Ex-FBI chief James Comey “deviated” from standard FBI and Justice Department procedures in his handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email controversy — but he was not motivated by political bias, according to the department’s internal watchdog.

But his actions damaged the bureau’s reputation for impartiality, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in the report’s conclusions, which were obtained Thursday by Bloomberg News.

“While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,” the report said.

Horowitz’s report examined actions taken by top officials before the 2016 election, including the handling of the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

The investigation expanded to touch on an array of politically sensitive decisions by officials including Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

While the report being sent to Congress on Thursday doesn’t deal with the origins of the probe into Russia meddling in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the president and his GOP supporters in Congress are primed to use it as evidence of poor judgment and anti-Trump bias within the FBI and Justice Department.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the report, which also included anti-Trump text messages from FBI agents assigned to the e-mail and Russia probes, “points out the political bias that the president’s been talking about that has been repeatedly mentioned from this administration that we found to be a huge problem.”

Trump has regularly hammered Comey, calling him a “liar and a leaker,” saying he was in the tank for the Clintons and a “real nutjob,” among other insults.

“So, the Democrats make up a phony crime, Collusion with the Russians, pay a fortune to make the crime sound real, illegally leak (Comey) classified information so that a Special Councel [sic] will be appointed, and then Collude to make this pile of garbage take on life in Fake News!” he tweeted Thursday.

Senate Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) disputed the conclusion that the investigation was not motivated by political bias.

“Absent an outright confession, they’re not going to be able to draw that conclusion,” Johnson said.

“That will be up to the American public to draw their own conclusion. I don’t see how the inspector general can draw the conclusion.”

But Democrats said the report showed that Comey helped Trump get elected by announcing that the e-mail probe was reopened so soon before the election.

John Podesta, who ran the Clinton campaign, said “the report demonstrates beyond doubt” that Comey was unfair to her by talking about her e-mails in October 2016 while not revealing anything about the separate probe beginning in July 2016 into the Trump campaign and Russia.

“This report confirms what we have known for a long time — that the FBI inappropriately applied a double standard to the Clinton and Trump investigations which hurt her and helped elect him,” Podesta said.