Given FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s strong opinions, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said, he couldn't conclude with confidence that Strzok's personal views didn't bleed into his investigative decisions. | Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images DOJ reviewing whether anti-Trump bias infected Russia probe launch It's the first time DOJ has specified it is examining the origin of the much-scrutinized probe into Russia’s attempts to contact the Trump campaign.

The Justice Department's internal watchdog indicated Tuesday that he's examining whether a senior FBI agent’s political bias infected the bureau's decision to open an investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia.

"That’s a matter we’ve got under review and are looking at right now," Inspector General Michael Horowitz told lawmakers at a hearing on Capitol Hill.


The statement is the first time Horowitz has specified he is reviewing the origin of the much-scrutinized probe into Russia’s attempts to cooperate with the Trump campaign as part of its effort to meddle in the 2016 election.

And it comes on the heels of a weighty DOJ IG report that detailed the animosity expressed for then-candidate Donald Trump by Peter Strzok, one of the senior agents that helped launch the Russia probe.

Given Strzok’s strong opinions, Horowitz said, he couldn't conclude with confidence that Strzok's personal views didn't bleed into his investigative decisions. Strzok was also a member of the team probing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state — the main focus of the recent watchdog report.

The revelation raises the stakes of Horowitz's ongoing review of certain aspects of the Russia investigation, which he agreed to undertake in March at the urging of Republicans and amid President Trump’s repeated public outcries that the whole probe was a “witch hunt.”

At the time, Horowitz agreed to examine the FBI's use of a sensitive surveillance program, known as FISA, to monitor a Trump campaign official. Horowitz indicated that he may look at "other issues" as well, but he had not, until Tuesday, specified them.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Horowitz said, "We were asked to broaden [the original review] and look at some additional information and issues."

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Strzok is a central figure in Horowitz's recently released 500-page review of the FBI's decision-making related to the 2016 investigation of Clinton's private email use. Though Horowitz described Strzok's "biased state of mind" — revealed in a series of caustic text messages to a fellow FBI official — the IG said the agent’s personal views didn't translate into direct actions that affected the Clinton probe. Rather, Horowitz said, prosecutors and other non-biased officials were included in major decisions relating to the Clinton probe, and their decision not to prosecute her was grounded in historical precedent and law.

But Horowitz's report was mostly silent on whether Strzok's actions may have infected the Russia probe, a matter he now says he's reviewing. The document made only one limited observation that in October 2016, Strzok prioritized the Russia probe over issues related to newly-discovered email messages relevant to the Clinton email inquiry.

A lawyer for Strzok disputed that conclusion, saying that the prioritization was "evidence of [Strzok's] lucidity, not his bias."

And more broadly, the attorney argued that the inspector general's report unfairly maligned Strzok, insisting that testimony indicated the agent hadn't acted on his personal views.

Horowitz revealed Tuesday that Strzok's attorneys have also pointed to anti-Clinton bias in the FBI.

Democrats on Tuesday also pressed Horowitz on whether he probed anti-Clinton sentiment in the New York division of the FBI. Media reports have suggested that agents hostile to Clinton may have leaked information about the email investigation at a sensitive moment during the 2016 campaign. Horowitz has previously indicated the matter is still under review. On Tuesday, he said his investigation didn't focus on those agents.

"We were not out there looking at every single FBI agent’s personal devices, text messages, who were not involved in the [Clinton] investigation," he said.

Horowitz said there were some messages from agents inside the Clinton investigation that could be construed to "imply" anti-Clinton sentiment. However, he added, "almost everything we found was the other way, anti-Trump."

In addition to Strzok and his then-girlfriend, FBI attorney Lisa Page, Horowitz's report also identified two anonymous FBI agents and another bureau lawyer who espoused anti-Trump views.

Horowitz's indication came during a charged hearing convened by the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. Republicans sharply differed with Horowitz's conclusion that Strzok and other apparently biased FBI officials didn't appear to taint the overall Clinton probe.

“They prejudged the outcome of the Hillary Clinton investigation before it ended,” House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said at the hearing. “They prejudged the outcome of the Russia investigation before it even began.”

“If that’s not evidence of outcome-determinative bias, for the life of me, I don’t know what would be,” he added.

Horowitz’s massive report, released last week after an 18-month investigation, found rampant internal problems inside the FBI, from a “culture” of leaking to the media, to haphazard email practices — a fact that irritated Clinton allies, given she was under scrutiny for her own use of personal email.

The examination also unearthed the text messages between Strzok and Page that revealed intense hostility to Trump. In one exchange, Strzok indicated “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president.

But Horowitz concluded there was no evidence those views influenced the decision to recommend against charging Clinton, which was announced publicly by then-FBI Director James Comey in 2016.

The finding has riled up Republicans. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Tuesday scolded the inspector general for what he said was a “refusal” to judge whether the FBI made the appropriate decisions in the Clinton investigation, rather than simply seeking to determine whether political bias affected those decisions.

Democrats on the committee blasted their Republican colleagues for refusing to accept Horowitz’s conclusions. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said Republicans seemed fixated on finding Clinton guilty of some wrongdoing.

“All their howling about ‘lock her up’ was bogus, it was baseless, it was unsubstantiated,” he said. “Now we have another report saying so, but again and again, the Republicans refuse to accept this conclusion.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, added that Republicans seemed “stuck at a perpetual Trump campaign rally, chanting ‘lock her up.’”