The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is looking into former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to give his personal memos to a friend outside the government.
“We received a referral on that from the FBI. We are handling that referral and we will issue a report when the matter is completed,” Inspector General Michael Horowitz said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The hearing came days after Horowitz’s office released a near 600-page report on the FBI’s handling of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Comey told Congress in June 2017 that he wrote the memos and authorized the release of them “as a private citizen.”
Comey has admitted to giving at least one of his memo with his friend Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and current Columbia Law School professor, with the hopes he would leak them and put the pressure on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The Wall Street Journal first reported in April that the IG was conducting an investigation into classification issues related to the Comey memos.
The Justice Department released copies of Comey’s seven memos to congressional leaders on April 19.
Comey was named and criticized in Thursday’s report, whicih said he deviated from department norms with his decision making during the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
