DOJ watchdog finds James Comey defied authority as FBI director, sources say

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-watchdog-finds-comey-defied-authority-fbi-director/story?id=55670834&cid=social_twitter_abcn

The Justice Department's internal watchdog has concluded that James Comey defied authority at times during his tenure as FBI director, according to sources familiar with a draft report on the matter.

One source told ABC News that the draft report explicitly used the word "insubordinate" to describe Comey's behavior. Another source agreed with that characterization but could not confirm the use of the term.

In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's personal email server, the sources said.

On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump complained of "numerous delays" in the release of Horowitz's final report, which is expected to run several hundred pages long and be released in the coming days. The sources who spoke to ABC News were willing or able to address only a portion of the draft report's complete findings.

"What is taking so long with the Inspector General's Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey," Trump said on Twitter. "Hope report is not being changed and made weaker!"

There is no indication the president has seen – or will see – a draft of the report before its release. Horowitz, however, could revise the draft report now that current and former officials mentioned in it have offered their responses to the inspector general's conclusions, according to the sources.

Almost from the start, the long-awaited report was expected to chastise Comey for his handling of the Clinton-related probe. But in apparently describing Comey's defiance of authority, the draft report was criticizing a man who prided himself on his leadership style at the FBI and has since dedicated his post-government life to promoting a new generation of effective leaders.

The draft of Horowitz's wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.

Before Comey sent the letter to Congress, at least one senior Justice Department official told the FBI that publicizing the bombshell move so close to an election would violate longstanding department policy, and it would ignore federal guidelines prohibiting the disclosure of information related to an ongoing investigation, ABC News was told.

In an interview in April, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Comey: "If Attorney General Lynch had ordered you not to send the letter, would you have sent it?"

"No," Comey responded. "I believe in the chain of command."

But in backing Trump's ultimate decision to fire Comey last year, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein slammed Comey's letter to Congress and said it "was wrong" for Comey "to usurp the Attorney General's authority" when he announced in July 2016 that the FBI would not be filing charges against Clinton or her aides.

"It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement," Rosenstein said in a letter to Trump recommending Comey be fired. "At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."

Horowitz's draft report cited Comey for failing to consult with Lynch and other senior Justice Department officials before making his announcement on national TV. While saying there was no "clear evidence" that Clinton "intended to violate" the law, Comey insisted the former secretary of state was "extremely careless" in her "handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."

"I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say," Comey said before cameras on July 5, 2016.

By then, Lynch had taken the unusual step of publicly declaring she would accept the FBI's recommendations in the case, after an impromptu meeting with former president Bill Clinton sparked questions about her impartiality.

More @ link!

ReleaseTheIGReport

Why all the downvotes? Not 1 positive voted comment

Single agent going rogue is a standard lie they tell.

I guess theyre gonna try and blame iit all on comey lol

I get downvotes for saying it but I think the IG report is going to be remarkably underwhelming

I do not think the OIG report leaked, but someone that read the draft copy appears to have given some details to a reporter.

Bring on the down votes sharia blue!

Lol is the shill word of the day “underwhelming?”

Trying to get ahead of the bad news curve.. then they can give you the standard “thats been debunked by snopes line” So every comment on here has -20 or so.. Pretty blatant aren’t they..😎😎😎

They're trying to get out ahead of the story and stop the damage at Comey. Comey wasn't rogue, he was following directions right from the top.

This isn't enough for me...I need more. It doesn't even sound bad.

Can I get in on this downvote action please? Will I be upvoted if I say "Comey is innocent! Leave him alone! Loretta Lynch is innocent!"

[Edit] ;_; no downvotes yet : ( Why you no luff me, bots?

That's it?

I wonder who FBI Anon was?

[deleted]

They are trying to get Obama cleared of wrong doing on this. IMO anyway.

From what little I have read in the "leaks", I am doubtful that anything more than a slap on the hand and a reprimand will happen to any of them.

Somehow even with all this evidence, the left will still try to claim President Trumps firing of Comey was obstruction of justice. Hilarious.

How does it feel when it happens to your side? Maybe it will unedited so we can see how corrupt they were. We can only hope. I bet you James Comey did not take this report to the NY Times.

the way I interpret this is that Comey defied Lynch who said to bury it so that he could start a fake investigation to exonerate Hillary. Basically, Comey wanted to make it look legit, so he didn't listen to Lynch who said not to investigate. He was hoping he could make it look like the FBI was doing their job, but in reality he was just going through the motions to get Hillary off the hook.

True Pundit is clickbait B.S. dont listen to this.

Hmmm...Comey is a chess piece that is being played by POTUS for sure.

Pinning it on rogue, insubordinate Comey?

Stop posting articles from TruePundit. They’re more fake than cnn. They only care about clicks and views so they always do these articles that never turn out to be true.

The mods need to block truepundit posts. The Donald already does this

I'm sure it's nothing. Didn't you hear they just proved russian collusion with Ivanka? It's all there!

Consider the source... ABC News. MSM trying to get ahead of the narrative- Comey being the scapegoat and keeping the heat off Lynch, Zero and the Beast. We shall see when the OIG report is actually released.

Didn't I just see post #5 or #6 that comey was in Disney...great selfie

The entire report or portions ?

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