Summary: The DOJ’s inspector general will release a report about the FBI’s failures in probing the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
The Department of Justice’s inspector general is working on a report that will detail several law enforcement officials’ mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email probe, according to CNN.
Sources told CNN that the report is not ready for release yet, but they said it has exhaustive examples of former FBI Director James Comey’s failure to follow established protocols.
“Of particular focus are the events leading up to [Comey’s] decision to announce in July 2016, without Justice Department approval, that “no reasonable prosecutor” would recommend charges against Clinton, as well as the decision to tell lawmakers days before the November 2016 election that FBI agents had recovered additional emails possibly relevant to the investigation,” CNN said. “Comey was advised by the Justice Department that his letter to Congress would run counter to department policy to not comment publicly on investigations close to an election, but he sent it anyway.”
President Donald Trump fired Comey in May of 2017, and the firing is a main topic of concern in the pending investigation conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is trying to determine whether or not Russia aided Trump in winning the 2016 presidential election, and Trump critics said that Trump fired Comey because he was originally leading the Russia investigation. Trump, however, has said he fired Comey for incompetence.
Trump has been long anticipating the results of this report, and so has the White House and prominent conservative leaders.
“What is taking so long with the Inspector General’s Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey. Numerous delays. Hope Report is not being changed and made weaker! There are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. Transparency!” Trump tweeted on June 5.
CNN said that Inspector General Michael Horowitz will most likely recommend the FBI write new guidelines to address missteps taken by Comey.
The report is also expected to lambast former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was blasted for not recusing herself in the Hillary Clinton email case. Lynch was appointed to AG by President Barack Obama, and in 2016, she caused a stir when she was photographed greeting former President Bill Clinton at an airport tarmac. At the time, Bill Clinton’s wife and presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, was being investigated, and conservatives believed Lynch was biased in favor of the Clintons.
Although no one has seen the full report from the inspector general, sources said that the snippets they’ve seen show the inspector general was also critical of Andrew McCabe, who was fired by Trump this year only days before he was set to retire and collect a lifelong pension.
The report’s intent was to determine whether or not political bias influenced the outcome of the Clinton email investigation, and Horowitz allegedly has included numerous texts between two top FBI officials who regularly mocked Trump.
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