Talk:Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:05, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that an Inspector General review did not find evidence of political bias in the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but found "serious performance failures" regarding FISA applications? Source: TIME: Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz determined that the FBI had adequate cause in July 2016 to justify opening an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia and did not find hard evidence of political bias in that decision. National Law Journal: there were “serious performance failures” in obtaining surveillance warrants against a former Trump aide [...] The numerous missteps, Horowitz added, "raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command’s management and supervision" of the process for obtaining warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Dein Lob, Herr, ruft der Himmel aus

Created by Starship.paint (talk). Self-nominated at 13:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems: - Not really clear what the topic is about without checking the "Crossfire Hurricane investigation". Also, the FISA part is not really that interesting.

QPQ: Done.

Overall: See above.

How about

ALT1: ... that an Inspector General review did not find evidence of political bias in the opening of the FBI investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign? or

ALT2: ... that the United States Attorney General rejected his own Inspector General's findings that there was no evidence of political bias in the opening of the FBI investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign?

ALT2 seems more interesting to me, an AG rejecting his own IG's findings publicly. Regards SoWhy 20:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks SoWhy. I will need time to expand the article to (1) clarify the topic and (2) make the FISA part more interesting. Perhaps let me ping you once I have finished that?

I feel that ALT2 is a bit inaccurate - the actual quote by Barr is The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken, so proposing ALT3 below in the meantime. starship.paint (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

ALT3: ... that the United States Attorney General rejected his own Inspector General's findings that the FBI investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was justified?

@Starship.paint: If you want to suggest something else, feel free to do so but I'd be with ALT3. Regards SoWhy 08:33, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

No, I'm happy with ALT3. I'd just like to expand the article a bit more regarding your concerns :) starship.paint (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Scope of IG power

@Starship.paint: I appreciate that this language was not in the source: a power that the report says "would have directly benefited" the OIG in conducting the review, as such power would have expedited the review, and would have allowed the OIG to compel testimony from a "small number" of individuals who declined to voluntarily testify. And I can't find another source for it. But it sure does seem helpful to inform the reader of specifically what the scope of the IG's power was, and how it impacted the investigation. Are you sure we can't rely on the primary source here? Shinealittlelight (talk) 14:00, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight - I too, searched for such content. But I couldn't find it. Perhaps another search could be done, noting the people who did not testify (Glenn Simpson and someone else I could not remember offhand). I would prefer not to rely on the primary source - if nobody else even discusses this, how do we know it's so important? It would open the door for putting in literally any content from the primary source. starship.paint (talk) 05:19, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I haven't been following this. What's the real problem here? The parts in quotes are in the OIG report. They can be quoted, but not if they are subjected to editorial interpretation and then included. Is that where the problem lies? -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Starship.paint: and @Shinealittlelight: -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:45, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: - I removed [subpoena], a power that the report says "would have directly benefited" the OIG in conducting the review, as such power would have expedited the review, and would have allowed the OIG to compel testimony from a "small number" of individuals who declined to voluntarily testify, because I couldn't find this mentioned in other sources. My view is that, this information has not been judged by other sources as important. Which is also related to WP:DUE, how can this be DUE if no other source has reported it? starship.paint (talk) 08:53, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that there's a concern here. Still, I do think it's sort of common sense that the scope of the IG's power is relevant to understanding what he did, and I don't see this as a POV sort of issue. What do you think, BullRangifer? Shinealittlelight (talk) 12:52, January 12, 2020‎ (UTC)

There are several factors related to policies, guidelines, and consensus, with the latter being the final determinant. The factors are: use of primary sources for non-interpretive documentation of facts; use of secondary sources for determination of due weight; how WP:V does not require the immediate use of inline sources for every single bit of content, but if demanded by editors, then sources must be provided. This usually applies to "sky is blue" types of content. We don't need sources for them, but if there is contention, then sources must be included.

I have previously taken a pretty hardline stance against using anything from a primary source, unless it has been used by a secondary source, because the use by secondary sources helps us determine due weight, but primary sources contain many bits of facts and context which are useful, and they haven't always been mentioned in secondary sources. It is not a violation of WP:Primary to use them, as long as they are not used for interpretation or taken out of context. Consensus can determine if the content is being misused, and it can then be tweaked, not outright deleted, per WP:PRESERVE.

The discussions starting with this section helped to move my needle on how much we can use primary sources, and I'm now using more from the IG report, and trying to avoid any interpretive use.

It's a service to readers to provide as many facts and context as possible. We are not a paper encyclopedia, so size is not a serious factor. Sometimes someone will contest that the content is irrelevant or "too much", and then consensus will have to determine how much to include. Yes, it's possible for an editor to get carried away with minutiae, and consensus can rule against them. OTOH, it is here that serious POV censorship can occur, without that being the conscious intent, with some editors not wanting unfavorable details, and that's a violation of NPOV. We must be inclusionists, rather than deletionists, to avoid that suspicion. Give readers more, not less. Let them have the opportunity to see all the facts and figure it out.

So, is there a question of due weight here, or is it a question of interpretive misuse of a primary source, or is it something else? What is the exact dispute here? -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:52, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would call it a "dispute", since I'm not settled on what to think. But Starship.paint is questioning whether the material he removed is DUE. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The report produces, let's say 10,000 pieces of information. This is one example: The supervising Unit Chief told us that the reason for the omission was VMU's practice of reporting on "what we positively find" and not on what is lacking. How do we judge whether this particular piece is information is important enough to include in the article? We have to rely on other reliable sources to point to it, then we will be following the editorial decisions of the reliable sources, rather than making editorial decisions of our own (by pointing to content not highlighted in reliable sources). That, in my view, is neutral editing. starship.paint (talk) 02:15, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, Starship.paint, I can understand that. But if we don't have secondary sources for basic, uncontroversial facts about the report, we can still rely on the report for those with care, right? If so, then the question is whether this is a basic, uncontroversial fact about the report. I believe I did find secondary sources confusingly or vaguely making (sometimes inconsistent) references to the IG's powers of subpoena (though I'd have to find them again). Does that make a difference to you? Shinealittlelight (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

"basic, uncontroversial fact" is exactly what we are allowed to include from primary sources, even without secondary sources. Is starship.paint disputing it? It's great when one can back it up with secondary RS, but if it's a simple fact, it should be allowed, even without the secondary source. If it's truly controversial, then it must be backed up with secondary RS. So which is it? -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

What you just added is pretty good, Starship.paint. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty good. Our readers will just have to infer the fact that Horowitz would have been helped in his investigation if he'd had more power to subpoena. They will have to remain ignorant of the fact that he himself said this. Shinealittlelight (talk) 12:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Shinealittlelight and BullRangifer: I would consider the sentence I removed a basic, uncontroversial fact. However, I still have reservations whether it is DUE. I'm less against the material itself, and more of wanting to make this article as sturdy as possible to scrutiny, so I'm kind of anticipating possible objections. To remedy this, Bull, I added a sourced sentence (As such, the investigation were unable to interview Glenn Simpson of the company Fusion GPS, as well as ex-Department of State employee Jonathan Winer, because they denied interview requests by the OIG. which makes a similar point to the sentence I removed. starship.paint (talk) 06:53, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Kris appointment, reaction

The court appointed David Kris to advise them on the actions proposed by the FBI. Kris has filed a brief saying that the actions aren't good enough. I put this in the article, since it seemed important. One aspect of the story I wasn't sure about including is that Trump, Nunes, and various conservative commentators have complained about the selection of Kris for this role. I wasn't sure that fact was due. What do you think, Starship.paint? Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• Shinealittlelight - I think criticism of Kris is a bit too far removed from this topic. It can be reserved for his own article. starship.paint (talk) 14:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)