USA TODAY International Edition
Senate panel grills Justice officials on Clinton inquiry
WASHINGTON – Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz defended his scathing review of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, maintaining Monday that there was no “documentary evidence” that political bias influenced investigative decision-making.
In his first public comments since delivering the 568-page report last week, Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary Committee that cascading errors in judgment by top Justice and FBI officials seriously endangered the reputations of both institutions.
Though there was no finding of undue political influence, Horowitz acknowledged the “troubling” discovery of text messages between two FBI officials that disparaged Donald Trump as a presidential candidate – a finding that fuels claims by the president and some Republican lawmakers that the FBI is biased against Trump.
The FBI officials – senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau attorney Lisa Page – held top positions in the Clinton inquiry and were on the team investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Strzok still works for the FBI; Page left the bureau.
“We found that the text communications cast a cloud over the (Clinton) investigation,” Horowitz said.
Some of the most blistering criticism in the report was aimed at former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. It found that Comey acted “unilaterally” when he publicly announced the closing of the Clinton investigation at a news conference in July 2016.
Horowitz referred to a near-blackout of communications between Comey and Lynch when Comey reopened the Clinton inquiry 11 days before the election. Clinton has said the action doomed her campaign.
FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared with Horowitz on Monday and told the Senate panel the FBI was pursuing misconduct allegations raised against FBI personnel in the report.
Still, Wray said, “nothing in the report impugned the reputation of the FBI as a whole.”