Fact-checking Barr’s dispute of inspector general’s report on the FBI, Russia probe

Attorney General William Barr blasted the FBI over its 2016 decision to open the Russia investigation later led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, rejecting an inspector general’s conclusion that the FBI’s probe was justified from the get-go.

"The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that 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," Barr said in a statement.

The report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz did find "significant inaccuracies and omissions" left out of the FBI’s applications for court-ordered surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But it said the agency’s decision to open an investigation into the campaign’s ties with Russia was warranted and not motivated by politics.

Barr’s reading put him at odds with FBI Director Christopher Wray, who pledged to make changes to the FBI’s surveillance process and accepted the report’s determinations in full.