READ: Jordan and Meadows want DOJ inspector general to testify about Comey’s misconduct

From: Washington Examiner

By: Jerry Dunleavy

House Republicans asked the Democrat-led Oversight Committee on Friday to call Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to testify about his report on fired FBI Director James Comey’s mishandling of memos of his conversations with Trump.

Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, two well-known Comey critics and Trump defenders on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland asking him to convene a hearing with Horowitz “as soon as possible” to “examine the report about Comey’s misconduct.”

The new 83-page report from Horowitz harshly criticized Comey’s decision to remove his memos from the FBI after he was fired and to provide contents from the memos to a friend to leak to the media. Comey testified to Congress in 2017 that he hoped leaking this information “might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Horowitz concluded that Comey made an “unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information” related to Trump and condemned him for using official FBI records to “achieve a personally desired outcome.”

Jordan and Meadows also pointed out that Horowitz said Comey “set a dangerous example for over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information” and that Comey’s FBI colleagues were “surprised,” “stunned,” “shocked,” and filled with “disappointment” when they learned what he had done.

“The [inspector general] found Comey’s conduct so troubling that it referred the case to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution,” Jordan and Meadows wrote to Cummings. “We can think of no other FBI Director who has been criminally referred for federal prosecution.”

In making their argument, the two Republicans pointed to Cummings’ past words on Comey, calling him “the epitome of what a public servant is all about,” and on Horowitz, saying he “upheld [his] oath and principles for honesty and integrity.”

Jordan and Meadows also wrote that “Comey’s compilation and dissemination of sensitive FBI information had its intended effect — the initiation of a prolonged and expensive special counsel investigation that ultimately failed to substantiate any of the allegations he was appointed to investigate.”

Former special counsel Robert Mueller, appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein the day after a New York Times article based on one of Comey’s memos, concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election but did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

“In light of the great costs to our country stemming from Comey’s reckless conduct, we respectfully request that you immediately schedule a hearing with Inspector General Horowitz,” Jordan and Meadows said. 

Beyond the Comey report released on Thursday, Horowitz has also been working on a broader investigation into allegations of abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and the FBI related to the use of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, which was compiled at the behest of the Clinton-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS. That report on the Trump-Russia investigation is expected in September or October.

Read the full article here.