UPDATE: The report has been released. You can read about it here.
***Original Post***
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating the origins of the Special Counsel investigation into the 2016 presidential election, the Russia probe and potential FISA abuse for more than a year. His official report on IG investigator findings was expected in June, but has been pushed back until at least September.
In the meantime, it's being reported Horowitz is expected to release the findings of an investigation into the conduct of fired FBI Director James Comey. From Byron York:
The Justice Department inspector general is preparing to release a report on the conduct of fired FBI Director James Comey in the Trump-Russia investigation, according to a number of sources with knowledge of the situation. The specific timing of the report's release is not clear.
The Comey report is separate from a larger inspector general report on the DOJ's handling of the Trump-Russia probe. That report, sometimes referred to by Republicans as an investigation into "FISA abuse," is expected to be released later.
It is not clear why the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, chose to write a separate report on Comey.
Comey admitted under oath during congressional testimony that he purposely gave memos memorializing conversations with President Trump to a friend. That friend, a Columbia Law professor, was then instructed to leak the memos to the New York Times. Some of the memos were later deemed classified.
"I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversations, might be a tape, my judgement was that I needed to get that out into the public square and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey said to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017. "I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but asked him to, because I thought that it might prompt the appointment of a Special Counsel. I asked a close friend of mine to do that."
In August the Department of Justice announced prosecutors would not pursue a case against him, despite Horowitz recommending him for criminal prosecution.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred former FBI Director James Comey for potential prosecution for leaking classified information, but the Department of Justice has ultimately decided against prosecuting Mr. Comey, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.
— Jake Gibson (@JakeBGibson) August 1, 2019
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