House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy said he is “alarmed, angered, and deeply disappointed” by the findings of a report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog examining the department and FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
[READ: DOJ inspector general’s report on Hillary Clinton emails investigation]
“This report confirms investigative decisions made by the FBI during the pendency of this investigation were unprecedented and deviated from traditional investigative procedures in favor of a much more permissive and voluntary approach,” Gowdy, R-S.C., said in a statement Thursday. “This is not the way normal investigations are run. The investigation was mishandled.”
The Justice Department’s inspector general released to the highly anticipated report on the FBI and Justice Department’s conduct during the Clinton email investigation Thursday afternoon.
The report details the missteps taken by the Justice Department and FBI during the course of the probe, and also condemns former FBI Director James Comey and other top officials within the department.
The inspector general’s report will hit Comey for “departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms,” according to conclusions of the report, first obtained by Bloomberg. The watchdog, though, concluded it “did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias” on his part.
Gowdy, too, criticized Comey for decisions made during the course of the investigation into Clinton’s email use, including his press conference in July 2016 announcing the bureau would not be recommending charges against Clinton.
The South Carolina Republican also said the “treatment afforded to former Secretary Clinton and other potential subjects and targets was starkly different from the FBI’s investigation into Trump campaign officials.”
“This is not the FBI that I know,” Gowdy said. “This is not the FBI our country needs. This is not the FBI citizens and suspects alike deserve.”
Gowdy notes the anti-Trump text messages exchanged between two FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and said the report “conclusively shows an alarming and destructive level of animus displayed by” top FBI officials.
In one recently revealed text between the two, included in the inspector general’s report, Strzok told Page “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president.
“The law enforcement community has no greater ally in Congress than me. But continued revelations of questionable decision making by FBI and DOJ leadership destroys confidence in the impartiality of the institutions I have long served, respected, and believed in,” Gowdy said.
He called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Chris Wray to “take decisive action to restore Americans’ confidence in our justice system.”
