The DOJ is reportedly investigating whether Andrew McCabe deliberately slowed the FBI's Clinton email probe

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The Department of Justice's inspector general is probing whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe slowed the bureau's response after he was alerted to a new batch of emails pertaining to the Hillary Clinton email investigation in early October, The Washington Post reported.

The emails in question belonged to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who was married at the time to former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. The FBI discovered Abedin's work emails on Weiner's laptop in late September 2016, while it was investigating him for exchanging sexually explicit messages with a teenage girl. Weiner was sentenced last September to 21 months in prison after being found guilty of one charge of transferring obscene material to a minor.

McCabe reportedly became aware of the request to review the new batch of emails shortly after they were first discovered in September 2016, but he did not take action until about three weeks later, in late October.

Agents investigating Weiner's conduct at the New York FBI field office looped FBI headquarters in on the new emails within days, according to The Post. Officials at the FBI's headquarters subsequently asked agents on the Weiner case to analyze the emails' content and metadata to determine whether they were pertinent to the Clinton probe. Sources told The Post that McCabe was involved in the interactions, but the degree of his involvement is unclear.

Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice inspector general, is said to be keenly focused on why top FBI officials did not appear to address the emails until weeks after being alerted to their existence.

In particular, the report said, Horowitz is probing whether McCabe and other key figures avoided taking action so as not to sway the November 8 election.