The inspector general for the Department of Justice has released its long-awaited, much-anticipated 568-page report into the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of official email as secretary of state.
These are its six most important findings:
1.) There was never a criminal case to be made against Clinton. FBI Director James Comey's public statement that no reasonable prosecutor would press the email case against her proved to be accurate.
Furthermore, as the IG states:
"We found no evidence that the conclusions by the prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations; rather, we determined that they were based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law, and past Department practice."
Put another way, the chants of “Lock her up!” were the howling of a misled mob, not a call for justice.
2.) Former President Bill Clinton, and to a lesser degree then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, behaved irresponsibly and with utter disregard for consequences when they held their fateful impromptu social chat on Lynch's airplane, in the midst of the investigation. The IG found no evidence of evil intent or action, but the meeting forced Lynch to withdraw from the case and allowed Comey to seize command, setting the stage for tragedy to come. Remarkably, Clinton still insists that he did nothing wrong.
3.) FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page acted unprofessionally, expressing anti-Trump sentiments that had no place in the middle of a politically sensitive investigation. The inspector general was clearly alarmed by those messages, as he should have been. However, after close investigation he concluded that "we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed..."
4.) Comey choked, repeatedly, under intense pressure from congressional Republicans and conservative media who had blown the email case out of proportion. His initial press conference in July of 2016 in which he announced that no charges would be brought against Clinton, while berating her for her behavior, broke with longtime FBI practices and policy and amounted to insubordination, the IG found. His decision to publicly announce the reopening of the case in late October, just before the election was even worse.
Basically, the GOP worked the ref brilliantly, and at crunch time the ref folded and handed them the game.
5.) Comey also got caught up in his own transcendent purity. He was more worried about being perceived as doing right than actually doing right, and that too led him seriously astray. He may have been well-intentioned, but history will not treat him kindly.
6.) The report was most critical of a widespread culture of illegal and unethical leaking within the FBI. "We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review," as it states.
The report also concludes that those leaks had a significant impact on the course of the investigation and thus the course of American history.
According to the IG, Comey’s disastrous decision in late October of 2016 to announce the reopening of the email probe was driven in part by fear of ongoing anti-Hillary leaks coming out of the FBI’s New York office. It cites the testimony of James A. Baker, at the time the FBI’s top attorney and a close Comey aide, in discussing why Comey made it public at such a sensitive time:
“We were quite confident that ... somebody is going to leak this fact. That we have all these emails. That, if we don’t put out a letter, somebody is going to leak it. That definitely was discussed....[If] we don’t do a letter. It’s either going to be leaked before or after the election.”
According to the IG report, those leaks coming out of the New York FBI office are still being investigated, which means they may be the other shoe yet to drop in this internal investigation.
When it does, there’s a pretty good chance that shoe will drop on the head of one Rudy Giuliani. His name is never mentioned in the report, but he had close ties to the New York FBI office from his days as U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and later as mayor. And during the campaign he openly served as a conduit for those anti-Clinton leaks.
On Oct. 26, in an appearance on Fox News, he gleefully bragged that “We got a couple things up our sleeve that should turn this around. Even the liberal pollsters will get to see.” When asked to explain further, he grinned. “You’ll see. Ha ha ha.”
Two days later came the Comey letter reopening the investigation.
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