DOJ Inspector Finishes Review of Hillary Probe, Expected To Be Released to Congress Soon
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General has completed its report on the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign, and its release to Congress could come any day.
“The intelligence agencies have to clear some certain classified material to be released,” former Congressman Jason Chaffetz told Fox News on Sunday.
Chaffetz added that he anticipates Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report will be nonpartisan.
“I expect him to be a fair arbiter of what’s going on there,” said the former chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I think it will bring us as close to the truth as we’ll ever get.”
Fox News reported in mid-May Horowitz had completed his report.
“We will update you on the specific timing for the report’s release, and I will be prepared to provide a briefing and testify publicly about our findings and conclusions as soon as the report is released,” Horowitz said at the time.
In April, Horowitz sent a criminal referral to the DOJ regarding former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who allegedly lied to federal investigators about leaking details to the media in October 2016 regarding the bureau’s Clinton Foundation investigation.
House Republicans are looking deeper into the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe, scheduling interviews with three witnesses for June after a four-month hiatus without interviews.
The inquiry is being run jointly by the Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Affairs committees, The Hill reported.
The three witnesses include Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division; Michael Steinbach, the former head of the FBI’s national security division; and John Giacalone, who preceded Steinbach as the bureau’s top national security official.
Priestap is of particular interest because of his leadership position over the Clinton and Russia probes. Among those who served under him was counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who was reportedly on hand when the bureau interviewed both Clinton and Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.
Multiple texts released by the Department of Justice inspector general between Strzok and his mistress, then-FBI attorney Lisa Page, showed extreme bias against then-candidate Trump.
Strzok described Trump during the 2016 campaign as a “loathsome human” and an “idiot,” and found the prospect of him being president “terrifying.”
Page texted him, “There is no way (Trump) gets elected.”
Strzok then replied, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office … that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
In another exchange, Page wrote “Trump should go f himself,” to which Strzok replied, “F Trump.”
Additionally, House Republicans introduced a resolution earlier this month calling for the appointment a second special counsel to look into alleged abuses at the FBI and Justice Department regarding multiple issues, including their handling of the Clinton email scandal and the reported spying on the Trump presidential campaign.
The 12-page resolution offers a detailed account of the many areas the members would call on the special counsel to investigate.
The subjects range from the “premature” closing of the investigation into Clinton’s unauthorized, unsecured private email server during her time as secretary of state, to her destruction of materials subject to grand jury and congressional subpoenas, to former FBI Director James Comey’s letter exonerating Clinton drafted before he interviewed numerous key witnesses (including Clinton), to donations received by the Clinton Foundation in light of the Uranium One deal.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News last week that wrongdoing by the Obama administration and Clinton are continuing to come to light.
The system of corruption that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in charge of is beginning to unravel. The Inspector General's reports are just the beginning. More and more information will come out that will show how unimaginably corrupt the previous administration was. pic.twitter.com/7RdqfUsMhl
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) May 23, 2018
“The system of corruption that Obama and Clinton were in charge of is gradually beginning to unravel,” Gingrich said.
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