May 15, 2023, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to Special Counsel John Durham’s final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland:
“The Durham Report outlines 316 pages of Obama administration Justice Department, intelligence agencies and State Department abuses during the Russia collusion hoax. The report vindicates President Trump, who was wrongfully targeted by an alphabet soup of agencies that resulted in nearly three years of unwarranted investigations. These included the flagrant abuse of the FISA court system, which allowed for electronic surveillance for almost a year of the Trump campaign, transition and administration predicated on nothing more than the wild lies of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.
“It is disappointing that Durham failed to provide Congress with a reasonable remedy to these abuses other than Former NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker’s recommendation ‘for an official to challenge both a politically sensitive FISA application and other stages of the investigation’ during and after FISA’s ex parte proceedings. Trusting the Justice Department to not lie again is not a solution to the destruction of individual liberty that the FISA warrant abuses have revealed. Abusers of this system must be held legally accountable. Either all those involved were dupes, and future penalties for federal officials should range from losing your job and pension if you’re too stupid to ask any questions about spying on presidential campaigns and/or significant prison time if you’re found to have been actively attempting to change election results or take down an elected president under false pretenses with spying.”
Correction: a version of this statement incorrectly quoted former DOJ General Counsel Jim Baker. It was Stewart Baker, former NSA General Counsel for whom the quote should have been attributed.
Attachments:
Special Counsel John Durham’s final report, May 12, 2023 at https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf
For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.
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