The Durham Report Is Right About the Need for More FBI Oversight

On Monday, Special Counsel John Durham released the conclusions of his three-year investigation into the FBI’s surveillance of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, arguing that the FBI used uncorroborated evidence to secure search warrants against a former Trump campaign aide and “displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor” toward information they received from partisan sources.

Durham’s 316-page report found that the FBI failed to act with “appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign and a foreign power” and that the agency “discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.” 

Former Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham in 2020 to investigate whether any federal officials had violated the law in connection with the intelligence and law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns. On that score, Durham’s investigation has been long on expectations from Trump and his supporters, but short on results. After three years, Durham has secured one guilty plea and lost two cases at trial after the defendants were acquitted. 

However, the investigation has highlighted serious deficiencies with the FBI’s warrant applications before the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which is supposed to provide oversight of surveillance activities by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The Durham report found that the FBI’s decision to open an investigation into possible foreign influence on several members of Trump’s campaign team and apply for electronic surveillance search warrants against them was “bas