The Justice Department inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, will appear on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to discuss his new report, which harshly criticized F.B.I. investigators over serious errors in the Russia investigation but concluded that they acted without political bias. Attorney General William P. Barr immediately challenged Mr. Horowitz’s finding that F.B.I. officials had adequate reason to open the case, guaranteeing a politically charged atmosphere at Wednesday’s hearing where Mr. Horowitz is likely to face a barrage of tough questions from senators.
Expect Mr. Horowitz to try to focus on surveillance problems, not politics. Still, Democrats will likely try to get him to say explicitly that no F.B.I. plot to sabotage President Trump’s campaign existed. Republicans are likely to attack some of his other key findings, including that F.B.I. officials acted without political bias.
Horowitz will be pressed on his finding that the F.B.I. had reason to open the investigation.
Mr. Horowitz will probably be forced to defend his conclusions and face tough questioning from Republicans echoing Mr. Barr’s deep skepticism about the opening of the Russia investigation.
Mr. Horowitz confirmed that the F.B.I. opened the inquiry in July 2016 as stolen Democratic emails spilled out and investigators learned that a Trump campaign aide bragged that he had been told that Russia had information that could damage Hillary Clinton. Shortly after opening the investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, the F.B.I. began looking at four Trump campaign associates to try to determine whether any of them were conspiring with Russia’s election interference.
He is also likely to be questioned about his conclusion that no anti-Trump plot existed at the F.B.I.
One of Mr. Horowitz’s biggest findings dealt with whether any Justice Department or F.B.I. official let their political views affect the opening of Crossfire Hurricane or any investigative steps they took. The inspector general found no “documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions” to open the investigation.
Republicans will probably attack this conclusion. They have long pointed to texts among F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation — uncovered by the inspector general — that indicated anti-Trump sentiments as evidence that the officials acted with bias. Though Mr. Horowitz disagreed, he has said the texts demonstrated bad judgment and cast a cloud over the F.B.I.
He will highlight problems with F.B.I. surveillance.
Both sides are likely to praise Mr. Horowitz for unearthing a litany of serious problems with the F.B.I.’s pursuit of a court order to wiretap a former Trump foreign policy adviser, Carter Page. Mr. Horowitz found 17 significant errors or omissions in their application for the court order and three renewals of it, according to his voluminous report.
Republican lawmakers will almost certainly question Mr. Horowitz about materials that investigators relied on to apply for the court order, namely a dossier of unverified, salacious information about Mr. Trump compiled by a British former spy, Christopher Steele, whose research was funded by Democrats. Many of the problems that Mr. Horowitz uncovered centered on investigators’ use of the dossier as part of the materials submitted to the court to show they had probable cause to suspect that Mr. Page was an agent of a foreign power.
Mr. Horowitz found that the initial application relied on four claims from the dossier and that their credibility eroded over time, but that law enforcement officials failed to update the court as they sought renewals of the wiretap. Republicans will want to know whether a judge would have approved the renewal applications had investigators been clearer about the status of that material. Investigators appeared to overstate the strength of their applications, Mr. Horowitz said.
Look for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the committee and one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, to pose tough questions about the use the dossier.
This isn’t the end of the investigations of the Russia investigation.
Mr. Barr has played down the inspector general’s findings about what prompted the opening of the Russia investigation, citing limitations like Mr. Horowitz’s power to talk only to current and former law enforcement officials and inability to compel people to answer questions.
Mr. Barr said he was relying on John H. Durham, a veteran prosecutor whom he appointed to re-examine the Russia inquiry, to determine whether F.B.I. officials or anyone else in the intelligence community worked against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Horowitz will probably field questions about Mr. Durham’s investigation, which is a criminal inquiry. This could be the most intriguing part of the hearing. After the inspector general released his report, Mr. Durham issued an extraordinary statement, saying that he “advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the F.B.I. case was opened.”