American Oversight has issued a statement following the release of Special Counsel John Durham’s report on his inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation.

Statement from American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer:

“Special Counsel Durham’s report is as expected — heavy on criticism of the FBI but lacking evidence of actionable misconduct. From its onset, this investigation was a politicized undertaking in the service of former President Trump. We look forward to the release of more public records that could shed further light on Attorney General Barr and Durham’s four-year, multimillion-dollar effort to appease the former president.”

American Oversight previously obtained documents revealing that former Attorney General William Barr, who had selected Durham to lead the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, had met frequently with Durham in the weeks directly after the Mueller investigation ended — 18 times in seven months. 

American Oversight also uncovered records showing that in 2018, while a private citizen, Barr sent then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein a text with a memo outlining his misgivings about Mueller’s legitimate investigation; during a television interview in April 2019, after he had been appointed, Barr further displayed his biases by calling the FBI’s Russia probe “one of the greatest travesties in American history.”

In 2019, American Oversight sued the Justice Department to compel the release of documents related to the Durham investigation, including communications between Durham and senior officials, the Trump White House, or Congress. In a motion filed in that lawsuit late last week, the department announced that it was dropping a key objection to the release of more than 4,500 pages of documents, finally indicating that the investigation had been closed. Given how much one-sided documentation the Durham report presented to the American people, American Oversight looks forward to DOJ being prompt and forthcoming with all 4,500 pages.