On January 12, 2017, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) announced that it would examine the following issues:

Allegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, FBI Director James Comey’s public announcement on July 5, 2016, clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal responsibility for her grossly negligent mishandling of national security information on her unsecured private email server, and the Director’s letters to Congress on October 28 and November 6, 2016, by which he re-opened and then promptly re-closed the investigation, and that certain underlying decisions in the Clinton email investigation were based on improper considerations;

Allegations that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife’s Virginia state senate campaign received over $600,000 from Clinton crony Governor Terry McAuliffe, should have been recused from participating in certain investigative matters including the Clinton email investigation;

Allegations that the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs improperly disclosed non-public information to the Clinton campaign and/or should have been recused from participating in certain matters;

Allegations that Department and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information; and

Allegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI’s release of certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1, 2016, and the use of a Twitter account to publicize same, were influenced by improper considerations.

According to today’s Wall Street Journal,  the OIG has submitted its “Draft Report” regarding these matters for review by the persons mentioned in the report and who are still employed by the FBI and the DOJ. These individuals will be allowed to submit written comments or rebuttals which may or may not be included in the final product. Those who are no longer employed by the FBI or DOJ, such as the fired Andrew McCabe and James Comey, will not be allowed to review or comment on the draft.

Once these comments are received and considered, the OIG will conduct one more round of fact checking before the report will be put in final form.

This means that the long-awaited OIG report is very near release.

Stay tuned.