Former President Donald Trump has called for former FBI Director James Comey and Democrats to be held accountable following the release of Special Counsel John Durham’s report, which concluded that the Trump-Russia probe should never have been launched.
The report found that the Department of Justice and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” during the investigation.
The Durham Report has dropped and the report concludes that the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia probe in the first place. The report EXONERATES Donald Trump once and for all. The American people were scammed by an FBI/DOJ that has been weaponized against… pic.twitter.com/LMhNjXm0VC
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 15, 2023
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump called the activities surrounding the FBI’s original Trump-Russia investigation a “total disgrace” and said that “public anger over this report is at a level that I have not seen before.”
Durham’s report, which spanned more than 300 pages, was released on Monday after a years-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.
The investigation looked into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. According to the report, “senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities.”
🚨 BREAKING: Trump reacts to the release of the Durham Report pic.twitter.com/f7Y3qm7qzA
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 15, 2023
The report also stated that “there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents.”
Trump described the report’s findings as an “unequivocal” and “absolute disaster in terms of justice.”
He also said that “the national security implications of what they did are very grave.”
Despite Durham’s findings, the report “does not recommend any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department and the FBI now have in place to ensure proper conduct and accountability in how counterintelligence activities are carried out.”
In his interview with Fox News Digital, Trump called for those responsible for the Trump-Russia investigation to be held accountable for “putting our country through this” and said that “there must be a heavy price to pay.”
TAPPER: Durham report is "devastating to the FBI and to a degree, it does exonerate Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/DC30fNpEve
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 15, 2023
He added that he would have “further comment in the near future.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital reacting to Durham’s report, the FBI said:
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented,” the FBI said. “This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
