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The Opening of Crossfire Hurricane

As set forth in greater detail in Section IV, the record in this matter reflects that upon receipt of unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI swiftly opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately.[1] Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump.[2] The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information. Further, the FBI did so without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received or (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence. Had it done so, again as set out in Sections IV.A.3.b and c, the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of State aware of such evidence concerning the subject. In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.[3]

The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign. As described in Section IV.B, in the eighteen months leading up to the 2016 election, the FBI was required to deal with a number of proposed investigations that had the potential of affecting the election. In each of those instances, the FBI moved with considerable caution. In one such matter discussed in Section IV.B.1, FBI Headquarters and Department officials required defensive briefings to be provided to Clinton and other officials or candidates who appeared to be the targets of foreign interference. In another, the FBI elected to end an investigation after one of its longtime and valuable CHSs went beyond what was authorized and made an improper

  1. ↑ Peter Strzok, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump at 115 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2020) (hereinafter “Strzok, Compromised”).
  2. ↑ Strzok and Deputy Director McCabe’s Special Assistant had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. As explained later in this report, in text messages before and after the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the two had referred to him as “loathsome,” “an idiot,” someone who should lose to Clinton “100,000,000–0,” and a person who Strzok wrote “[w]e’ll stop” from becoming President. Indeed, the day before the Australian information was received at FBI Headquarters, Page sent a text message to Strzok stating, “Have we opened on him yet? [angry­-faced emoji]” and referenced an article titled Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing.
  3. ↑ See SENATE-FISA2020-001163 (Annotated version of article titled Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence, N.Y. Times (February 14, 2017); FBI­-EMAIL-428172 (Annotated version of article titled Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking, N.Y. Times (Mar. 1, 2017).

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