Republicans had high expectations for IG Horowitz’s report on alleged FISA abuses. Now they want to move the goalposts.

Ratcliffe met with IG Horowitz last week to discuss Horowitz’s report on the FISA applications. They discussed timing, not content. 1/22

Inspector General Horowitz reportedly nears end of probe into FISA abuseDOJ wrapping up investigation; reaction and analysis from Rep. John Ratcliffe and former congressman Trey Gowdy.https://tinyurl.com/y5z7wtka

20% of Horowitz’s report is likely to include classified material, and will require extensive review. Consequently, Horowitz’s final report might not be issued until after Congress’s August recess. 2/22

The news that Horowitz has finished his investigation (and will begin drafting his report) is noteworthy. 3/22

There had been speculation months ago that the IG’s report would be issued sometime in June, 4/22

but that date was pushed back when it was learned that Christopher Steele had agreed to be interviewed by Horowitz. The news that the IG’s investigation is complete must mean that Steele has already been interviewed. 5/22

(So much for the right-wing mantra that Steele is a fraud who has to hide from U.S. investigators. Steele didn’t hide from Horowitz, who has the reputation of being a straight shooter. He did decline — wisely — to be interviewed by Durham, who was appointed by Barr.) 6/22

Rs are warning Fox viewers to lower their expectations about Horowitz’s FISA report — although for months Republican leaders had been predicting that it would be a blockbuster that would save the day for Trump, showing that the whole “Russia thing” was corrupt at its origins. 7/22

Both Ratcliffe and Gowdy have seen the full, unredacted FISA applications. So watch carefully when Chaffetz asks Gowdy: You’ve seen the unredacted applications. Do they provide any reason to doubt Comey when he says he played everything by the book? 8/22

The answer is obviously NO, because Gowdy then launches into a textbook display of Republican what-aboutism, reciting a laundry list of things Comey did that Republicans didn’t appreciate 9/22

but were not unlawful and that Comey has always been quite upfront about — like leaking to a friend his notes on meetings with Trump *after* he had been fired that found their way to the NYT. 10/22

What the law says about James Comey’s leaked memosPresident Donald Trump trained his fire on the memos of former FBI Director James Comey, claiming the written impressions of their one-on-one discussions contain classified information and that Comey…https://tinyurl.com/y6avdnrb

Chaffetz is clearly disappointed by Gowdy’s reply, so he turns to Ratcliffe and asks the same question. Same kind of response from Ratcliffe. 11/22

Significantly, both Gowdy and Ratcliffe seem to be placing their hopes now, not on Horowitz’s FISA report, but on another investigation, by Durham, 12/22

which allegedly is going to go back even earlier in time to show that the investigation into Trump-Russia, which was “unpredicated,” began in the spring of 2016, and not on 31 July 2016. 13/22

The general idea would then be to apply the “fruit of the poisonous tree” legal doctrine to the Russia investigation.

According to this doctrine, evidence cannot be introduced in a trial if it has been obtained by unlawful means, even if the evidence itself is valid. 14/22

Bill Barr has tried to use this “poisonous tree” doctrine to defend Trump against Mueller’s findings. According to Barr, Trump couldn’t have obstructed justice, because there was no collusion. 15/22

Therefore, Trump was simply defending himself against charges he knew were false. 16/22

(EVERYTHING about Barr’s attempted defense of Trump is wrong, including both the claim that Mueller found no collusion and that a subject can lawfully obstruct justice if he believes that he has committed no crime.) 17/22

(Will someone kindly explain to me why we should think that Bill Barr has legal smarts? Is it something he has accomplished as an attorney in private practice that we should know about?) 18/22

All the investigations of the investigators (including Durham’s) are going to draw blanks. Precisely because the DOJ and FBI knew that Trump-Russia was unprecedented and politically sensitive, everyone involved was careful to play by the rules. 19/22

Thomas Wood 🌊 on Twitter“James Baker was the top lawyer for the FBI at the origins of the Russia investigation. He is cooperating fully with IG Horowitz and other investigations. Seems totally confident that the IG and othe…https://tinyurl.com/y368yyfn

Horowitz will undoubtedly find things to criticize, as he has done in past reports, but nothing serious enough to suggest that the investigations were “unpredicated,” thereby providing Trump with a defense against the 20/22

Report’s abundance of evidence that Trump obstructed the investigation (an impeachable offense) and obstructed justice (which is a crime) 21/22 tinyurl.com/y4m6v68c

The chance that Horowitz or any other investigator is going to come up with anything damaging like that is ZERO. 22/22