Thread by @bansisharma

1. IG Horowitz Testimony Before Senate Judiciary Committee

James Comey has been preening about having been vindicated by the IG Report. So let us hear Horowitz.

Lindsey Graham: "Does your report vindicate James Comey?"

Horowitz: "The report does not vindicate anyone involved."

2. Horowitz stated that intelligence briefings given to Clinton and Trump were treated very differently. Clinton briefing was conducted in a customary manner, whereas the intelligence briefing given to Trump was used to gather intelligence.

Everyone understands this was sleazy.

3. Everyone should watch the full opening remarks of Lindsey Graham, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He knocked it out of the ball park, with passion, with insight, with accuracy, and with an eye on the future of our country, while being very fair to FBI.

4. Democrats on the Committee keep hammering Horowitz with questions about any FBI bias in "opening" investigations into the various individuals in Trump campaign. They know the answer is no, when it comes to "opening" the various investigations. Corruption came later.

5. Horowitz restated that the investigations were opened as per standards, GIVEN THE LOW THRESHOLD REQUIRED BY THE DEPARTMENT FOR OPENING AN INVESTIGATION.

[Please note the requirement is 'an articulable reason.' In other words, if you can form a sentence, that's good enough.]

6. Josh Hawley: "What is worse: when a foreign govt interferes in our election, or when our own govt does it? In this case, the most powerful govt agency FBI, in collusion with DNC, interfered in our own election. It's bad when a foreign govt does it, but you expect them to."

7. Richard Blumenthal: "Do you believe FBI intervened and interfered in our election in 2016?"

Horowitz: "I will stand by what is covered in this report and the report we issued last year. There are questions about specific individuals and their actions."

8. Richard Blumenthal, Democratic senator from Connecticut, is perhaps the stupidest individual on this committee. He keeps trying to put inaccurate words in Horowitz's mouth, and Horowitz keeps politely declining to bite.

9. Bam!!!

Blumenthal: "FISA warrants are renewed because they are producing useful information?"

Horowitz: "Correct."

Blumenthal: "So FISA warrant against Carter Page was renewed repeatedly because it was producing useful information?"

Horowitz: "That's not accurate."

10. I was premature in calling Richard Blumenthal the stupidest member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I had forgotten that Mazie Hirono, Democratic senator from Hawaii, is also on the committee. We have a tie.

11. Mazie Hirono is adjudicating semantic differences between the words surveillance and spying.

Hirono: "Does the word spying bother you?"

Horowitz: "I want to stick to the words I used in my report."

Hirono: "I see you are not jumping up and down about spying."

12. Lidsley Graham: "Here's what I think. It may have started off legitimately, but it quickly got off the rails and became a criminal conspiracy."

13. Joni Ernst: "Why was there only one criminal referral out of your work?"

Horowitz: "Since we did not see the documentary evidence, we referred the whole report for review by DoJ. While we didn't see documentary evidence of wrongdoing, we didn't get good explanations either."

14. Kamala Harris now has the microphone to demonstrate once again how hideously deceitful and loathsome she truly is. She just smeared AG Barr by asserting a whole bunch of nonsense that she just made up based on her mind reading of Barr. She is now off to Ukraine. Yawn!

15. Kamala Harris: My time is up.

Truer words were never spoken!

16. Mike Crapo: "Not in the opening of the investigations, but in the conduct of the investigations there has been a ton of bias. But you are not making a decision on that."

Horowitz: "Correct. I am referring the conduct of the investigation to DoJ and FBI to adjudicate."

17. Mike Crapo: "While you are not making a decision on bias during the conduct of the investigation, would you say you are not saying there was no bias either?"

Horowitz: "Correct. I am referring the decisions on the operation of the investigations for DoJ and FBI to make."

18. John Kennedy: "Roughly how many people were involved in the Crossfire Hurricane?"

Horowitz: "About a dozen, maybe a little more, if you go up the chain."

19. Unlike Schiff hearings that didn't move the needle for the public (if anything, support for impeachment and removal of President Trump went down after those hearings), I suspect this hearing will move the needle in public's awareness of the level of wrongdoing in this case.

20. Lindsey Graham closes today's hearing with these words: "This is the beginning, not the end of this committee's involvement in this case."

End of blog.

Early indication of success of this hearing: I just heard this on @CBS: "If you're a Democrat thinking this FBI abuse doesn't matter b/c it was against Trump, think again. This was the same kind of abuse when FBI spied on Martin Luther King, and might happen again, against you."

@CBS One more thing.

Michael Horowitz is a consummate professional and an honest nonpartisan player. It came through loud and clear. Respect!