It didn't take long for defenders of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation to claim that the Justice Department inspector general's report found no bias in the bureau's conduct of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, nor in the early days of the Trump-Russia probe.

"There was no bias in the FBI," Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said on MSNBC.

"No bias at the FBI," Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News.

"No evidence ... [that the FBI] acted on the basis of political bias," Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

The comments had an otherworldly feel to them, because the IG report not only found, but documented, at great length, an FBI culture that was infested with political bias — specifically a political bias against President Trump.

[Top GOP investigators: Report shows 'Hillary Clinton was treated differently']

The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, discovered the bias when he examined the internal communications of FBI officials involved in the Clinton and Trump probes. (The new report specifically covers the email investigation, but also touches on the beginning of the Trump investigation, because they overlapped in time and because a significant number of key FBI officials were involved in both.) Horowitz discovered a group of officials, some of them in key positions in the Clinton-Trump investigations, who made no secret of their support of Clinton and opposition to Trump.

"Our task was made significantly more difficult because of text and instant messages exchanged on FBI devices and systems by five FBI employees involved in the [Clinton email] investigation," Horowitz wrote in the executive summary of the report. "These messages reflected political opinions in support of former Secretary Clinton and against her then political opponent Donald Trump. Some of these text messages and instant messages mixed political commentary with discussions about the [Clinton email] investigation, and raised concerns that political bias may have impacted investigative decisions."

The conduct of the five FBI employees — including some in very high-ranking positions — "brought discredit to themselves," Horowitz concluded, and also "sowed doubt" about the FBI's conduct of the Clinton investigation and beyond.

The five include the now-famous FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page, but also three others, not named in the report but referred to as Agent 1, Agent 5, and FBI Attorney 2.

The single most devastating statement in the report, of course, is from Strzok. When Page, the high-ranking FBI lawyer with whom he was having an affair, texted, "[Trump's] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" Strzok responded, "No. No he's not. We'll stop it."

The exchange occurred on Aug. 8, 2016, just a few days after the July 31, 2016, official start of the FBI Trump-Russia probe. Strzok, who played a key role in the Clinton investigation, was there at the very beginning of the Trump-Russia investigation, too, and remained with the probe through the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. He was removed from the investigation in late July 2017 after Horowitz brought the texts to Mueller's attention.

The inspector general asked Strzok about the "We'll stop it" text, and Strzok responded that he did not "specifically recall" sending it. Horowitz wrote that Strzok explained "that he believed that it was intended to reassure Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation."

The report goes on to detail many more Strzok-Page texts. There were so many that Horowitz divided them into three categories. There were texts in which the two generally dumped on Trump — like Page's March 3, 2016, text, "God trump is a loathsome human," and her July 18, 2016, text that Trump "is an enormous douche." There were texts specifically concerning the Clinton email investigation — like Page's July 26, 2016, text, when watching the Democratic National Convention, that, "Yeah, it is pretty cool. [Clinton] just has to win now. I'm not going to lie, I got a flash of nervousness yesterday about trump." And there were texts specifically concerning the Trump-Russia investigation — like an Aug. 6, 2016, exchange in which Page sent Strzok an article about the Khzir Khan matter with the comment, "And Trump should go f himself," to which Strzok responded, "And F Trump," to which Page responded, "Maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace."

And so on; Horowitz included much more from Strzok and Page. But equally newsworthy in the report is what the IG revealed about Agent 1, Agent 5, and FBI Attorney 2.

The report says that Agent 1 and Agent 5 were having a romantic relationship at the time and later married. They communicated their distaste for Trump on the FBI's internal instant messaging system. On Aug. 29, 2016, they were apparently discussing working for the FBI and Agent 1 wrote, "I find anyone who enjoys [this job] an absolute fucking idiot. If you dont think so, ask them one more question. Who are you voting for? I guarantee you it will be Donald Drumpf."

"Drumpf" is a name late-night "resistance" TV favorite John Oliver gave to Trump.

"i forgot about drumpf," responded Agent 5.

On Nov. 8, 2016, Election Day, the two shared a number of comments about the campaign. "You think HRC is gonna win right? You think we should get nails and some boards in case she doesnt" asked Agent 1, to which Agent 5 responded, "she better win...otherwise i'm gonna be walking around with both of my guns," to which Agent 5 later added, "screw you trump."

On Dec. 6, 2016, the two discussed having to be on call for the presidential inauguration. "fuck trump," wrote Agent 1.

Agent 1 was one of two agents who interviewed Clinton on July 2, 2016. Agent 5 was also on the Clinton investigation. Neither, according to Horowitz, was assigned to the Trump-Russia investigation.

Then there was FBI Attorney 2. His case is particularly newsworthy because Horowitz reported — it was not known before — that, like Strzok and Page, FBI Attorney 2 was removed from the Mueller investigation when the inspector general made Mueller aware of FBI Attorney 2's internal communications. "FBI Attorney 2 left the special counsel's investigation and returned to the FBI in late February 2018, shortly after the IG provided the special counsel with some of the instant messages discussed in this section," the report says.

On Oct. 28, 2016, the day the FBI's then-director, James Comey, announced the reopening of the Clinton investigation, FBI Attorney 2 messaged four other FBI employees, saying, "I mean, I never really liked the Republic anyway" or similar messages.

On Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump won the presidency, FBI Attorney 2 messaged another FBI employee, saying, "I am numb."

"I am so stressed about what I could have done differently," FBI Attorney 2 fretted. He later told Horowitz that was a reference to the reopening of the Clinton investigation, which put Clinton on the defensive just days before the election. FBI Attorney 2 worried that the bureau cost Clinton the presidency.

"We broke the momentum," FBI Attorney 2 wrote, apparently referring to Clinton's assumed march to victory. "I'm just devastated. I can't wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days."

"I just can't imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we made over the last 8 years," FBI Attorney 2 wrote. "ACA [the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare] is gone. Who knows if the rhetoric about deporting people, walls, and crap is true. I honestly feel like there is going to be a lot more gun issues, too, the crazies won finally. This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also Pence is stupid."

"And it's just hard not to feel like the FBI caused some of this. It was razor thin in some states."

Asked about the various comments, FBI Attorney 2 told Horowitz's investigators that he and the others were "just discussing our personal feelings" and "tend to exaggerate."

On Nov. 22, 2016, two weeks after the election, FBI Attorney 2 and another FBI lawyer were messaging about "the amount of money the subject of an FBI investigation had been paid while working on the Trump campaign," according to Horowitz. The other attorney jokingly asked, "Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?" "Hell no," FBI Attorney 2 responded. "Viva le resistance."

Horowitz asked FBI Attorney 2 about the "viva le resistance" comment. "It's just my political view in terms of, of my preference," FBI Attorney 2 responded. "It wasn't something along the lines of, you know, we're taking certain actions in order to, you know, combat that or, or do anything like that."

FBI Attorney 2 was part of the Trump-Russia investigation from an early date — Horowitz does not say precisely when — until this year. In late February 2018, he became, after Strzok and Page, the third FBI official removed from the Mueller investigation because of overt anti-Trump bias.

Beyond the five FBI employees cited by Horowitz, other FBI workers, referred to in the report as "FBI Employee," also expressed anti-Trump bias. For example, "FBI Employee" tried to comfort FBI Attorney 2 by saying the bureau's actions probably did not sway Clinton voters: "All the people who were initially voting for her would not, and were not, swayed by any decision the FBI put out. Trump's supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing. They probably didn't watch the debates, aren't fully educated on his policies, and are stupidly wrapped up in his unmerited enthusiasm."

Horowitz did not say whether "FBI Employee" worked on the Trump-Russia investigation.

In the end, Horowitz pronounced himself "deeply troubled" by some of the expressions of bias. He was particularly troubled by Strzok's "We'll stop it" comment, which Horowitz concluded was "not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate's electoral prospects."

So where does that leave those Democrats and others who claim the report found "no bias" in the Clinton-Trump investigations? It leaves them without much ammunition.

[Also read: Democrats urge Republicans to drop attacks on FBI and not use DOJ watchdog report against Mueller]

The defenders point to two remarks from Horowitz. In the first, the IG wrote, "We found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations; rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutors' assessment of the facts, the law, and past department practice." The problem is that statement was limited to the Justice Department's specific decision not to prosecute Clinton and did not address the Trump-Russia situation. Concerning one Strzok decision in the Trump-Russia affair, Horowitz wrote, "We concluded that we did not have confidence that this decision by Strzok was free from bias."

The defenders also point to this from Horowitz: "Our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed ..."

Could a sentence have more limiters in it? No documentary or testimonial evidence that directly tied the political views to specific decisions. As the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel points out, that basically means that no one actually wrote down, "Let's start this Trump investigation so we can help Hillary win."

The fact is, bias — political bias, anti-Trump bias — was pervasive in some quarters of the Trump-Russia investigation. And that is just what the inspector general found in his review of the Clinton investigation — not his main examination of the Trump-Russia probe. That inspector general investigation is going on now and will ultimately — no one knows when — result in a report that will likely be at least as long and at least as newsy as the report released Thursday. There could be a lot more to discover.