The U.S. Department of Justice in a report has slammed former FBI Director James Comey's actions in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, saying his actions were "extraordinary and insubordinate" and flouted the department's norms but that Comey was not motivated by political bias. The report concludes that its investigations have found that there were FBI officials willing to take actions that would hurt the then candidate Donald Trump who is now the President of the United States.

The inspector general’s report released on Thursday, listed a series of failures by the top federal officials in charge of the Clinton email investigation ahead of the 2016 Presidential election, concluding that the FBI's actions ultimately "cast a cloud" over the bureau and senior leaders did lasting damage to the FBI's reputation.

"The damage caused by these employees' actions extends far beyond the scope of the Midyear (Clinton) investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI's reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence," the report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz states.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said he had broken "dramatically from FBI and department norms" in handling an inquiry into Hillary Clinton's emails.

In his report, the inspector general criticised Comey's decision to reveal publicly a week before the election that he had reopened the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's emails, rejecting Comey's argument that he had acted in the interests of transparency.

He found that while Comey's actions were not the result of political bias, "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 500-page report also found "a troubling lack of any direct, substantive communication" between Comey and Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Comey wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, in which he said "nothing in the inspector general's report makes me think we did the wrong thing" in how he announced results of the Clinton probe.

Comey defended his decision to make a public statement in July 2016 and inform Congress about reopening the investigation in October 2016. Comey told the inspector general he felt he had an obligation to inform Congress that the FBI was seeking a search warrant for Weiner's laptop, because it made his previous testimony to Congress untrue.

One of the other findings in the report that has raised eyebrows was that Comey himself used a personal Gmail account for official government business when he was the FBI director. The report cited five examples, including times Comey sent himself drafts of testimony he planned to deliver to Congress and drafts of bureau-wide updates he planned to send to mark milestones during the year.

Asked by investigators if he had any concerns about conducting bureau business on his personal device and account, "Comey stated that he did not," the report says. However, Hillary Clinton’s decision to use a personal email address connected to a private server was used by Republicans and Donald Trump to attack her through out the election campaign  and hence the report’s findings are ironic in the extreme. Clinton tweeted out just three words after the report was made public.

Hillary Clinton has blamed Comey for her election loss to Donald Trump in 2016. (With Agency inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 15, 2018 03:56 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).