Former Trump attorney John Dowd said the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General report that detailed misconduct of how the FBI managed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server backed up President Trump’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey.
“The clear evidence of his usurpation of power, violation of his oath of office and material false statement to the public and the Congress all to conceal his own misconduct warranted a criminal referral of Comey’s conduct,” Dowd said in an email to Fox News. “The finding of no bias was ludicrous. The OIG findings support the President’s decision to fire Comey.”
Down also said that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller “allowed their relationship with Comey over the years [to] blind them to his obvious appalling behavior.”
The comments come after the report by Michael Horowitz determined that former FBI Director James Comey was “insubordinate” and “affirmatively concealed” his intentions regarding the investigation on Clinton’s emails.
But the report ultimately determined that though at times improper behavior was exhibited from the FBI, the actions did not alter the results of the Clinton investigation.
“[W]e did not find documentary of testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions discussed below, or that the justifications offered for these decisions were pretextual,” Horowitz wrote.
Comey responded to the results of the reports on Thursday in an opinion piece for the New York Times and on Twitter, where he argued he did not agree with all of the conclusions found in the report, but respects the inspector general’s office.
“I respect the DOJ IG office, which is why I urged them to do this review. The conclusions are reasonable, even though I disagree with some,” Comey tweeted. “People of good faith can see an unprecedented situation differently. I pray no Director faces it again. Thanks to IG’s people for hard work.”
Comey was fired by President Trump in May 2017. Trump initially said Comey was fired per the suggestion of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, but then said shortly thereafter the “Russia thing” was a factor.
