WASHINGTON \u2014 The FBI is determined to not repeat any of the mistakes identified in a harshly critical watchdog report on the handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Director Chris Wray told lawmakers at a congressional hearing Monday at which he repeatedly sought to distance himself from his predecessor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wray said the FBI accepted the findings of the Justice Department inspector general report and has begun making changes, including about how the bureau handles especially sensitive investigations. The FBI is also reinforcing through employee training the need to avoid the appearance of political bias, a key point of criticism in last week\u2019s report, and has referred employees singled out in the report to the agency\u2019s investigative arm for possible discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to learn from the report and be better as a result,\u201d Wray said, even as multiple Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee pounced on the report\u2019s findings to allege rampant bias within the law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report blasted FBI actions during the 2016 investigation into whether Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, had mishandled classified information on her private email server when she was secretary of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said anti-Donald Trump text messages exchanged by FBI employees who worked on the investigation cast a cloud on the agency\u2019s handling of the probe and damaged its reputation. It also said that fired FBI Director James Comey repeatedly broke from protocol, including when he publicly announced his recommendation against charging Clinton and when he bucked the judgment of Justice Department bosses by alerting Congress months later that the investigation was being reopened because of newly discovered emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the report found that the July 2016 decision to spare Clinton from criminal charges was not tainted by political bias or considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans who control the committee and who have grown increasingly skeptical of special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and Trump\u2019s Republican presidential campaign said they weren\u2019t convinced by that conclusion, or by reassurances that the problems were limited to just a handful of employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a serious problem with the culture at FBI headquarters,\u201d said Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republican committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, drew a contrast between what he said were aggressive actions taken during Mueller\u2019s investigation and the \u201ckid-glove treatment\u201d that Grassley maintained had occurred during the Clinton investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Justice Department faces a serious credibility problem because millions of Americans suspect that there is a double standard,\u201d Grassley said. \u201cThey see a story of kid-glove treatment for one side and bare-knuckle tactics for the other. They see politics in that story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who joined Wray at the hearing Monday, said there are lessons to be learned from the 500-page report, including about respecting an institution\u2019s hierarchy and norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo rule, policy or practice is perfect, of course,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cBut at the same time, neither is any individual\u2019s ability to make judgments under pressure or what may seem like unique circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen leaders and officials adhere to bedrock principles and values, the public has greater confidence in the fairness and rightness of their decisions,\u201d Horowitz said, \u201cand those institutions\u2019 leaders better protect the interests of federal law enforcement and the dedicated professionals who serve us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also called into question assertions made by Trump on Twitter before and after the report\u2019s release, including his claim that the document exonerated him and his public concern that the inspector general was watering down its findings because of political pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe followed normal processes, we took comments … it was not made weaker or softer in any regard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report was the culmination of a nearly 18-month investigation by the Justice Department\u2019s internal watchdog into how the FBI handled one of the most consequential investigations in its history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Horowitz indicated that his work is not done: He confirmed that the office is investigating Comey\u2019s handling of personal memos he maintained as FBI director, including one whose substance was shared with journalists by a close friend and law school professor after Comey\u2019s May 2017 firing. He\u2019s also investigating the origins of the FBI investigation into Trump\u2019s campaign, including whether surveillance was conducted under improper motivations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked whether the office was still investigating improper leaks, including to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani \u2014 who claimed to know in advance about damaging revelations against Clinton \u2014 Horowitz said, \u201cAs we note in the report, our investigative work\u2019s still ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horowitz said he was especially troubled by anti-Trump text messages between an FBI agent and an FBI lawyer who worked on the Clinton investigation and were both on Mueller\u2019s team. In one August 2016 text, the agent, Peter Strzok, said, \u201cWe\u2019ll stop it,\u201d in reference to a possible Trump victory. The inspector general brought those texts to the attention of Mueller, and Strzok was dropped from the team last summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strzok\u2019s lawyer has said that his client\u2019s actions weren\u2019t driven by political bias and that Strzok is willing to testify before Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The report blasted FBI actions during the 2016 investigation into whether Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, had mishandled classified information on her private email server when she was secretary of state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":38,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[38,106,31,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5502],"class_list":["post-15709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QHUG2RRJIJCOLAPK5XK2ETACVM","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/congress\/2018\/06\/18\/director-fbi-wont-repeat-errors-noted-in-watchdog-report\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n