took it over to commie at the f.b.i. comey at the f.b.i. he locked it in his safe that night. and i can tell you, having looked at it, it was unnerving. say -- if by would then -- [cell phone ringing] [laughter] if by then, december 2017, you had numerous reports that steele trump, thatet things weren't on the up-and-up, that you used it without it.fying i don't fault anyone for looking into allegations like this but i do fault them for lying and misrepresenting to the court.

just put yourself in carter page's position. about carterthink page, i don't think he's james bond. they put this guy through hell. there are other people that probably spent thousands of dollars on legal fees at a time when i think the investigation should have stopped. thank you, all very much. see you wednesday. >> good afternoon, everybody.