--- title: Inspector General Faults Comey for Handling of Clinton Probe description: James Comey “deviated” from FBI and Justice Department procedures in handling the Hillary Clinton probe, according to the Inspector General. canonical: https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-14T15:04:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:34:41.809Z article:section: Politics og:title: Comey 'Deviated' From FBI Protocol in Clinton Probe, IG Says og:description: But, he was not motivated by political bias, according to the report og:url: https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb294326855d094/6989330ae76ad26a41632455/comey-fbi-clinton-probe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Former FBI Director Comey on Meet the Press og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Comey 'Deviated' From FBI Protocol in Clinton Probe, IG Says twitter:description: But, he was not motivated by political bias, according to the report twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb294326855d094/6989330ae76ad26a41632455/comey-fbi-clinton-probe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Comey 'Deviated' From Procedure in Clinton Probe, But Was Not Politically Biased, IG Says > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Chris Strohm / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Chris Strohm / Bloomberg Contributor Jun 14, 2018 3:04 PM UTC  James Comey, Former FBI Director, appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., Sunday, April 29, 2018. James Comey, Former FBI Director, appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., Sunday, April 29, 2018. NBC NewsWire—NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images by [Chris Strohm / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Chris Strohm / Bloomberg Contributor Jun 14, 2018 3:04 PM UTC Former FBI Director James Comey “deviated” from FBI and Justice Department procedures in handling the probe into Hillary Clinton, damaging the law enforcement agencies’ image of impartiality even though he wasn’t motivated by political bias, the department’s watchdog found in a highly anticipated report. “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’s conclusions, which were obtained Thursday by Bloomberg News. Horowitz’s report examined actions taken by top officials before the 2016 election, including the handling of the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. The investigation expanded to touch on an array of politically sensitive decisions by officials including Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. While the report being sent to Congress on Thursday doesn’t deal with the origins of the probe into Russia meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion with those around President Donald Trump, the president and his Republican supporters in Congress are primed to use it as evidence of poor judgment and anti-Trump bias within the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department. In tweets, Trump has said Comey’s investigation into Clinton was “phony and dishonest” and that Comey, who he fired on May 9, 2017, left the FBI’s reputation in tatters. Trump has expressed great interest in the inspector general’s report, as well as some skepticism it might not be as damning as he hopes. “What is taking so long with the Inspector General’s Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey,” Trump tweeted on June 5\. “Numerous delays. Hope Report is not being changed and made weaker! There are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. Transparency!” Among topics the inspector general reviewed was Comey’s announcement in July 2016 that no prosecutor would find grounds to pursue criminal charges against Clinton for improperly handling classified information on her private email server, as well as Comey’s decision to inform Congress only days before the election that the Clinton investigation was being re-opened. Comey’s public announcement of findings angered Republicans, while his reopening of the inquiry outraged Democrats. Some of what Horowitz discovered has already been made public. Republican critics seized on revelations from the inspector general that two FBI officials who worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, exchanged text messages sharply critical of Trump. Mueller removed Strzok from the inquiry after the texts were discovered, and Page has since left the FBI. “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed,” Horowitz said in the report to be issued Thursday. “The conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation.” The inspector general also released a report in April finding that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor on four different occasions regarding interactions with the media, including providing information to a news reporter about the FBI’s investigation into the foundation created by Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. The inspector general has referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for further investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions relied on the report to fire McCabe only hours before he was set to retire and qualify for his full government pension. McCabe and his lawyer have adamantly contested the allegations. The inspector general also opened a separate review into whether the Justice Department and FBI followed appropriate procedures in obtaining a secret warrant to conduct surveillance on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in late 2016 and early 2017. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/"},"headline":"Comey 'Deviated' From Procedure in Clinton Probe, But Was Not Politically Biased, IG Says","datePublished":"2018-06-14T15:04:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:34:41.809Z","description":"\"The decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice\"","url":"https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/","keywords":["James Comey","Bloomberg","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb294326855d094/6989330ae76ad26a41632455/comey-fbi-clinton-probe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Strohm / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb294326855d094/6989330ae76ad26a41632455/comey-fbi-clinton-probe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former FBI Director Comey on Meet the Press","caption":"Former FBI Director James Comey sits on set at \"Meet the Press\"","creditText":"NBC NewsWire—NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/james-comey/","name":"James Comey"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5312285/james-comey-fbi-inspector-general-report/","name":"Comey 'Deviated' From Procedure in Clinton Probe, But Was Not Politically Biased, IG Says"}}]}] ```