House GOP accuses FBI of anti-Trump bias
Bloomberg News
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., questioned the Justice Department’s inspector general over “attempts to mitigate” anti-Trump bias in the FBI, as House members held a politically charged hearing on the watchdog’s 500-page report.
“Bias and fairness cannot co-exist,” Mr. Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Tuesday. Evidence of prejudice against now-President Donald Trump within the FBI “conjure anger, disappointment and sadness to everyone who reads it.”
It was a challenge to Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s finding that bias he uncovered among at least five FBI officials didn’t affect decisions in the investigation of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. House members divided along party lines Tuesday, as senators did in questioning Mr. Horowitz a day earlier.
Mr. Horowitz testified that Justice Department prosecutors, not FBI agents, made key decisions and there was no evidence they were biased in recommending against prosecuting Ms. Clinton or her aides for mishandling classified information.
Reaction to the longawaited inspector general’s report on the Clinton investigation has largely fallen along partisan lines, with Republicans accusing the FBI of going easy on Ms. Clinton and Democrats pointing to Mr. Horowitz’s conclusion that whatever bias was uncovered did not appear to affect the case.
Even though Mr. Horowitz’s report issued last week dealt solely with the Clinton probe, Mr. Trump has claimed vindication in the report for his assertion that special counsel Robert Mueller is engaged in a “witch hunt” in the continuing inquiry into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election campaign, whether anyone close to Mr. Trump colluded in it and whether Mr. Trump sought to obstruct justice.
Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign manager, tweeted during the hearing that Mr. Trump should fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and “End the Mueller Investigation.” He wrote that the inspector general’s report gives Mr. Trump “the truth to end it all.”
Like other Republicans, Mr. Gowdy zeroed in on antiTrump text messages exchanged in 2016 between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who was at the time an FBI lawyer. Mr. Horowitz acknowledged that Agent Strzok was present when the FBIinterviewed Ms. Clinton.
“Huh?” Mr. Gowdy responded, as if surprised. The former federal prosecutor later questioned whether FBI agents went into that crucial interview with Ms. Clinton “loaded for bear,” as he said mostprosecutors would.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said text messages by Agent Strzok indicated that he carried his bias against Mr. Trump into Mr. Mueller’s probe. Mr. Mueller removed Agent Strzok from his team in the summer of 2017 after learning of the text messages. (He was also reassigned to the human resources department, and his lawyer confirmed on Tuesday that he was escorted from FBI headquarters as part of “ongoing internal proceedings.”)
Jordan said Republicans want answers “about this whole ordeal” from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said he feels “as though sunshine, transparency would be the way to root out this bias that we seem to see reflected.” Mr. Horowitz said some names were withheld because the bureau did not want those people publicly identified because they work on espionage cases.
But Democrats underscored Tuesday that the report -- on actions taken before Mueller was appointed — didn’t find that the FBI “plotted against” Mr. Trump’s election, as Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said.
“President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and some of my Republican colleagues are desperate to make that leap. Who wouldn’t be, in their position, with 23 indictments and the president’s campaign manager in jail?” Mr. Nadler said. “But their argument is based on innuendo, not on the facts, and certainly not on this report.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, DMd. and the Oversight and Government Reform panel’s top Democrat, said in his statement that “the Republicans are now tripling down -threatening to impeach” Mr. Rosenstein and Mr. Wray.
Democrats also repeatedly tried to get Mr. Horowitz to repudiate Mr. Trump’s claims that the findings somehow exonerate the president in the Russia probe.
Mr. Horowitz declined, saying only that his report did not look at the Russia probe - though he added his office is looking at “campaign-related issues” surrounding that investigation.
At the same time, Mr. Horowitz tried to beat back suggestions from Republicans that his office had gone easy on the FBI, insisting “We didn’t pull any punches.”
Mr. Horowitz noted that his office had made a criminal referral to federal prosecutors about alleged false statements made to his investigators by the FBI’s former deputy director, Andrew McCabe. Asked if Mr. McCabe lied under oath, Mr. Horowitz answered: “In our view, yes.”
Mr. McCabe has denied wrongdoing.
At Monday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Horowitz made clear that his office still has unfinished business regarding the FBI’s Clinton investigation. The inspector general’s office is probing possible misconduct in the FBI’s safeguarding of its own secrets.
In the wake of the inspector general’s findings, Mr. Wray has announced a bureau-wide effort to emphasize training designed to prevent FBI personnel from having unauthorized conversations with reporters.
Mr. Horowitz also acknowledged that his office is reviewing whether former FBI Director James Comey may have mishandled memos he wrote about his interactions with Mr. Trump and his senior staff. Mr. Horowitz said the FBI had made a referral to his office about the memos and that he planned to issue a report on the matter, as well as another one on leaks from the FBI.