The long-awaited report from the inspector general of the Department of Justice in regard to the Clinton email investigation is on the verge of being released to the public, and some of its content is already beginning to leak.
Reports have emerged which allege that the report is especially harsh on fired FBI Director James Comey and the manner in which he handled, or more likely mishandled, the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized use of an unsecured email server.
According to the New York Post, it is expected that the report will sharply criticize Comey for his “insubordinate” behavior during that investigation.
Most especially, that report will focus in on Comey’s decision to publicly announce on July 5, 2016, that no charges would be brought against Clinton and the investigation would end, despite ample evidence that charges were warranted.
Likewise, the report will also take issue with Comey’s decision to publicly announce on October 28, 2016, that he had re-opened the investigation just weeks prior to the election after Clinton’s emails were discovered on a laptop owned by Anthony Weiner, husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
It was reported that in both of those instances, Comey defied the authority of the DOJ and violated long-standing policies with regard to publicly commenting on the status of investigations.
It was further alleged that Comey had been advised to not make any public comment in either of those instances by senior DOJ officials, but proceeded to do so regardless.
Comey managed to anger just about everybody on both sides of the political divide with those two actions, first angering Republicans by letting Clinton off the hook in July, then angering Democrats by momentarily placing her back on the hook in October.
It is widely believed that the second announcement by Comey about Clinton’s emails may have contributed to her electoral defeat just two weeks later.
But Comey was not alone in suffering the wrath of the IG report, as former Attorney General Loretta Lynch is also alleged to have been slammed for her own role in the investigation.
Specifically, her surreptitious June 2016 meeting on a Phoenix tarmac with former President Bill Clinton, husband of the primary subject of the investigation, just days prior to the announcement that the investigation had ended.
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A draft of the IG report has been circulated for the past couple weeks among those who are involved in the report, and Inspector General Michael Horowitz will release it publicly once all comments and criticisms are taken into account and the draft report is finalized.