by Chuck Ross
Former Rep. Trey Gowdy said Sunday that it is “too damn late” for James Comey to admit he was wrong about FBI abuse of the FISA process, as the former FBI director did in an interview on Fox News earlier in the day.
“I think this morning Comey admitted he was wrong. Sometimes, Maria, it’s better late than never, and sometimes it’s just too damn late,” Gowdy said in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” hosted by Maria Bartiromo.
Comey acknowledged in an interview with Chris Wallace that he was “wrong” to deny in 2018 that the FBI properly followed procedures in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page.
The Justice Department inspector general found otherwise in a report released Monday. Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, found “significant inaccuracies” in the FBI’s FISA applications. Investigators withheld exculpatory information regarding Carter Page, and derogatory information about the Steele dossier.
The dossier was “central and essential” to the FBI’s decision to pursue FISA warrants on Page, the report stated.
Gowdy, who investigated the FBI’s handling of the dossier while he was on the House Intelligence Committee, said Comey is “two years too late” in admitting to FBI abuses of the surveillance process.
“We could have used his objectivity, as head of the FBI helping Republicans figure out what was happening with FISA instead of thwarting us and obstructing us,” he said.
“He said it was policy and procedure issue. It’s not, Maria. There always has been policies against manufacturing evidence and withholding exculpatory evidence — that’s not new. This is a personnel issue. It’s the wrong people in the wrong positions of power. That’s not going to be fixed with a new policy or procedures. It’s going to be fixed by replacing the people who did what they did in 2016.”
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
