After reviewing a report by the Justice Department’s watchdog on the FBI’s management of its Hillary Clinton probe, top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight committees said the bureau’s actions during the 2016 presidential election “helped Donald Trump become president.”
[READ: DOJ inspector general’s report on Hillary Clinton email investigation]
The inspector general for the Department of Justice found that former FBI Director James Comey “deviated” from bureau and department procedures in his handling of the investigation into Clinton, according to multiple reports.
“While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,” Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in the report, according to Bloomberg.
Rep. Jerrry Nadler, D-N.Y., ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on House Oversight, issued a joint statement in response to the report’s findings.
“The stark conclusion we draw after reviewing this report is that the FBI’s actions helped Donald Trump become President,” the two Democrats said. “As we warned before the election, Director Comey had a double-standard: he spoke publicly about the Clinton investigation while keeping secret from the American people the investigation of Donald Trump and Russia.”
The FBI should not have spoken publicly about the the case after recommending not to bring charges, and should not have revealed it reopened the case days before the election, said Nadler and Cummings.
“These actions violate longstanding guidelines designed to protect citizens from unfair attacks and avoid influencing elections,” the duo said.
Horowitz also found it “extraordinary” that Comey did not talk to Attorney General Loretta Lynch before holding his July 2016 press conference on Clinton’s emails or before sending a letter to Congress about the investigation days before the election.
“We found it extraordinary that, in advance of two such consequential decisions, the FBI director decided that the best course of conduct was to not speak directly and substantively with the attorney general about how best to navigate those decisions,” the report states, according to Bloomberg.
“The great irony today is that Republicans in Congress are now engaged in the same kinds of attacks—abusing their Majority status to lean on investigators—only this time they are aimed at Special Counsel Mueller,” said Cummings and Nadler.
The full report is set to be released Thursday.
[Also read: Justice Department IG: James Comey, others used personal email to conduct FBI business]
