Inspector General Report Cites 6 in FBI for Media Contacts in 2016 Presidential Campaign

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Six FBI employees face possible disciplinary action over unauthorised contacts with reporters during the 2016 presidential campaign, the US Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said in a report released on Thursday.

“The OIG is referring six additional employees to the FBI for it to determine if their media contacts during this time period warrant disciplinary or other corrective action,” the report said.

The report follows a series of OIG reports on leak investigations seeking sources of non-public information related to a 2016 FBI investigation of emails on an unsecured system belonging to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The six cited in Thursday’s report - the latest in at least three OIG reports on 2016 campaign leaks - are in addition to three senior FBI officials earlier cited for unauthorised disclosures of non-public information.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Briefing Room of the White House on September 27, 2020 in Washington, DC.

© AP Photo / JOSHUA ROBERTS

Thursday’s report also rehashed earlier OIG efforts to determine the source of leaks to Rudi Giuliani, an adviser to the Trump campaign in 2016.

During the campaign, Giuliani appeared to hint in public statements that he had advance knowledge of FBI plans to re-open a probe of the thousands of emails Hillary Clinton destroyed then after using a private server and electronic devices for official business.

An October 2016 announcement by then FBI Director James Comey of a new Clinton email investigation played what many consider an outsized role in the subsequent upset victory by then-candidate Donald Trump.