By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — Multiple senior officials in the Justice Department under the first Trump administration improperly leaked non-public details of inquiries into Covid-19 deaths at nursing homes in Democratic-led states, according to a newly-released inspector general report released following a CNN Freedom of Information Act request.

The report expressed suspicions that the disclosures were politically motivated as they were made days before the 2020 election. The non-public information concerned investigative steps taken by the Justice Department in New York and New Jersey – states whose Democratic leaders were antagonists of President Donald Trump during the coronavirus pandemic.

The report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz details months of back-and-forth between political appointees and officials who typically spearhead such probes about how to move forward with the investigations in those and other Democratic-led states. Much of the disagreement centered on whether and how to publicly announce certain investigative steps by the department.

The identities of the three officials accused of the misconduct were redacted from the report.

One of the officials whose identity was redacted by the inspector general wrote in an October 17, 2020, email that a plan to leak investigative steps to the New York Post will “be our last play on them before election but it’s a big one.”

The disclosure, along with one official’s promotion on social media of news articles containing the non-public details, violated the Department’s Confidentiality and Media Contacts Policy, Horowitz concluded.

“We also found that the conduct of these senior officials raised serious questions about partisan political motivation for their actions in proximity to the 2020 election,” the inspector general said. His office made referrals to the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates violations of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits government employees from using their official positions to engage in political campaigns.

(The US Office of Special Counsel is distinct from special counsels, like Jack Smith, who are appointed to conduct politically-sensitive criminal investigations).

According to the report, the push to investigate New York, New Jersey and other Democratic-led states for how the states’ coronavirus policies were affecting Covid transmissions at assisted living facilities began in the summer 2020 and was egged on by political appointees at the department.

At one point, the inspector general said, government officials with expertise in such investigations conducted analysis that showed the state-run facilities with the worst metrics were not in the targeted Democratic-led states.

Department employees also raised concerns about assertions DOJ leaders in Washington sought to make in drafts of press releases announcing various department moves.

One draft press release that would have announced an investigation into two New Jersey facilities contained several statements that officials in New Jersey’s US Attorney’s Office objected to because they were misleading, speculative or lacked evidence, the inspector general’s report said.

That draft press release eventually pared back of some of those statements, but ultimately was not issued by the department.

Instead, a non-public letter telling state officials that the department was initiating the New Jersey investigation – and a separate letter seeking certain nursing home data from New York officials – was disclosed to the New York Post reporter and, later, other journalists.

The Post’s report was published on October 27, more than 30 minutes before DOJ emailed the New Jersey letter to the governor’s office, according to the inspector general.

CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.

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