CNN’s Jake Tapper slams the FBI for the ‘devastating’ Durham Report

CNN’s Jake Tapper has criticized the FBI for its “devastating” Durham report, which concluded the agency had no evidence to investigate Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations.

Tapper said on the network Monday night that the report exonerated former President Trump to some extent.

He said, “It may not have delivered everything some Republicans hoped for, but it’s devastating for the FBI anyway, and to some extent it relieves Donald Trump.”

Tapper later added, “It’s possible that the FBI had legitimate concerns and it’s also possible that some individuals at the FBI have gone overboard and not been as professional as they should have been.”

Durham in his report criticized the agency for acting on “raw, unanalyzed and unconfirmed information.”

Tapper called the report to the FBI ‘devastating’

In an embarrassing turn of events, the CNN host said the newly published report was a way to exonerate Trump after years of frequent pleading for the Russian collusion narrative.

Tapper has publicly stated that he is not a member of any political party, but his political commentary often tends to align with CNN’s liberal leanings.

In 2018, Tapper pressed Senator Mark Warner for evidence that the Trump campaign had accepted help from Russia to win the 2016 presidential race.

Warner had cited a Senate Select Committee report pointing to US intelligence findings that Russia had attempted to interfere with the 2016 election.

Tapper urged Warner to reveal whether any American had aided or participated in this alleged collusion, asking him if Russia did so “with the aid or participation of an American, especially and including people who are in the orbit of the Trump campaign.”

The former president labeled Tapper a “boyfriend” after Tapper kicked his White House aide for sharing pro-Trump talking points.

The Durham report summarized findings regarding whether the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the outcome of the election.

It ultimately concluded that the Justice Department and FBI had “failed to fulfill their mission of strict adherence to the law” when they launched their investigation.

Durham wrote in his report, “Based on the evidence gathered in the many extensive and costly federal investigations of these cases, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have had any actual evidence of conspiracy in their possession at the outset. of the Crossfire Hurricane Survey.”

Crossfire Hurricane was the internal code name for the FBI’s investigation that began in 2016.

The report contains blistering language saying that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications opened by the FBI as part of Crossfire Hurricane were not made out of a mission of “strict adherence to the law.”

FBI personnel working on the FISA applications “displayed, at best, an arrogant attitude toward accuracy and completeness” and “ignored key requirements” on multiple occasions, Durham says.

Special counsel John Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General Bill Barr (left) to investigate misconduct related to the Crossfire Hurricane probe

Durham (pictured) was appointed in 2016 to investigate allegations surrounding the 2016 election

The FBI was led by former Director James Comey and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe at the time of Crossfire Hurricane’s opening.

While the report does not recommend “wholesale changes” to Justice Department guidelines or policies, it says there is an “ongoing need” for the agencies to acknowledge the lack of “analytical rigor” and apparent “confirmation bias.”

In a statement released Monday, the FBI said: “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham has been investigating has led the current FBI leadership to take dozens of corrective actions, which have been in effect for some time now.

“If those reforms had taken place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been avoided.”

Former President Trump celebrated the report’s findings Monday afternoon in a post on his Truth Social account.

He posted: ‘WOW! After extensive investigation, Special Counsel John Durham concludes that the FBI should never have launched the Trump-Russia probe!”

Trump had repeatedly railed about the Russia investigation, portraying it as a “witch hunt” over the years.

Tapper had previously come under fire after a guest on his show claimed that former President Trump “radicalized more people than ISIS” — and the host remained silent throughout.