Comey admits FBI was sloppy in probe of Trump 2016 campaign
Former FBI director James Comey has admitted that he was guilty of sloppiness in his management of the investigation into links between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
His admission came days after Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department watchdog, released a 476-page report criticising aspects of how the inquiry was conducted.
In his report, which was released on Monday, Mr Horowitz said that the FBI was justified in launching the investigation - effectively undermining Donald Trump’s claim that the probe was a “witch hunt”.
But he was critical of how the FBI secured permission to conduct a wiretap on one of Mr Trump’s campaign advisers, Carter Page.
He noted that there were 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the applications for permission to bug Mr Page.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday Mr Comey, who was sacked by Mr Trump in May 2017, accepted the findings of the Horowitz report.
“He’s right, I was wrong,” Mr Comey said.
“I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and Justice had built over 20 years. I thought they were robust enough,” he added.
“I was overconfident in those. Because he's right. There was real sloppiness, 17 things that either should've been in the applications or at least discussed and characterised differently. It was not acceptable, and so he's right. I was wrong.”
Mr Horowitz was particularly critical of the FBI for using memos from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent, to convince the court to authorise the wiretaps.
However, while accepting the criticisms in the report Mr Comey seized on Mr Horowitz’s conclusion that the investigation had not been motivated by political bias.
“The FBI was accused of treason, of illegal spying, of tapping Mr Trump’s wires illegally, of opening an investigation without justification, of being a criminal conspiracy to unseat a president. All that was nonsense.”
The US president seized on Mr Comey’s admission of sloppiness.
“So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong,” he tweeted. “ Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red-handed. He was actually caught a long time ago.
“So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others.”
