IG Michael Horowitz confirmed to congressional investigators that he has an investigation of Peter Strzon underway. That’s good news. I think we can all agree that his actions in both the Hillary and the Trump investigations are reprehensible.
But Horowitz told Congress that he is investigating Strzok because he may have started an investigation into Trump before the FBI officially did. We know that some of the spies contacted Trump campaign workers before the official date of July 31st, 2016. But Horowitz is specifically looking at whether his hatred for Trump spurred the investigation into him and his campaign.
Fox News reported:
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Tuesday that he is investigating whether FBI official Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump bias factored into the launch of the bureau’s Russia probe.
During a joint hearing before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, Horowitz testified that his office was reviewing Strzok’s anti-Trump text messages as part of a separate probe related to the Russia investigation.
“It clearly shows a biased state of mind,” Horowitz said, referring to text messages written as the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email use was wrapping up and the Russia probe was getting underway.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., questioned Horowitz on whether that apparent bias influenced the initiation of the investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 campaign and potential collusion with Trump’s team.
Of course, his hatred for Trump affected his actions. He had a choice of continuing the Hillary investigation but dropped that and turned his attention to President Trump. I’m assuming he has seen the applications for the FISA warrants and there could be clues there that have piqued his interest. Horowitz said there is no doubt that Strzok was biased but they need to find that that caused him to take some form of action in order to go after him.