Horowitz’s critics say the IG’s August report giving Comey a pass for leaking what bureau veterans say was classified information to the press is perhaps his biggest cop-out.

They argue that Horowitz failed to question how Strzok arrived at his determination that the memo Comey leaked to The New York Times was not classified. Strzok retroactively marked it "For Official Use Only," even though it cited the counterintelligence investigation of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first choice as national security adviser. Normally an internal FBI document mentioning the subject of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation is automatically deemed classified. Even when Strzok marked that memo as FOUO – after the fact, in July 2017 – Flynn was still under investigation.

“The idea that the subject of a counterintelligence investigation was unclassified is ridiculous. The very existence of a counterintelligence investigation is classified at least Secret,” said former FBI agent and lawyer Mark Wauck, who worked on such investigations for the bureau dealing with Russia.

Strzok at least initially worried it did contain secret information. After it was revealed to have been leaked, he sent agents to New York to scrub the computer that received the Comey memo.

“It’s all too convenient that Strzok would label the one memo his boss had leaked to the media as unclassified,” said Michael Biasello, a 27-year veteran of the FBI. "It was the difference between violating DOJ rules and breaking the law.”

Added Biasello, “It looks like Horowitz just played along” with the bureau’s efforts to gloss over the classified nature of the memo.