The Justice Department’s Inspector General declined to say on Monday what his office had turned up on alleged anti-Hillary Clinton leaks from the FBI to Rudy Giuliani or whether any DOJ employees had been sanctioned for the leaks.
“I’m not going to speak to any of the investigative steps we may or may not have taken, for the very reasons we describe in here, about what’s appropriate to do in terms of policy,” DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary committee, referring to his office’s freshly released report knocking ex-FBI Director James Comey for going public with details about the Clinton investigation.
He was responding to questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who raised claims by Giuliani — who was a Manhattan U.S. attorney from 1983 to 1989 and now serves as President Trump’s personal lawyer — that he had heard that the FBI was reopening the Clinton email probe weeks before Comey informed Congress.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) also asked Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray, also on hand for the Senate Judiciary hearing, about whether there was an investigation into the alleged leaks to Giuliani.
Both declined to confirm or deny the existence of such an investigation.
The Inspector General’s report released on Thursday vaguely alludes to a seperate report underway about FBI leaks to the media in general.
“As we note in our report, our investigative work is ongoing,” Horowitz said. “We put this in here so the readers, leaders and the public can see our concerns about the number of contacts with the media and what was going on systematically. But, I’m not in a position to speak to any investigative outcomes.”
Later in the hearing, Wray also said he was “unaware” of an ongoing leaks from the FBI to Giuliani or to members of Congress and the media.