First, everyone knows that Comey’s October statement contributed greatly to Clinton’s loss. Everyone knew that long before the IG report. The IG report shows how and why it happened.
Second and most important, you quoted a source that is quoting “a source familiar with the report”. I’ll go ahead and quote directly from the IG report itself and link to it. There’s a lot more in the 500 pages than what Reuters wants to talk about.
Quotes from the Report are in bold. Lets start with a bit about Comey.
Of Clinton, Comey stated in the IG report ”in the course of conduct [of] her State Department business, she discussed classified topics on eight occasions TS, dozens of occasions SECRET, and there was no indication that we had found that she knew that was improper, unlawful, that someone had said don’t do that, that will violate 18 U.S.C. [the federal criminal code] ...there was no fricking way that the Department of Justice in a million years was going to prosecute that.”
Take that in for a second. Comey stated that Clinton broke the law with 8 Top Secret topics and dozens of Secret topics. But Comey was sure, really sure Obama’s DOJ and Loretta Lynch wouldn’t prosecute. This was all in the Spring according to the IG, before Clinton was even interviewed (though not under oath just in case she lied).
The reason Comey knew that the DOJ wouldn’t prosecute, is also the reason Comey decided to make his own unprecedented public pronouncement. That is to say, if the DOJ publicly declined prosecution, everyone would know the decision was corrupt as hell. Comey thought that if he did it, it would appear more objective and less corrupt. From the IG report; ” Comey told the OIG that he considered what options would be best calculated to minimize the reputational damage to the Department that might result from a declination decision”. In Comey’s words ” we were in a [500]-year flood… that this is a circumstance that has never happened before. We’re criminally investigating one of the candidates for president of the United States.... [P]resident [Obama’]s comments obviously weighed on me as well. You’ve got the President who has already said there’s no there there.... And so all of that creates a situation where how do we get out of this without grievous damage to the institution?”
So why did the IG find that this wasn’t for political bias? Because Comey acted not out of his own political interests, but rather in an effort to reduce the impact of a corrupt DOJ acting on political interests. He was determined to use the credibility of the FBI in order to white wash the corruption of the DOJ. Comey wasn’t interested in Justice, as he should have been, but rather a sense of Justice. In Comey’s words ” Comey told us that, in addition to preserving the credibility and integrity of the Department and the FBI, his concern was protecting “a sense of justice more broadly in the country—that things are fair not fixed, and they’re done independently.”.
So Comey did what the DOJ was going to do hoping that the FBI wouldn’t appear as corrupt as everyone would know the DOJ to be.
Before we move on, a few other points about Comey. He drafted his speech and edited it. What he choose to alter from his original is rather telling. While Comey’s final speech chastised Clinton for being “extremely careless”, the original draft used legal language which articulated Clinton’s guilt by identifying her handling of classified information as ”grossly negligent”. Good thing Comey changed it, or he might have appeared corrupt.
Comey stated in his speech that it was possible that Clinton’s server had been hacked. This language he changed from ”Reasonably likely”. This is an important distinction given Stzork stated ” we know foreign actors obtained access to some of her emails…via compromises of the private email accounts of some of her staffers. It’s also accurate to say that a sophisticated foreign actor would likely have known about her private email domain, and would be competent enough not to leave a trace if they gained access.”
I think Strzok’s statement will serve as a nice transition to a discussion of the IG report concerning other FBI Agents.
When the Russia investigation was initiated during the Midyear (Hillary) investigation, Strzok texted Page “And damn this feels momentous. Because this matters. The other one did, too, but that was to ensure we didn’t F something up. This matters because this MATTERS”. Strzok and Page have other various texts indicating there bias with statements such as “F Trump”.
On 8/6/16 Page texted to Strzok the following ” “And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace”. When asked about this text, Strzok merely stammered.
On 8/8/16 Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”.
The IG didn’t find 0 bias, on the contrary. The IG report states ”we found that several FBI employees who played critical roles in the investigation sent political messages—some of which related directly to the Midyear investigation—that created the appearance of bias and thereby raised questions about the objectivity and thoroughness of the Midyear investigation.”
While the IG didn’t find documentation of specific bad action, that which they found ”cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation and sowed doubt about the FBI’s work on, and its handling of, the Midyear investigation. It also called into question Strzok’s failure in October 2016 to follow up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop.”
Did you read that last part? Strzok’s pro-Clinton bias and implied willingness to take official action caused the IG to be suspicious of Strzoks failure to follow up on the new evidence against Clinton in a timely fashion. The IG says that the discovery of emails on the Weiner laptop occurred in September. Had Strzok not let his own bias delay addressing it, it wouldn’t have turned into an October surprise for Clinton.
From the IG report: ” The conduct of the five FBI employees…has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI.
And more ” We were deeply troubled by text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”
This post is a good example of why I always look for primary sources. When you come along and say “Amarel you fool, some news group read the IG report for me and said that everything is fine”, I’m inclined to look at the IG Report itself. I stand by my initial post.
I’ll provide the link so you can read for yourself what your unnamed “source familiar with the report” forgot to tell you.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download
