6:01 p.m. ET, December 9, 2019
FBI agent overseeing Russia investigation attended campaign briefing to collect info on Michael Flynn
From CNN's Sam Fossum
The supervising agent overseeing the FBI's Russia investigation attended a counter intelligence briefing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided to the Trump campaign, at least in part, to collect information relevant to their investigation, according to the inspector general Michael Horowitz's report.
Horowitz wrote that he found no evidence that the FBI consulted with Justice Department leadership or DNI officials about the decision to send an investigator to the briefing.
About one week after the briefing, the supervising agent — after consulting with Peter Strzok and an FBI lawyer — formally documented the briefing in a three-page memo that described questions the agent fielded from Trump and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, comments both men made, and how the agent responded. The FBI agent said they only documented information potentially relevant to Crossfire Hurricane.
The same agent also provided the same briefing for the Hillary Clinton campaign, telling Horowitz that they did nothing differently between the Trump and Clinton briefings. The report quotes the supervising agent as saying:
"That was one of the things that was very key. [The briefings] needed to be consistent."
However, the agent only wrote a memo about the briefing that was provided to the Trump campaign.
Keep in mind: The IG wrote that there are no FBI policies that detail how such briefings should be handled and whether it's appropriate to use them for any possible investigative threads.
"We identified no Department or FBI policies or procedures regarding the handling of presidential transition briefings, and no requirement that Department leadership be consulted before using a presidential transition briefing, or a defensive briefing, for possible investigative purposes," the report states.
In the conclusion of the report, the Inspector General recommends that the FBI establish a policy regarding whether it's appropriate for investigators to use defensive or transition briefings and that any such step should require approval by senior leaders at the FBI with "notice to a senior Department official."