Graham was also critical of the FBI’s decision to send an agent working on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as the Russia probe was named internally, to a more generic defensive briefing the bureau did for the Trump campaign.

The ranking Democrat on the panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, highlighted Horowitz’s finding that the FBI had a legitimate basis to open the investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016. She said that conclusion undercut Trump’s repeated claims that he was the target of a vendetta by FBI officials.

“This was not a politically-motivated investigation. There is no ‘Deep State,’” Feinstein said. “Simply put, the FBI investigation was motivated by fact, not bias. … The FBI was obligated to investigate possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign.”

Feinstein also faulted Barr for continuing to claim publicly that it is possible the FBI’s Russia probe was tainted by political motivations.

“I believe strongly that it’s time to move on from the false claims of political bias,” she said.

Democrats downplayed the numerous failures detailed in Horowitz’s 400-plus-page report and pointed out that FBI Director Christopher Wray had promised to address them.

The inspector general let most of those characterizations pass without comment, although when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) referred to “several errors” in the FISA process, Horowitz did chime in.

“Maybe more than several,” he said, alluding to his report’s identification of 17 significant facts that the FBI omitted or misstated in its submissions to the FISA court.

Despite claims by Feinstein and other Democrats that the watchdog had essentially cleared the FBI of claims that bias affected the investigation, Horowitz declared later in the exchange on Wednesday that inaccuracies and omissions relating to the Page surveillance were so numerous and inexplicable that he could not say there was no intentional misconduct or improper purpose at work.

“It is unclear what the motivations were,” the inspector general said. “We were not able to make that conclusion.”

However, Graham warned his Democratic colleagues not to dismiss Horowitz’s findings solely because Trump was the target of the FBI.

“It’s Trump today, it could be you or me tomorrow,” the chairman said. “There is a mountain of misconduct. Please don’t ignore it.”

Graham blasted the FBI for not briefing then-candidate Donald Trump during the campaign about the specific threats that agents perceived from Russia.

“They never made any effort to brief Donald Trump about suspected problems in his campaign. … Why did they not tell him that?” the chairman asked.

Graham was also critical of the FBI’s decision to send an agent working on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, as the Russia probe was named internally, to a more generic defensive briefing that the bureau did for the Trump campaign.

Wray has agreed not to do that again — at least with briefings to a presidential nominee’s campaign. But not every senator agreed that the FBI tactic the bureau deployed in 2016 was outrageous.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) noted that Michael Flynn, a key Trump adviser, was at the time a focus of a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI. He later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI while serving as national security adviser in the White House and is awaiting sentencing.

“It was an unusual circumstance that a participant in that briefing on the part of the Trump campaign was the subject of an FBI investigation,” Whitehouse said. “We should not draw the conclusion that there’s no way that the FBI should ever be given access to evidence that arises in the course of an intelligence briefing.”

Graham used a sizable chunk of his lengthy opening statement to read anti-Trump text messages exchanged by a top FBI agent on the Russia probe, Peter Strzok, and an FBI attorney, Lisa Page. The South Carolina Republican said the messages were improper for anyone involved in such a probe, though the report notes that neither Strzok nor Page were in charge of the investigation.

Graham did not mention that the inspector general found pro-Trump texts sent by other agents dealing with the Russia probe, nor did the senator revisit his own cutting criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Graham faulted the FBI for assigning agents and lawyers who had strong views about Trump to the Russia investigation. He did not explain how FBI supervisors should have known about the political leanings of those involved, given legal prohibitions on using political views in staffing decisions.

Comey has claimed that the report’s finding vindicates him against claims of mounting a biased, unjustified investigation, but in response to a question from Graham, Horowitz said the part of the probe that focused on Page is something no one at the FBI should be proud of.

“I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this FISA,” the inspector general said.

Despite the partisan divide evident at the hearing, there was some consensus that the inspector general’s findings could complicate the process for renewing certain surveillance authorities that recently got a short-term extension set to expire next March.

Graham said he’d been too quick in the past to dismiss warnings from colleagues such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that FISA oversight was weak and the system was susceptible to abuse.

Lee opened his comments on Wednesday by slamming what he called Democrats’ “absolutely crazy” take on the new report, but went on to say the findings demonstrated that his predictions about the surveillance regime had proven prescient.

“It calls into question the legitimacy of the whole FISA program,” Lee said. “This really pushes us over the edge. … Every American really should be terrified by this report.”

Another longtime critic of that surveillance process, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), pointed to the long history of inaccurate claims and broken promises by the government to the secretive court. He went on to say that he welcomed the new skepticism from some Republicans about those powers.

“Let’s have a fulsome conversation after this about the future of the FISA court and the representations that are made to it,” Durbin said.

