James Comey To Testify On Russia Investigation At End Of Month

Senate Republicans continue their own investigation into the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with the Russian government to steal the election.

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team eventually concluded, the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, and a subsequent Inspector General report found that the FBI omitted evidence that would have called into question the years long investigation into the Trump administration as part of “Crossfire Hurricane.” Following the IG report, Senate Republicans and U.S. Attorney General William Barr launched separate investigations into the origins of the false collusion narrative.

As part of the Senate’s investigation, ex-FBI Director James Comey will testify on September 30. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News host Sean Hannity Wednesday night that Comey had agreed to testify, while Mueller said he didn’t have enough time.

“The day of reckoning is upon us when it comes to Crossfire Hurricane,” Graham said.

The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross reported that the committee would also interview the two FBI employees who spoke with the primary source for Christopher Steele’s dossier, which was used as the basis for the investigation into the Trump campaign. The primary source, Russia analyst Igor Danchenko, informed the FBI and the Justice Department in January 2017 that Steele embellished parts of his dossier, but the FBI didn’t include this information when applying for a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Graham’s decision to interview the two FBI employees is a chance, he told Hannity, to find out which FBI agents knew about what Danchenko said during his interviews that would undermine the investigation.

“Now who did the intel analyst and the case agent tell?” Graham said. “We’re going to talk to them in the next week to 10 days.”

More from Ross:

The case agent has been identified as Steven Somma, a veteran counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York Field Office. Somma was involved in several aspects of Crossfire Hurricane.

In addition to interviewing Danchenko, he was the FBI handler for Stefan Halper, a confidential source who secretly recorded Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide.

The IG report said Somma, who is referred to as “Case Agent 1” in the report, was the first FBI investigator to propose applying for a FISA warrant against Page.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, the IG report found 17 “inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s FISA warrants against Carter Page, far higher than were found in dozens of other warrant requests as part of a random search conducted by the IG.

Among the omissions were information pertaining to Page’s past known communications with Russian officials. An FBI lawyer who is no longer with the bureau pleaded guilty to falsifying an email to remove the fact that the CIA told the FBI Page had worked with the agency.