Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., told Newsmax on Wednesday that there must be accountability for the FBI in the wake of special counsel John Durham's blistering report about the agency's handling of the "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation of former President Donald Trump's supposed "Russian collusion" during the 2016 election.
"We have to make sure that there's accountability," Reschenthaler said during "The Chris Salcedo Show." "Back in the 1970s, the CIA was running around assassinating individuals, and we had a robust oversight investigation. We reined in the CIA. We need to do the same thing with the FBI."
Reschenthaler said that Congress can use its "power of the purse" to bring the law enforcement agency back in line, possibly breaking it up into five different divisions, to decrease its power.
"Remember there are five divisions within the FBI," he said. "Maybe each one of those divisions should be its own agency, and you silo the FBI into the five divisions. It would be much easier to appropriately fund those divisions, and have robust oversight over those divisions, instead of just having this monstrous federal agency."
The congressman was reacting to Durham's report on the origin of the Russian collusion investigation. Durham found that the agency had not followed its own investigation procedures to confirm and verify the information it used to not only start a formal investigation, but also instigate FISA Court warrants to spy on members of Trump's team during the campaign, and as the administration took office in 2017.
In his report, Durham said his investigation found "sobering" evidence that top officials at the FBI took on the matter with a "hostile" bias against Trump, and that they relied on false and misleading information as the basis for the probe without checking it out first for its authenticity.
"The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information," the report said. "Further, the FBI did so without any significant review of its own intelligence databases, collection of and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received, or using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed."
Reschenthaler said that there are things Congress can do with appropriations for the agency to make sure they respond to oversight.
"I think that we in Congress need to use the power of the purse to get action," he said. "For example, if we're not getting subpoenaed information back, maybe the FBI doesn't get their new headquarters."
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