Michael E. Horowitz

Michael Evan Horowitz (born September 19, 1962) is an American attorney and government official. He is the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He previously served as Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice from 2012 to 2025.

Early life and education Horowitz is the son of Jewish parents, Anne J. and Fred Horowitz. His father owned the women's clothing manufacturer Paul Alfred Inc. and his mother owned an antique store in Nyack, New York.

Inspector General for the Department of Justice Horowitz was sworn in as the Inspector General of the United States Department of Justice on April 16, 2012. 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.

Review of ATF's Operation Fast and Furious

In September 2012, Horowitz released a 471-page report on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious, in which ATF agents allowed illegal gun purchases to proceed with the intention of tracking the weapons to Mexican drug cartels. The report found "a pattern of serious failures" and recommended 14 federal officials for disciplinary action. 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.

Review of 4 FISA Applications and the Crossfire Hurricane investigation

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.

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. However, in a Senate hearing, Horowitz stated he could not rule out political bias as a possible motivation. 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.

Review of the DOJ's Zero Tolerance Policy

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. 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". 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."

Review of DOJ actions related to the 2020 presidential election In January 2021, Horowitz announced an investigation into "whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election." No public report has been released.

Trump-era leak investigations review In June 2021, Horowitz announced a review of the Trump administration Justice Department's use of subpoenas to obtain communication records of members of Congress and journalists during leak investigations. The review examined investigations into leaked classified information that appeared in news articles in 2017 related to possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Horowitz released his findings on December 10, 2024. The report found that prosecutors had secretly subpoenaed phone and email metadata for two members of Congress—Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both California Democrats—as well as 43 congressional staffers from both parties. Of the staffers, 21 worked in Democratic positions and 20 in Republican positions.

Horowitz found "no evidence of retaliatory or political motivation by the career prosecutors" but concluded that subpoenaing congressional records "risks chilling Congress's ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch." The report found that approximately 70 athletes were sexually abused by Nassar between July 2015, when the FBI first received allegations, and September 2016, when he was arrested following a separate investigation.

The report also found that Indianapolis Field Office officials made false statements to investigators when the matter came under scrutiny. Following the report, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray fired one of the agents involved.

Review of the FBI Richmond Catholic memo

In April 2024, Horowitz released a review of an internal FBI memo that identified "radical traditionalist Catholics" as potential domestic violent extremists. The review found "no malicious intent" behind the memo but documented procedural failures, including that the memo's authors knew their sources—including the Southern Poverty Law Center—had political bias but provided no caveats about credibility in the final document.

January 6 confidential human sources review

On December 12, 2024, Horowitz released an 88-page report examining the FBI's handling of confidential human sources and intelligence collection ahead of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

The report found no evidence that undercover FBI employees were present at the protests or Capitol on January 6. Four confidential human sources entered the Capitol during the riot, and an additional 11 entered the restricted area around the building.

Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau In June 2025, Horowitz was appointed by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to serve as Inspector General of the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, effective June 30, 2025. Under federal law, the Federal Reserve chairman appoints the agency's inspector general without presidential input or Senate confirmation. Horowitz succeeded Mark Bialek, who retired in April 2025 after nearly 14 years as inspector general. His deputy at the Department of Justice, William Blier, became acting inspector general upon Horowitz's departure.

Personal life In 2000, he married Alexandra Leigh Kauffman in Leesburg, Virginia. Kauffman is a former field producer for CNN covering economics and personal finance.