"This is a moment like when the J. Edgar Hoover FBI clearly was no longer helping the American people," Todd said during the roundtable discussion. "It seems like we have to do something to restore trust."
While Todd slammed conservative-leaning publications for calling the 306-page Durham report a "soft coup" between the FBI and Democratic leaders to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency, the NBC host said "John Durham's actual sharpest conclusions were that the FBI suffered from confirmation bias and...willfully ignored material information that countered the narrative of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia."
"The report recommended no 'wholesale changes' to FBI rules for regulations or wiretaps, and Durham did not send a single person to jail, even though former President Trump once predicted that Durham would uncover the crime of the century," Todd told the panel.
Washington Post journalist Dan Balz, who was also sitting on the panel, said that the FBI has been weaponized to go after political opponents in recent years.
"The FBI has become a politicized institution and a political target, and this is going to make it much more difficult for Merrick Garland as he goes forward with these investigations, and I don't see any way out of that in the – anywhere in the near future," Balz said to Todd.
Todd fired back, referencing recent reports that the FBI misused surveillance technology on all sides of the political spectrum, and added the federal agency has lost trust in all Americans, not just those belonging to one side of the political spectrum.
"Trust in the FBI is eroding left and right. Feels like we're in a moment that we need a real Church Committee, that this is a moment like when the J. Edgar Hoover FBI clearly was no longer helping the American people, there was a moment," Todd said. "This feels like we might be in one of those moments."
The over 300-page report which was released last week exonerated former President Trump and his alleged collusion with Russia and found that the DOJ and FBI "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" in their launching of the investigation, according to Fox News.
The report revealed that in July of 2016, US intelligence agencies "obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee."
CIA Director John Brennan briefed then-President Obama and other senior national security officials on the intelligence, including the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on January 26, 2016 of the proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services," the report stated, citing handwritten notes from Brennan.
The meeting included Obama, then-Vice President Biden, and two other senior Administration officials, "including but not limited to the Attorney General (who participated remotely) and the FBI Director."
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