page_title: List of FBI controversies
section_title: DOJ Watchdog Report
hierarchical_section_title: List of FBI controversies / Hillary Clinton email investigation / DOJ Watchdog Report
caption_attribution_description: English: Michael E. Horowitz official photo
context_page_description: The following is a list of controversies involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Throughout its history, the FBI has been the subject of a number of controversial cases, both at home and abroad.
context_section_description: On June 14, 2018, Michael E. Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, released a report of a year-long investigation into misconduct at the DOJ and FBI over its probe of Hillary Clinton's private email server. Horowitz faulted James Comey, FBI Director at the time of the email server investigation, for deviating from bureau and Justice Department protocol, which damaged the agencies’ image of impartiality, according to the watchdog report.
  Comey was also faulted for a 'troubling lack of direct or substantive communication' with Attorney General Loretta Lynch ahead of his July 5, 2016 press conference on Clinton's email probe and his subsequent letter to Congress in October 2016. The report read: "We found it extraordinary that, in advance of two such consequential decisions, the FBI director decided that the best course of conduct was to not speak directly and substantively with the attorney general about how best to navigate those decisions."
  Moreover, it was determined, according to an internal FBI email and a memo from two GOP-led House committees, that foreign actors may had obtained access to Clinton's emails, including at least one email classified as "secret." The memo did not specify who the foreign actors involved were nor the content of the emails.
  The watchdog probe found no evidence of political bias or criminal misconduct in Comey's decisions throughout the entire email server investigation. "We found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations," the report stated. Shortly after the release of the report, FBI Director Christopher Wray held a news briefing in Washington where he defended the bureau's integrity over the report's highly-critical findings, but vowed to hold agents accountable for any misconduct and said the FBI will make its employees undergo bias training.
  Former Secretary of State Clinton, President Trump, lawmakers, and academics have commented on the report's findings, denouncing Comey and his breach of bureau norms, and five FBI employees that exchanged questionable text messages leading up to the 2016 US election. All five employees, which include former counter-intelligence agent Peter Strzok, were referred by Horowitz for a separate investigation.
caption: DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
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