Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that release of an internal watchdog report on the FBI's initial handling of the Russia probe in 2016 was "imminent." The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, has been exploring whether the bureau did anything improper when it sought permission from a FISA court to surveil members of the Trump campaign, particularly Carter Page.
"It’s my understanding that it is imminent,” Barr said at a press conference in Memphis, Tennessee. He added that people interviewed for the report were going through the customary process of reviewing their quotes and offering feedback if they so wish.
Horowitz has not said anything about the timing of the report, though he indicated in a late October letter to Congress that he was in the final stretch of his review. Barr has also reportedly been huddling with Trump allies such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham in advance of the IG report’s release. Following a meeting with Barr, Graham promised during a Fox News appearance earlier this month a "stunning" and "damning" report that will prove "the system got off the rails."
By that measure, Barr and Graham appear poised to use the report to gin up Trump's base regardless of what it actually says, just like Barr’s misleading pre-spin of the Mueller report before it went public. But Barr also seems to be preparing his own backup in case the IG report fails to offer the "wow" factor Graham has been promising Fox News consumers. Barr made particular note earlier this year of the IG report's narrow focus, offering on CBS News that Horowitz was "looking at a discrete area that is, that is you know, important, which is the use of electronic surveillance that was targeted at Carter Page."
In the meantime, however, Barr has been jetting around the world in order to dig up information for the U.S. attorney he tapped to take a broader look at the origins of the investigation into Russia's 2016 election interference. That investigation, headed by federal prosecutor John Durham, has turned into a criminal probe, though it's unclear exactly when or why it graduated from simply being a review of the FBI’s Russia investigation.
But Barr appears to have hedged his bets in case the report from Horowitz isn't all Graham has cracked it up to be.