US News

Ratcliffe: IG report into Russia probe will be ‘damning’ for DOJ

Texas Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe predicted Sunday that the impending report on the origins of the Justice Department’s probe into Russian election interference is “likely to be damning.”

Ratcliffe noted that Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s internal report into the underlying evidence that sparked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s lengthy investigation is said to run to 500 pages, suggesting it must mean serious failings.

“It doesn’t take an Inspector General 500 pages to say that everything was done correctly and properly,” Ratcliffe said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“The IG report is going to find that there were problems.”

He predicted that the report will bruise some members of the FBI as well as the Justice Department, especially over alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) violations by those investigating the Trump campaign.

Those complaints would damage the former administration — threatening Vice President Joe Biden in his 2020 presidential ambitions, he said.

Predicting the report will emerge early December, he accused Democrats of rushing through the impeachment hearings before its release.

“Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are racing to get this done,” he said. “That’s why we have five impeachment hearings this week with eight different witnesses. They’re racing the clock.

“They want to get this done before information that comes out that damages the Obama-Biden administration and their efforts to frame Donald Trump come out in the IG report or from John Durham’s criminal investigation into those very same issues.”

Horowitz submitted in September a draft of his report to Attorney General Bill Barr, who was reviewing the document — fueling the belief that the public release was coming soon.