WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Friday that a watchdog's report into the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe is a "total disaster" for former FBI director James Comey and the agency itself.
"The IG Report is a total disaster for Comey, his minions and sadly, the FBI," Trump tweeted in his first public comment on the Justice Department inspector general report, which was released on Thursday.
"Comey will now officially go down as the worst leader, by far, in the history of the FBI. I did a great service to the people in firing him. Good Instincts," Trump added.
The Justice Department's long-awaited report found Comey was "insubordinate" in his handling of the Clinton email probe, but no evidence of political bias in deciding not to prosecute the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidate for mishandling official email.
Comey and the FBI were heavily faulted in the report, with Comey seen as repeatedly skirting agency rules and procedures -- and two agents under him revealing in personal messages a "willingness to take official action to impact" Trump's election chances.
"Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment," the internal report said of one key moment in the Clinton probe.
Even so, the report found no fault in Comey's July 5, 2016 decision that Clinton should not face prosecution for placing classified materials on her personal email server while she was secretary of state.
According to the report, Comey himself used a private email account for FBI business -- the irony of which was not lost on Clinton.
"But my emails," she wrote on Twitter, responding to a tweet about the issue
Trump has repeatedly said a biased Justice Department and FBI let Clinton off easily. He made "lock her up" a chant in his election rallies.
Within months of becoming president, Trump fired Comey in May 2017.