Attorney General William Barr on Monday slammed the Justice Department inspector general’s report, insisting that despite the report’s findings, the FBI launched “an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”

While the report found no evidence suggesting the FBI had political bias when it began investigating individuals linked to the Trump campaign, the DOJ watchdog did find “serious performance failures” at the FBI when they sought permission to surveil a former Trump campaign official Carter Page. Inspector General Michael Horowitz found “at least 17 significant errors or omissions” in the FBI’s applications, prompting him to open a new audit into how the FBI obtains authorizations from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil Americans. 

Despite the report's findings, Barr defended Trump and “from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.” “Never the less, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump's administration," Barr said, arguing FBI officials “suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principle source.”