Schiff defends FBI investigation into Trump campaign, saying errors were not ‘apparent’ two years ago

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) defended the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s campaign on Sunday, adding that the errors found by the Department of Justice inspector general’s (IG) report were not “apparent” two years ago.

The chairman argued on “Fox News Sunday” that while the FBI made “serious” mistakes relating to surveillance of Trump campaign aides under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the investigation was still warranted.  

Schiff added that he was “unaware of” the mistakes uncovered by Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his report released last week.  

“I’m certainly willing to admit the inspector general found serious abuses of FISA that I was unaware of,” he said to host Chris Wallace. “Had I known of them, Chris, yes I would have called out the FBI at the same time. “

TODAY: Adam Schiff defends how the FISA investigation was conducted because the errors the IG found were not “apparent” two years ago. #FNS #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/4ojC14VGzo

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) December 15, 2019

Schiff maintained that the FBI would have been “negligent” not to launch an investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, adding that the  bureau should adopt the inspector general’s recommendations.

“The most significant things I think are that corrective steps will be taken in terms of the FISA process and that the IG debunked the claims of the president, by Mr. Nunes and others of this deep state conspiracy,” Schiff added, referring to Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

The long-awaited Horowitz report released last week concluded the FBI did not act out of political motivation when opening the investigation. It did find 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” made by the bureau during its probe.