I came to the conclusion that Comey released information about the Weiner/Abedine emails largely because of potential leaks coming from the NY FBI Office because he said so.
Comey said that he feared “a pretty reasonable likelihood” that Clinton emails being discovered on Weiner’s computer would get to the press through the New York office.
“The team that had done the investigation was in the counterintelligence division at headquarters, of the emails,” Comey said. “And there were no leaks at all, very tight. But the criminal folks in New York were now involved in a major way—and I don’t want to single anybody out ’cause I don’t know where it was coming from, but there’d been enough up there that I thought there was a pretty reasonable likelihood that it would leak.”
It all comes down to an understanding of the nature of the office, Comey said: “Counterintelligence is different. They’re so used to operating in a classified environment. They’re much tighter. But once you start involving people whose tradition is criminal, and in New York which has a different culture, there is a reasonable likelihood it was going to get out anyway.”
I had also been meaning to do a breakdown of some of the text messages between FBI Agent Peter Stzrok and Andrew McCabe’s Counsel Lisa Page because when you get past the snarky stuff about the debates — where they not only slammed Trump’s performance they also criticized Bernie Sanders, Chelsea Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Ted Cruz and Eric Holder — you actually see a picture where they were deeply concerned about exactly the same politically motivated FBI leaks that Comey was talking about and I concluded that ultimately they were in a PR battle over these leaks which ultimately led to Andrew McCabe authorizing a release that the FBI was pursuing an investigation of the Clinton Foundation even against DOJ objections, and also Comey’s letter to Jason Chaffetz which changed the direction of the election.
Abramson arrives in essentially the same place, even if he just takes a slightly different path going through the bogus Pizzagate and Seth Rich hoaxes via Joe diGenova and Breitbart to get there.