The Justice Department inspector general has
found additional failures in the FBI’s handling of a
secretive surveillance program that came under
scrutiny after the Russia investigation, identifying
problems with dozens of applications for wiretaps
in national security investigations.
The audit results, announced by Inspector
General Michael Horowitz, suggest that FBI
errors while eavesdropping on suspected spies
and terrorists extend far beyond those made
during the investigation into ties between
Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. They
come as the FBI has scrambled to repair public
confidence in how it uses its surveillance powers
and as lawmakers uneasy about potential
abuses have allowed certain of its tools to at
least temporarily expire.
The new findings are on top of problems
identified last year by the watchdog office,
which concluded that the FBI had made
significant errors and omissions in applications
to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign adviser
Carter Page during the early months of the
Russia investigation. Those mistakes prompted
internal changes within the FBI and spurred a
congressional debate over whether the bureau’s
surveillance tools should be reined in.