- Allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information; and
- Allegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI's release of certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1, 2016, and the use of a Twitter account to publicize the same, were influenced by improper considerations.
The OIG announcement added that "if circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review." One such issue that the OIG added to the scope of this review arose from the discovery of text messages and instant messages between some FBI employees on the investigative team, conducted using FBI mobile devices and computers, that expressed statements of hostility toward then candidate Donald Trump and statements of support for then candidate Clinton, as well as comments about the handling of the Midyear investigation. We addressed whether these communications evidencing a potential bias affected investigative decisions in the Midyear investigation.
This review is separate from the review the OIG announced on March 28, 2018, concerning the Department's and FBI's compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable Department and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person. We will issue a separate report relating to those issues when our investigative work is complete at a future date.
II. Methodology
During the course of this investigation, the OIG interviewed more than 100 witnesses, several on more than one occasion. These included former Director Comey, former AG Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Sally Yates, members of the former AG's and DAG's staffs, FBI agents and supervisors and Department attorneys and supervisors who conducted the Midyear investigation, personnel from the FBI's New York Field Office (NYO) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) involved in the Anthony Weiner investigation, former and current members of the FBI's senior executive leadership, and former President Clinton.
All of the former Department and FBI officials we contacted to request interviews related to the Midyear investigation agreed to be interviewed. However, two witnesses with whom we requested interviews in connection with our review of whether Peter Kadzik, the former Assistant Attorney General for the Department's Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA), should have been recused from certain matters declined our request for an interview or were unable to schedule an interview.
We also reviewed significantly more than 1.2 million documents. Among these were FBI documents from the Midyear investigation, including electronic communications (EC) and interview reports (FD-302s), agent notes from witness interviews, draft and final versions of the letterhead memorandum (LHM)
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