A newly released assessment from the Justice Department watchdog found “numerous issues” related to the FBI’s validation processes for secret sources.
The audit, published Tuesday by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, comes amid intense scrutiny of the Justice Department’s and FBI’s actions during the 2016 election.
“Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources can result in jeopardizing FBI operations and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harm’s way,” Horowitz said in a two-minute video.
Multiple confidential human sources were used in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, including Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, who met with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos accompanied by a woman posing as his assistant, Azra Turk. Horowitz was looking into whether Halper, who made contact with other Trump campaign officials, exceeded his mandate.
British ex-spy Christopher Steele, whose salacious dossier on President Trump was used by the bureau to justify surveillance of the Trump campaign, was also a confidential human source to the FBI. Steele was cut off as an FBI source in November 2016, following the discovery that he had been improperly providing information to journalists while working with them, but he remained in contact with the bureau through a back channel facilitated by Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.
The partially redacted audit generally covers fiscal 2012 to May 2019 and is yet another critical assessment of the FBI under the tenure of Director James Comey, who was fired in May 2017. Comey has spoken out, denying Attorney General William Barr’s assertion that “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign. He wrote in a New York Times op-ed that Trump’s “amoral” leadership had corrupted Barr.
Confidential human sources are hired for a litany of missions, not just counterintelligence. They also collect intelligence and investigative information while being embedded in terrorist cells and violent gangs.
The 63-page report on the FBI’s management of validation processes determined there was a “backlog of long-term” sources of five years or more. Validation is defined as “vetting the credibility of a CHS and assessing the veracity of the information the source provides.” Horowitz’s staff interviewed more than 100 FBI officials at field offices in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, as well as relevant officials at the Justice Department and another Intelligence Community agency.
Investigators found the FBI and the Justice Department’s review committee failed to comply with attorney general guidelines requiring timely validation. “By not timely reviewing long-term CHSs for continued use, the FBI risks retaining active CHSs who should have been closed for cause,” said a press release accompanying the audit.
Investigators also uncovered issues with FBI employees who conducted validation reviews, noting they did not “review the full scope” of a long-term source’s work for the FBI. “Moreover, FBI employees conducting CHS validation reviews told us they were discouraged from documenting conclusions and recommendations arising from the validation process,” Horowitz’s team said.
Among other problems found was a lack of adequate oversight from FBI headquarters, insufficiently clear guidance on communications so that agents and sources are not “put in harm’s way,” and issues “related to the FBI’s ability to align its CHSs with its highest threat priorities.”
“Specifically, we found that the FBI lacked an automated process to analyze the threat areas in which it has CHS coverage and relied on an ineffective process that could result in outdated information,” Horowitz’s team said. “In addition, we found that a proposed automated system being developed would rely on data from several other FBI systems, including its CHS system of record which has known issues related to data quality.”
The FBI’s electronic record-keeping system for CHS management, called Delta, was determined to not only be inadequate for the FBI, but also hindered the inspector general’s ability to obtain information stemming from his requests. Instead, the watchdog audit said an FBI official “was able to manually create a partial spreadsheet” of the requested data.
Horowitz’s report made 16 recommendations to assist the Justice Department and FBI to improve the CHS program and said they agreed with all of them and have “started corrective measures.”
“We agree it is important to continue to improve the validation process to ensure compliance with the AG Guidelines,” Suzanne Turner, an FBI section chief in the inspection division, wrote to Horowitz on Sept. 24.
Not included or redacted in the report are specific details about confidential sources, including the number retained by the FBI, but it does show that the bureau spent a yearly average of $42 million on the collective group between fiscal 2012 and 2018.
The report comes one week after lawmakers wrote Horowitz seeking an investigation into the “nature and scope” of Michigan resident William Reilly’s work for the FBI as a counterterrorism source and the circumstances leading up to his death in Ukraine in July 2015 after traveling to Moscow.
The audit was released ahead of another highly anticipated report from Horowitz: The findings from his year-and-a-half investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses related to the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s GOP allies claim Horowitz’s findings will show top Justice Department and FBI officials misled the FISA court by using an unverified dossier compiled by Steele to obtain warrants to monitor onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page electronically. Democrats, as well as current and former FBI officials, have dismissed allegations of wrongdoing and have raised concerns that information about U.S. intelligence-gathering could be weaponized to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller.
Horowitz’s findings in the FISA report, which Barr said last week was “imminent” following a classification review and final session for witnesses to provide feedback, could be useful for U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation. Horowitz is scheduled to testify about his FISA investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month.
