Michael Horowitz | |
---|---|
Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee | |
Acting | |
Assumed office April 29, 2020 | |
President | Donald Trump Joe Biden |
Preceded by | Glenn Fine |
Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice | |
Assumed office April 16,2012 | |
President | Barack Obama Donald Trump Joe Biden |
Preceded by | Cynthia Schnedar (Acting) |
Personal details | |
Born | Michael Evan Horowitz September 19,1962 New York City,New York,U.S. |
Education | Brandeis University (BA) Harvard University (JD) |
Michael Evan Horowitz [1] (born September 19,1962) [2] is an American attorney and government official. He is the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice.
Horowitz is the son of Jewish parents,Anne J. and Fred Horowitz. [3] His father owned the women's clothing manufacturer,Paul Alfred Inc.;and his mother owned an antique store in Nyack,New York. [3] He earned a Bachelor of Arts,summa cum laude,from Brandeis University majoring in economics and minoring in Legal Studies. He then earned a Juris Doctor,magna cum laude,from Harvard Law School. [3]
Following law school he served as a law clerk for Judge John G. Davies of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. He then worked as an associate at the law firm Debevoise &Plimpton. From 1991 to 1999 he was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. From 1999 to 2002 he worked at the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington D.C.,first as a deputy assistant attorney general,then as chief of staff. In 2002 he returned to private practice as a partner at Cadwalader,Wickersham &Taft,where he focused on white collar defense,internal investigations,and regulatory compliance. During this time he also served as a commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission—a position for which he was confirmed by the Senate in 2003. [4]
Horowitz was sworn in as the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice on April 16,2012. [5] Since 2015,he has also been the chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE),an organization consisting of all 73 federal Inspectors General. [4]
Horowitz announced in January 2017 that the Inspector General's office would examine evidence related to "allegations of misconduct" regarding FBI Director James B. Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices and whether Justice Department employees leaked information improperly during the run-up to the 2016 United States presidential election. [6] In June 2018, Horowitz released his report, concluding that Peter Strzok and other FBI employees "brought discredit to themselves" and to the agency. He found that Comey indulged in ad hoc decision making and did not follow FBI procedures, but did not find that he was motivated by any political bias. [7]
Another investigation into the FBI and Justice Department was launched by Horowitz in March 2018. This investigation targeted the FBI and Justice Department's filing of four FISA applications and renewals to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and whether or not there was an abuse of this FISA process. A redacted version of the report of the investigation was released December 9, 2019. On November 18, 2019 Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that Horowitz would testify before the committee on December 11 regarding the investigation and provide recommendations on how judicial and investigative systems could be improved. [8]
On December 9, 2019, Horowitz released his report stating that the FBI found 17 “basic and fundamental” errors and omissions in its applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court), but did not find political bias during the investigation of Trump and Russia, nor did he find evidence that the FBI attempted to place people inside the Trump campaign or report on the Trump campaign. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] However, in a Senate hearing, Horowitz stated he could not rule out political bias as a possible motivation. [14] The report found that the FBI had a legal "authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication" to ask for court approval to begin surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. [9]
Horowitz appointed Glenn Fine to chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), but Trump removed Fine in early April 2020. That month, Horowitz became acting chair of the PRAC. [15] [16]
In January 2021, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice concluded an investigation into the "zero tolerance" policy, finding that: department leaders underestimated the difficulty of implementing it, failed to tell local prosecutors and others that children would be separated; failed to understand that separations would last longer than a few hours; and failed to halt the policy after that was discovered. [17] The findings led Rod Rosenstein, who had been Trump's Attorney General at the time the policy was enforced, to admit that family separations "should never have been implemented". [18] According to an NBC News report on the investigation, "The report could provide a road map for the incoming Biden administration to investigate those responsible for a policy President-elect Joe Biden has called criminal." [19]
After the New York Times report in January 2021 alleged that some officials in the Justice Department attempted to work with President Trump in order to overturn the election, Horowitz announced that he will open up an investigation regarding the allegation. [20]
In 2000, he married Alexandra Leigh Kauffman in Leesburg, Virginia. [3] Kauffman is a former field producer for CNN covering economics and personal finance. [3]
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The Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates. The investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, the Mueller probe, and the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy to charge members of the campaign. The report did not reach a conclusion about possible obstruction of justice by Trump, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of a sitting president. The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial.
Peter Paul Strzok II is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Previously, he had been the chief of the division's Counterespionage Section and led the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.
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Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation is a report by the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General which was released on December 9, 2019 by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. The report reviewed the Crossfire Hurricane investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which looked into whether people associated with the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign coordinated with Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
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The bridegroom, 37, is the chief of staff to James K. Robinson, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division in Washington.
The report from the inspector general for the Justice Department found that leadership failed to prepare to implement the policy or manage the fallout, which resulted in more than 3,000 family separations during "zero tolerance" and caused lasting emotional damage to children who were taken from their parents at the border. ... According to the report, department leaders underestimated how difficult it would be to carry out the policy in the field and did not inform local prosecutors and others that children would be separated. They also failed to understand that children would be separated longer than a few hours, and when that was discovered, they pressed on.
Rod Rosenstein publicly denounces 'zero-tolerance' policy for first time, following report showing US didn't effectively coordinate care for children
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