What did the IG report find?
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz told lawmakers last month that as a result of the report’s findings, the FBI found two additional FBI agents beyond Strzok and Page as well as one attorney that exposed political bias during the investigation. While employees have a right to a political opinion, “their job is to check them at the door” Horowitz said.
“The one thing I thought we all understood, you’re entitled to be and should be part of the public, government, democracy we live in, when you get in the office you leave your views outside when you walk in the door,” the IG said.
Horowitz explained that the most troubling aspect of Strzok and Page’s exchanges was the fact that they thought their messages were private when they weren’t.
“They were using their FBI devices, sometimes at work, sometimes not at work, to speak about individuals that they were investigating. They weren’t just speaking about a generic election,” he said, adding that Page and Strzok had “tied their discussions to their investigate work and that’s what’s concerning.”
“My view of this was that this was extremely serious, completely antithetical to the core values of the department,” Horowitz said of the largely anti-Trump and politically biased messages exchanged. Horowitz reiterated, however, that through the investigation, “we didn’t find or see evidence prosecutors were impacted by that bias.”
Horowitz said that Strzok “exhibited” some form of bias but that decisions made by others during the Clinton investigation “were not infected by that bias.”
