The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Monday afternoon on the newly released Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report reviewing the Clinton email investigation.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared as witnesses.
“I do not believe Special Counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt,” Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, repeating his formulation before the same panel almost a year ago, as the politically riven panel reviewed a 500-page report issued last week by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
President Donald Trump, who often calls Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt,” claimed vindication in the report’s account of anti-Trump bias among some FBI officials in 2016, before Mueller took over the inquiry into Russian election interference, whether anyone close to Trump colluded in it and whether Trump sought to obstruct the inquiry.
NPR:
The Justice Department's inspector general, however, pushed back on that notion on Monday, saying the report was only focused on the FBI's investigation Clinton's private email server in 2016.
"We did not look into collusion questions," said Inspector General Horowitz, in response to questioning from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
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Horowitz confirmed Monday that his office is ... currently looking into Comey's disclosure of memos he wrote about interactions he had with President Trump.
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Wray, who took eventually over the FBI after Comey was fired last summer, said he was taking the report's findings in stride and putting a plan in place to make sure the agency's 37,000 employees don't repeat mistakes spotlighted by Horowitz. He said employees whose misconduct was detailed in the report have been forwarded to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is in charge of investigating such allegations.
He also said there would be new training for FBI personnel about the appearance of political bias, as well as how they should interact with the news media.
Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, called for an investigation into the Mueller investigation over the weekend, leading the committee's top Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to bring up the possibility of Giuliani's own misbehavior during Monday's hearing.
Feinstein asked Horowitz if he investigated whether the former New York mayor received leaked information that the FBI had found new Clinton emails before news about them became public in late October 2016. Horowitz declined to comment, saying the issue of leaks is still under investigation.
Leahy said Giuliani and House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes received “highly secret leaks.”
FBI Chief Stands by Mueller While Republicans Attack Probe (Bloomberg Politics)
DOJ Inspector General, FBI Director Testify Monday About IG Report (NPR)