‘Comey insubordinate in Clinton probe’

Bloomberg

Former FBI Director James Comey was “insubordinate” in handling the probe into Hillary Clinton, damaging the bureau and the Justice Department’s image of impartiality even though he wasn’t motivated by politics, the department’s watchdog found.
Although the report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz doesn’t deal directly with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russia meddling in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with those around Donald Trump, the president and his Republican allies in Congress were primed to seize on it as evidence of poor judgment and anti-Trump bias within
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department.
Horowitz said that five FBI officials expressed hostility towards Trump before his election as president and disclosed in his report to Congress that their actions have been referred to the bureau for possible disciplinary action.
“The president was briefed on the IG report, and it reaffirmed the president’s suspicions about Comey’s conduct and the political bias among some of the members of the FBI,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the 500-page report.
One example cited in the new document is an exchange of texts between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on August 8, 2016.
Under those circumstances, Horowitz said “we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritise the Russia investigation over following up” on potential new evidence in the Clinton case “was free from bias.”
Zeroing in on the evidence of anti-Trump sentiment, Representative Darrell Issa of California said “it appears as though all or most of the 39 people who were tangentially involved had a bias towards believing they were going to work for Hillary Clinton — and as a result didn’t have the guts to take on wrongdoing.”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that “any effort to use this report as an excuse for shutting down Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation is both disingenuous and dangerous.
Nothing in this report detracts from the credibility and critical importance of the Special Counsel’s investigation.”