The U.S. Justice Department's inspector general released a long-anticipated report Monday scrutinizing the roots of the Russia investigation, concluding that while the FBI was justified in opening a probe into whether anyone tied to the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin, there were "serious performance failures" in obtaining surveillance warrants against a former Trump aide.

The department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, spent more than a year scrutinizing the early steps of the Russia investigation, a probe Trump and his allies have derided repeatedly as a "hoax" and "witch hunt."

The report identified missteps in the beginnings of the investigation, including evidence that an FBI lawyer altered an email related to the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz said his office identified 17 "significant errors or other omissions" in surveillance applications targeting Page. 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.

But that evidence did not change the inspector general's conclusion that the Russia investigation was opened on proper legal footing and not out of an anti-Trump bias.

"We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page," the report stated.

Horowitz's report detailed actions taken in 2016, before the Russia investigation was handed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller III.

In April, Mueller's team released a report summarizing the two-year investigation, which found no sufficient evidence to prove the Trump campaign conspired with Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. In his 448-page report, Mueller documented several instances his office reviewed as part of a parallel investigation into whether Trump sought to obstruct the Russia investigation. The special counsel declined to take a position on whether Trump attempted to obstruct the probe.

Mueller, like many of the members of the special counsel team, has since returned to private practice. He rejoined Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr as a partner in October.

The full inspector general's report is posted below:

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