Justice watchdog: FBI official accepted reporter’s tickets

WASHINGTON — A senior FBI official accepted two tickets to a sports event from a television reporter who regularly covered the bureau, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Tuesday.

The official did not pay for the tickets despite having initially claimed under oath to have done so, according to the watchdog, which said the official’s actions violated federal regulations on gifts.

The official, who was not named in the report and has since retired, had previously accepted a ticket to a different sporting event from the same reporter as well as a ticket from a different reporter to another sports event, the inspector general said. The watchdog said it found no evidence that the official had paid for the tickets, and the official produced no proof.

The interaction was mentioned in a much broader inspector general report from June on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, including encounters between FBI employees and members of the news media.

The inspector general on Tuesday issued a two-page summary with more details on the tickets.

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The report concluded that the official had violated regulations barring federal employees from accepting gifts from prohibited sources, including members of the news media who do business with the employee’s agency or who seek official action from it.

The reporter’s name is not included in the report.

The Associated Press