President Joe Bidenâs nominee to be the attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, is taking questions from senators in his confirmation hearing for the post.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Garland on Monday for his âgeneral takeâ of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitzâsreport on his probe of the FBIâs 2016 Russia investigation.
Garland said the report detailed âserious problemsâ with applications for the FISA surveillance warrants and how they were âdocumented.â
Graham then turned his attention to former FBI Director James Comey and asked, âBased on your review of the Horowitz report, do you think Jim Comey was a good FBI director?â
âSenator, I really donât want to get into analyzing any of the previous directors,â Garland responded.
However, the South Carolina senator retorted, âI just find it pretty stunning that you canât say, in my view, that he was a terrible FBI director.â
Despite Garlandâs refusal to weigh in on Comeyâs job as the head of the FBI, Graham said he is âvery inclined to supportâ his nomination.
Watch the exchange below:
In December 2019, Horowitz released a report outlining the findings of his investigation into the FBIâs 2016 âCrossfire Hurricaneâ probe of alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trumpâs presidential campaign and Russian officials.
Horowitz said he did not find evidence that political bias was involved in the investigation. However, he did reveal that he discovered there were 17 errors and omissions in the FISA surveillance warrant application for former Trump aide Carter Page.
During an interview on Fox News after Horowitz released that report, Comey said it detailed âreal sloppinessâ in the FBIâs handling of FISA surveillance warrant applications.
âIf I were director, Iâd be very concerned about it and diving into it,â he added.
Comey was also pressed on his 2018 claims that FBI agents were âresponsibleâ in how they processed surveillance warrant applications.
âI was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and (Department of) Justice have built over 20 year years. I thought they were robust enough,â he said.
And during a Senate hearing in September 2020, Comey was pressed on whether he was responsible for the errors laid out in Horowitzâs report as he was the FBI director at the time they occurred.
He responded, âI hope you donât hear me to say, âIâm not responsible.â I was the leader of that institution, so this reflects on me entirely, and itâs my responsibility.â
Still, he said he âtook comfort in the complexity of the layers and layers of review and oversight associated with FISAâ and that he âdid not do enoughâ to ensure regulations around the surveillance warrants were being followed.
