Who leaked information to reporters about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails just before the 2016 election? After four years of research, the Justice Department still doesn’t know.
According to the Washington Post report, a 10-page report issued Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said there were “substantial media contacts” with numerous FBI employees that could be sources of the link. However, his four-year probe could not determine if these contacts were the source of nonpublic information leaks.
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Horowitz said a cultural attitude at the FBI in 2016 that was permissive of leaks makes it hard to determine a possible source.
Stories about “internal disputes between the Justice Department and the FBI over how to handle a faltering probe of the Clinton Foundation,” were appearing in late October of 2016, just before the presidential election, said the Washington Post.
Two weeks before election day, James Comey, then director of the FBI, announced he was reopening an investigation into a private email server used by Clinton.
Comey said he was determined to find out who was leaking the information.
By 2018, an inspector general report about the Clinton case was highly critical of Comey and his former boss, then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, said the Post. Horowitz’s office then spent three more years working on the leak-hunting portion of the investigation.
This probe also found no evidence that former New York City Mayor and avid Donald Trump supporter Rudolph Giuliani had inside information about the Clinton investigation.
Shortly before the FBI would announce an investigation into Clinton, Giuliani said on Fox News that the Trump, Clinton’s challenger in the election, had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
Giuliani initially suggested he did have inside information, according to the Post, and later backtracked. He said that the “surprise” was related to sexual misconduct allegations against Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, and that he did not talk to FBI agents.
Horowitz said the FBI gave him bad leads on Giuliani. They gave him the names of four agents that called numbers only generally connected to the former mayor; two were lines for the New York law firm where Giuliani was a partner and the others were for businesses he was associated with a decade prior.
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All four agents denied being in contact with Giuliani during the relevant period.
Though Horowitz was not able to determine the exact source of the leaks, his office did find misconduct by three senior FBI officials who accepted things of value from reporters, like tickets to a baseball game, or a seat at a dinner function. He also said her referred six FBI employees found to have had unauthorized contacts with reporters to senior bureau managers, who are expected to review those cases.
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Since 2016, the FBI has taken steps to improve the cultural attitude Horowitz noted in his report. These steps include improving training and aligning disciplinary penalties so that they are sufficient to deter unauthorized contact with the media, according to Horowitz’s report.
“We believe it is important for the FBI to remain vigilant in these efforts,” he said.
FBI Assistant Director Douglas Leff said the bureau “will continue to be vigilant with its enforcement of the media policy.”
According to the Washington Post, Giuliani did not immediately comment on the findings and Horowitz did not immediately comment on the length of the investigation.
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