Fred Fleitz, America First Police Institute senior fellow, told Newsmax that special counsel John Durham's report on the origin of the Russia collusion narrative in 2016 comes "four years too late," when it should have been out in time for the 2020 presidential election.
"I think this was the perfect being the enemy of the good," Fleitz said Tuesday on "Wake Up America." "This report was being written for four years and it was needed so voters could rule on this issue in the 2020 election."
Durham's report, more than 300 pages, came to "sobering" conclusions about the FBI using unverified and "unvetted" information to obtain FISA Court surveillance warrants to spy on former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, which turned out to be planted and paid for by the rival Hillary Clinton campaign.
Despite there not being evidence, or even a basis, for claims that Trump was "colluding" with Russian operatives during the campaign, the FBI launched a formal investigation into the matter known as Crossfire Hurricane.
Durham's report also noted several "exculpatory" statements gathered by the FBI early in the investigation that effectively vindicated Trump and his campaign from the false claims being made.
The report said top agents and management at the agency, including former agent Peter Strzok, who expressed his disdain for Trump in texts, and led the investigation, disregarded procedures and protocols in place to verify incoming information before acting on it.
Fleitz said the Russia collusion issue was a "cloud" over Trump's presidency and impacted his reelection bid in 2020.
"What good is [the report] now?" Fleitz said. "Nobody is going to be held accountable. It gives incredible detail of the corruption of the FBI to smear Trump for these charges."
Fleitz said he doesn't believe the "corrective actions" the report said are being implemented at the agency are happening, and he said the bad practices are likely continuing, making the probability that similar fraudulent investigations could happen again.
"The fact that such a vast effort to smear a political candidate happened and nobody was held accountable, says to me that this could happen again," Fleitz said. "It is probably going on now to smear whoever the Republican nominee is for president because we don't have a [Department of Justice] or a president who has any interest in keeping the FBI honest."
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