WASHINGTON DC (January 28, 2020) — Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Charles "Chuck" Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a classified letter Tuesday to US Attorney General William P Barr to request the declassification of four footnotes in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General’s (OIG’s) report on FISA abuses in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
For maximum public transparency, the senators wrote a separate unclassified cover letter to describe their request.
In the unclassified letter, the senators wrote:
“We have reviewed the findings of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with regard to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and we are deeply concerned about certain information that remains classified. Specifically, we are concerned that certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes. This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation. The American people have a right to know what is contained within these four footnotes and, without that knowledge, they will not have a full picture as to what happened during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
Full text of the unclassified letter can be viewed here.