A fiery Ted Cruz on Wednesday blasted the surveillance of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, saying the errors made “are grotesque abuses of power.”
The IG compiled a 434-page report on how a secret court came to approve FBI requests for surveillance, which Cruz called “a stunning indictment of the FBI and the Department of Justice, of a pattern of abusive power.”
The Texas Republican said he’s “angry” and said the report, which sets out numerous errors in obtaining the go-ahead to conduct surveillance “should be deeply chilling” to all Americans.
The report, Cruz said, lays out “17 major errors and misstatements that were made by the FBI or DOJ” in securing warrants.
“A number of them are deeply deeply troubling, these are not typos. These are not small inadvertent errors. These are grotesque abuses of power,” the senator said.
In his questioning of Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Cruz then walked through some of the numerous errors and misstatements.
But he focused on one specific instance in which an email was purposely altered to completely change its content.
“The men and women sitting at home need to know what’s happening: A lawyer at the FBI creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email. That is in turn used as the basis for a sworn to the court that the court relies on in issuing authority to wiretap Trump campaign officials. Am I stating that accurately.”
“That’s correct,” Horowitz said. “That is what occurred.”
“And by the way, what he inserted was not just slightly wrong, it was 180 degree opposite of what the evidence said!” Cruz blared.
Cruz then pointed out that the Steele Dossier, which contained various allegations of wrongdoing by Trump officials — all eventually discredited — was funded by Democrats. He said the dossier was the “most effective oppo research dump in history” because “the Department of Justice and the FBI were perfectly happy to be hatchet men for this oppo research dump.”
After walking through all the gross errors, Cruz had a big close.
“What was going on here, this wasn’t Jason Bourne, this was Beavis and Butthead,” Cruz said, drawing laughter.
WATCH:
Ted Cruz: This wasn't Jason Bourne, this was Beavis and Butthead🔥 pic.twitter.com/NpPQwFJDhP
— Wojciech Pawelczyk (@WojPawelczyk) December 11, 2019
