The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Micheal Horowitz announced on Tuesday that his office has uncovered pervasive problems in FBI wiretap applications. The Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) report comes out of an investigation into the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications, which was sparked after a report last year found inconsistencies in the FISA application for a Trump campaign aid during the Russia investigation.

The original report was published in December 2019 and “identified fundamental and serious errors in the agents’ conduct of the FBI’s factual accuracy review procedures (‘Woods Procedures’) with regard to all four FISA applications.” The Woods Procedures were created in 2001 with the stated purpose “to minimize factual inaccuracies in FISA applications and to ensure that statements contained in applications are ‘scrupulously accurate.'” The Woods Procedure is not law, but it is the FBI’s policy that all applications “create and maintain an accuracy sub-file (known as a ‘Woods File’).” Woods Files contain “(1) supporting documentation for every factual assertion contained in a FISA application, and (2) supporting documentation and the results of required database searches and other verifications.”

After the first report revealed issues with the FBI’s adherence to Woods Procedure, the OIG set up an audit “to examine more broadly the FBI’s execution of, and compliance with, its Woods Procedures relating to U.S. Persons.” As a precursor to the full audit, the OIG conducted a smaller audit over the last two months, which surveyed eight field offices and selected 29 cases to evaluate between 2014 and 2019. This initial evaluation focused solely on the Woods files in these cases and made no determination as to the materiality of errors or the presence of factual support in other forums. This initial audit also reviewed “34 FBI and NSD [National Security Division] accuracy review reports,” covering the same period and field offices.

Upon review of these cases, the OIG determined that “we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy.” The OIG made this determination for several reasons, including the fact that they “could not review original Woods Files for 4 of the 29 selected FISA applications because the FBI has not been able to locate them and, in 3 of these instances, did not know if they ever existed.” Additionally, of the 25 cases that the OIG was able to review, they “identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications.”

The OIG’s survey of the 34 accuracy review reports conducted by the FBI Chief Division Counsel (FBI CDC) and the NSD Office of Intelligence (NSD OI) found that “oversight mechanisms routinely identified deficiencies in documentation supporting FISA applications.” Specifically, the 34 reports contained 42 FISA applications, of which only three were deemed not to contain any factual deficiencies. They also determined that “the remaining 39 applications identified a total of about 390 issues.” None of these reports indicated that any the 390 issues were material, but the OIG has refrained from corroborating that determination. Consequently, the OIG found “the results of these reviews would have put the FBI on notice that the Woods Procedures were not consistently executed thoroughly and rigorously.”

Upon the completion of their initial survey, the OIG made two recommendations. First, “that the FBI institute a requirement that it, in coordination with NSD, systematically and regularly examine the results of past and future accuracy reviews to identify patterns or trends in identified errors.” Second, “that the FBI perform a physical inventory to ensure that Woods Files exist for every FISA application submitted to the FISC in all pending investigations.” Finally, the OIG announced that it will continue to “work with the FBI throughout our ongoing audit of the FBI’s execution of its Woods Procedures to monitor actions taken in response to the recommendations in this memorandum.”

The FBI responded in a letter attached to the OIG’s report. In their response, the FBI admitted the validity of the OIG’s findings and agreed to comply with the OIG’s recommendations. However, they also stressed that they believed that their initial restructuring after the publishing of the first report was sufficient to address the issues identified moving forward. They also conceded that while “FISA is an indispensable tool to guard against national security threats,” the FBI must also ensure that “FISA applications are scrupulously accurate.”