During the summer of 2015, I called for an impartial nonpartisan special counsel to be appointed to investigate Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonWhat Senate Republicans have said about election-year Supreme Court vacancies Bipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death Trump carries on with rally, unaware of Ginsburg's death MORE’s private email server and related matters. It was clear to me that Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the time had a conflict of interest because President Clinton appointed her as United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999.

How does a political appointee like Lynch fairly investigate her party’s own frontrunner for president who also happens to be Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonBarr says Ginsburg 'leaves a towering legacy' Trump reacts to Ginsburg's death: 'An amazing woman who led an amazing life' Jimmy Carter remembers Ruth Bader Ginsburg as 'a beacon of justice' MORE’s spouse? My suspicions were correct. We now see that President Obama’s Justice Department was in the tank for Hillary Clinton all along. Since then, many lawmakers also have called for a special counsel for the Clinton case.

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Since then, we’ve learned that former FBI Director James Comey James Brien ComeyBook: FBI sex crimes investigator helped trigger October 2016 public probe of Clinton emails Trump jabs at FBI director over testimony on Russia, antifa Graham: Comey to testify about FBI's Russia probe, Mueller declined invitation MORE’s highly suspect public announcement that Clinton would not be prosecuted was just window dressing designed to fool the American people. Now we know that fateful decision was already being baked months before. Americans are right to be outraged when they see a person cleared of criminal wrongdoing before being questioned by law enforcement. This is preferential treatment by the elites, for the elites.

In my experience as chief investigator for the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in the 1990s, this revelation was enough to justify the appointment of a special counsel as well. Criminal investigations are supposed to blindly seek truth and justice without bias, but the Clinton email investigation did neither because it seems that it was a fraud from the beginning.

A newly released text message from September 2016 between infamous FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, stating that President Obama “wants to know everything we’re doing,” only adds fuel to the strong case for a second special counsel. When you consider Obama’s statement from November 2016 publicly stressing his strict and unflinching independence from the Justice Department and the investigative process generally, it appears the former president now has some explaining to do. “I’ve made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don’t look like I’m meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes for making these assessments,” Obama stated at the time.

That all being said, I am encouraged that Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz appears to be running a serious investigation into the Clinton investigation that really never was. The American people need to know if senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI were politicized inside the Obama administration during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

No one knows what the inspector general will ultimately find or if new information will be disclosed. Will Horowitz testify before Congress? Will he offer recommendations? Will he issue a redacted report? Could he issue criminal referrals? We will have to let the chips fall where they may. However, while an “investigation of the investigation” is critically important, the American people are still waiting for a legitimate investigation of the underlying issues in the Clinton case. In this highly charged political atmosphere in Washington, only a truly impartial special counsel can conduct a thorough investigation that can begin to restore trust.

Through Freedom of Information Act litigation with the State Department, Citizens United and Judicial Watch have released thousands of pages of relevant documents pertaining to the Clinton State Department’s cozy relationship with the Clinton Foundation and their private email server. Many unanswered questions remain and the status of any investigation into these allegations, including the Uranium One matter, is unclear. It’s only because of FOIA and groups like ours that a lot of this information has seen the light of day.

The American people want trust to be restored at the Justice Department and FBI. Our citizens deserve an honest criminal investigation of these Clinton matters once and for all. A few bad apples at the Obama Justice Department and FBI misled the American people in 2015 and 2016. There was never a real investigation of the Clintons. In 2018, it needs to happen, and it needs a special counsel. Maybe inspector general Horowitz will recommend one.

David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and a contributor to Fox News. He served as President Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager and was chief investigator for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during the Clinton administration.