I’ve been doing this a long time and one thing I’ve discovered about the media is that whenever they try and summarize a long and detailed report they tend — due to time and size constraints — to pick and choose what they think the big takeaways are, they usually miss important details that completely change the way the facts should be viewed. I don’t think this is because of political bias [unless we’re talking Right-Wing media where it’s definitely political] but because of confirmation bias, where their own preconceived notions and opinion drive them to see what they expect first and typically ignore the rest.
That is exactly the case of what we’re now seeing in the media about the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the Clinton Email Investigation which was code-named the “Midyear Exam.”
Certainly, the IG has offered considerable criticism of both FBI Director Comey and Agent Strzok, however, none of those criticisms are about how they actually performed their job or even suggest that the quality of the investigations were compromised in any way.
Most reporters will read through the 18 page executive summary for the 500-page report and just stop there — but that isn’t nearly enough.
The WH has already stated that the IG report “Reaffirmed Suspicions” about Comey and the Political Bias of those in the FBI.
“The President was briefed on the Inspector General’s report earlier today, and it has reaffirmed the President’s suspicions about Comey’s conduct and the political bias among some of the members of the FBI,” she said.
But that is quite simply and literally NOT. THE. CASE.
First up is the question of political motivations during the Midyear Exam investigation. Did Agent Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s personal relationship and texts reveal that they try to help or protect Hillary Clinton in any way?
The IG report says:
In particular, we were concerned about text messages exchanged by FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Special Counsel to the Deputy Director, that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.
As we describe in Chapter Twelve of our report, most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, the suggestion in certain Russia- related text messages in August 2016 that Strzok might be willing to take official action to impact presidential candidate Trump’s electoral prospects caused us to question the earlier Midyear investigative decisions in which Strzok was involved, and whether he took specific actions in the Midyear investigation based on his political views. As we describe Chapter Five of our report, we found that Strzok was not the sole decisionmaker for any of the specific Midyear investigative decisions we examined in that chapter. We further found evidence that in some instances Strzok and Page advocated for more aggressive investigative measures in the Midyear investigation, such as the use of grand jury subpoenas and search warrants to obtain evidence.
There were clearly tensions and disagreements in a number of important areas between Midyear agents and prosecutors. However, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed in Chapter Five, or that the justifications offered for these decisions were pretextual.
Nonetheless, these messages cast a cloud over the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation and the investigation’s credibility. But our review did not find evidence to connect the political views expressed in these messages to the specific investigative decisions that we reviewed; rather, consistent with the analytic approach described above, we found that these specific decisions were the result of discretionary judgments made during the course of an investigation by the Midyear agents and prosecutors and that these judgment calls were not unreasonable.
So the answer to that question is “No.” Page and Strtzok did not throw the Clinton investigation because they personally favored her for President over Trump. Her investigation was not “fixed”, it was not “rigged.”
That’s also true when it comes to Comey’s action even if the IG disagrees with how and when his decisions were announced to the public. They discuss Comey’s decision to work independently of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch because of the appearance of impropriety in her tarmac talk with former President Bill Clinton and other public statements. They note the changes made to Comey’s original letter on the end of the Clinton investigation noting that it did go from saying her actions were “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” but also that all versions of the letter did not recommend prosecution stating that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case when the alleged classified emails did not possess normal classification markings [exactly has Clinton had repeatedly stated] and it there was no clear intent to mis-use or mishandling classified information when it wasn’t clear that anyone in the email chain even knew that some of the information could be potentially deemed classified.
Each version of the statement criticized Clinton’s handling of classified information. Comey told us that he included criticism of former Secretary Clinton’s uncharged conduct because “unusual transparency...was necessary for an unprecedented situation,” and that such transparency “was the best chance we had of having the American people have confidence that the justice system works[.]”
The IG didn’t criticize Comey’s legal reasoning on not recommending charges, they criticized his choice to use the letter to make PR statements about the integrity of the FBI’s own investigation.
Other witnesses told the OIG that Comey included this criticism to avoid creating the appearance that the FBI was “letting [Clinton] off the hook,” as well as to “messag[e]” the decision to the FBI workforce to emphasize that employees would be disciplined for similar conduct and to distinguish the Clinton investigation from the cases of other public figures who had been prosecuted for mishandling violations.
One point in Comey's favor is the fact that he was right about people claiming that the FBI had "let Clinton off the hook” because the GOP and Trump have continued to chant “Lock Her Up” even after he produced his statement. So obviously his efforts didn’t work, but then again his reasoning for it wasn’t entirely wrong either.
The IG criticizes Lynch not for having the tarmac discussion with Clinton as they found their discussion was entirely personal and not about the pending case against Hillary, however, they did criticize her not cutting the meeting short and for her handling of the aftermath.
Although we found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the Midyear investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussions during their tarmac meeting, we also found that Lynch’s failure to recognize the appearance problem created by former President Clinton’s visit and to take action to cut the visit short was an error in judgment. We further concluded that her efforts to respond to the meeting by explaining what her role would be in the investigation going forward created public confusion and did not adequately address the situation.
All of this led to Comey cutting the DOJ out of the loop on Midyear Exam and ultimately deciding to make the announcement about the ending of the investigation himself, rather than the normal process which would have had it performed by AG Lynch or Deputy AG Yates which they found insubordinate.
The OIG found that former Director Comey was insubordinate when he intentionally concealed from DOJ his intentions regarding the July 5, 2016, announcement and instructed his subordinates to do the same. The FBI does not condone insubordination at any level and will institute training to ensure compliance with policy and the chain of command, as appropriate.
This they found problematic and also his decision to criticize Clinton while not charging her.
Comey’s public statement announced that the FBI had completed its Midyear investigation, criticized Clinton and her senior aides as “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information, stated that the FBI was recommending that the Department decline prosecution of Clinton, and asserted that “no reasonable prosecutor” would prosecute Clinton based on the facts developed by the FBI during its investigation. We determined that Comey’s decision to make this statement was the result of his belief that only he had the ability to credibly and authoritatively convey the rationale for the decision to not seek charges against Clinton, and that he needed to hold the press conference to protect the FBI and the Department from the extraordinary harm that he believed would have resulted had he failed to do so. While we found no evidence that Comey’s statement was the result of bias or an effort to influence the election, we did not find his justifications for issuing the statement to be reasonable or persuasive.
We concluded that Comey’s unilateral announcement was inconsistent with Department policy and violated long-standing Department practice and protocol by, among other things, criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct. We also found that Comey usurped the authority of the Attorney General, and inadequately and incompletely described the legal position of Department prosecutors.
When it came to whether the final determination not to charge Clinton was valid, the IG found that Comey was pretty much right on target.
We analyzed the Department’s declination decision according to the same analytical standard that we applied to other decisions made during the investigation. We did not substitute the OIG’s judgment for the judgments made by the Department, but rather sought to determine whether the decision was based on improper considerations, including political bias. 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. We therefore concluded that these were legal and policy judgments involving core prosecutorial discretion that were for the Department to make.
After the Clinton investigation was closed, there was the discovery by the New York Field Office of emails belonging to Huma Abedin which had been archived on her husband Anthony Weiner’s laptop as he was being investigated for sending inappropriate message and photos to a minor.
These messages were discovered on September 28th and there was an unexplained delay between this point and the even letter to Congress and the request for a search warrant of the laptop, while the matter was discussed by Strzok, his supervisor Assistant Director Bill Priestab and Deputy Director McCabe.
Text messages of FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok indicated that he, McCabe, and Priestap discussed the Weiner laptop on September 28. Strzok said that he had initially planned to send a team to New York to review the emails, but a conference call with NYO was scheduled instead. The conference call took place on September 29, and five members of the FBI Midyear team participated. Notes from the conference call indicate the participants discussed the presence of a large volume of emails (350,000) on the Weiner laptop and specific domain names, including clintonemail.com and state.gov. The Midyear SSA said that NYO also mentioned seeing BlackBerry domain emails on the Weiner laptop.
Comey wasn’t informed of this until October 27th and the Midyear team’s explanations for the delay included 1) waiting for additional information about the contents of the laptop, 2) the need for a search warrant, 3) the belief by Senior FBI that the information would not be significant and 4) the fact that key members of the Midyear team — including Strzok — had been reassigned to the Russia investigation. The IG wasn’t convinced.
We found these explanations to be unpersuasive justifications for not acting sooner, given the FBI leadership’s conclusion about the importance of the information and that the FBI Midyear team had sufficient information to take action in early October and knew at that time that it would need a new search warrant to review any Clinton-Abedin emails. Moreover, given the FBI’s extensive resources, the fact that Strzok and several other FBI members of the Midyear team had been assigned to the Russia investigation, which was extremely active during this September and October time period, was not an excuse for failing to take any action during this time period on the Weiner laptop.
However, the IG report does not say that this delay was politically motived to help Clinton — in fact, it may have done the exact reverse.
We searched for evidence that the Weiner laptop was deliberately placed on the back-burner by others in the FBI to protect Clinton, but found no evidence in emails, text messages, instant messages, or documents that suggested an improper purpose. We also took note of the fact that numerous other FBI executives—including the approximately 39 who participated in the September 28 SVTC—were briefed on the potential existence of Midyear-related emails on the Weiner laptop.
We also noted that the Russia investigation was under the supervision of Priestap—for whom we found no evidence of bias and who himself was aware of the Weiner laptop issue by September 29. However, we also did not identify a consistent or persuasive explanation for the FBI’s failure to act for almost a month after learning of potential Midyear-related emails on the Weiner laptop.
The FBI’s inaction had potentially far-reaching consequences. Comey told the OIG that, had he known about the laptop in the beginning of October and thought the email review could have been completed before the election, it may have affected his decision to notify Congress. Comey told the OIG, “I don’t know [if] it would have put us in a different place, but I would have wanted to have the opportunity.
Again to recap the IG had examined whether Strzok had had a political bias in his actions and found none. Furthermore this failure to act wasn’t his final decision but also on the back of his supervisor Priestap and McCabe. It’s possible that if action had been taken sooner the search warrant could have been obtained before Comey decided to send his letter to Congress about the laptop and they would have discovered they were all duplicates of what they already had obtained from Hillary’s server — where Abedin also had an email account — both sooner and without effectively throwing the election into Donald Trump’s lap.
When it comes to Comey’s decision to write the fateful letter to Congress, the IG didn’t much like it — but they also said it wasn’t done for political purposes although the concern that it would have leaked anyway — from the NY Office of the FBI — was a concern.
We found no evidence that Comey’s decision to send the October 28 letter was influenced by political preferences. Instead, we found that his decision was the result of several interrelated factors that were connected to his concern that failing to send the letter would harm the FBI and his ability to lead it, and his view that candidate Clinton was going to win the presidency and that she would be perceived to be an illegitimate president if the public first learned of the information after the election. Although Comey told us that he “didn’t make this decision because [he] thought it would leak otherwise,” several FBI officials told us that the concern about leaks played a role in the decision.
Much like with his July 5 announcement, we found that in making this decision, Comey engaged in ad hoc decisionmaking based on his personal views even if it meant rejecting longstanding Department policy or practice. We found unpersuasive Comey’s explanation as to why transparency was more important than Department policy and practice with regard to the reactivated Midyear investigation while, by contrast, Department policy and practice were more important to follow with regard to the Clinton Foundation and Russia investigations.
Again, Comey acted here to protect the FBI and their integrity while simultaneously violating their rules and protocols. He didn’t do it for Trump’s benefit, or for Hillary’s benefit — but he did it.
Then we finally get back to Agent Strzok and the rest of his text messages which much of the media has been reporting on heavily in Steve Cortez practically gave himself a Heimlich jumping up and down to interrupt Comey’s former deputy Josh Cambell on CNN.
Cortez goes on to quote this section from the report.
We were deeply troubled by text messages exchanged between 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, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it” in response to her question “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”, 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 is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.
The report here is criticizing Strzok for “appearances” based on the text messages that the IG itself chose to release, hence creating that very appearance when in a previous section of the report they stated:
But our review did not find evidence to connect the political views expressed in these messages to the specific investigative decisions that we reviewed
So this presents a conflict. Did Strzok’s comment about Trump not winning the election show that he was “willing to take official actions” based on his bias, or was he just expressing a personal opinion — which he still, under the 1st Amendment has a right too — that Trump was simply going to lose because people, including Strzok who is a registered Republican, were going to vote against him?
Well, wouldn’t it be nice if rather than trying to divine the proper interpretation of what Strzok and Page really were talking about here, that someone had gone back and bothered to simply ask them what they meant?
Well, yes, that would be nice - and the IG actually did that with both Strzok and Page on page #404 of the report.
August 8, 2016:
In a text message on August 8, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
When asked about this text message, Strzok stated that he did not specifically recall sending it, but that he believed that it was intended to reassure Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation.
Strzok told the OIG that he did not take any steps to try to affect the outcome of the presidential election, in either the Midyear investigation or the Russia investigation. Strzok stated that had he—or the FBI in general — actually wanted to prevent Trump from being elected, they would not have maintained the confidentiality of the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign in the months before the election.
Page similarly stated that, although she could not speak to what Strzok meant by that text message, the FBI’s decision to keep the Russia investigation confidential before the election shows that they did not take steps to impact the outcome of the election
Which is a pretty obvious point. If Page or Strzok had wanted to mess up the Trump campaign they could have leaked what they knew about it to the press — but other than the leak to the WSJ that was specifically authorized by Andrew McCabe that revealed that the FBI was continuing to pursue the Clinton Foundation investigation despite DOJ resistance — they didn’t leak a thing. Nothing.
Even though there were plenty of leaks coming out of the NY FBI office, including those related to the Weiner emails which were shared — illegally — with Rudy Giuliani.
Also there’s the issue about the “insurance policy” that has been big political hey from the Republicans especially people like Devin Nunes.a
August 15, 2016:
In a text message exchange on August 15, 2016, Strzok told Page, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office —that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40....” The “Andy” referred to in the text message appears to be FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
McCabe was not a party to this text message, and we did not find evidence that he received it. In an interview with the OIG, McCabe was shown the text message and he told us that he did not know what Strzok was referring to in the message and recalled no such conversation. Page likewise told us she did not know what that text message meant, but that the team had discussions about whether the FBI would have the authority to continue the Russia investigation if Trump was elected.
Page testified that she did not find a reference in her notes to a meeting in McCabe’s office at that time. Strzok provided a lengthy explanation for this text message.
In substance, Strzok told us that he did not remember the specific conversation, but that it likely was part of a discussion about how to handle a variety of allegations of “collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the government of Russia.” As part of this discussion, the team debated how aggressive to be and whether to use overt investigative methods.
Given that Clinton was the “prohibitive favorite” to win, Strzok said that they discussed whether it made sense to compromise sensitive sources and methods to“ bring things to some sort of precipitative conclusion and understanding.” Strzok said the reference in his text message to an “insurance policy” reflected his conclusion that the FBI should investigate the allegations thoroughly right away, as if Trump were going to win. Strzok stated that Clinton’s position in the polls did not ultimately impact the investigative decisions that were made in the Russia matter.
So again, the “insurance policy” statement was actually non-political.
And lastly, there was the "Secret Society” text which was nothing more than a joke.
November 9, 2016:
The day after the presidential election, on November 9, 2016, Page sent the following text message to Strzok: “Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society. ”We asked Page about this message. Page stated that the “calendars” referenced in this text message were “funny and snarky calendars of
Russian President Vladimir Putin in different poses, such as “holding a kitten.” Page told us that Strzok had previously purchased these calendars as “dark gallows humor.” Page stated that the reference to the “secret society” was also a “dark sort of” humor about Trump winning the election and concerns she and Strzok had about Trump.
Page continued: And so, we somewhat with dark humor, but also somewhat, you know, with real concern as, of course, our Director actually gets fired, talk about, like, well, when he shuts down the, when [Trump] finds out about the investigation and shuts down the FBI, you know, we’ll form a secret society so we can like continue the investigation. So that’s just, that’s obviously not real. I mean, that’s just us being, you know, sort of snarky. But that’s a, that’s a joke. I mean, a reflection of that sort of joke.
Strzok stated that he “took and certainly believed [this text message] to be a joke.”
One last point of irony, it appears that while Strzok, Comey, and the others were investigating Clinton for doing government business using a private email account, they were doing government business while using private email accounts, which is actually allowed within DOJ rules.
As mentioned above, we identified several instances in which Comey and Strzok used personal email accounts for official government business. When questioned, Page also told us she used personal email for work-related matters at times. We briefly discuss these issues below. On September 21, 2016, the Department issued a Policy Statement detailing the records retention policy for email communications.
The Policy Statement contained the following guidance for the use of personal email accounts: In general, DOJ email users should not create or send record emails or attachments using non-official email accounts. However, should exigent circumstances require the use of a personal account to conduct DOJ business, the DOJ email user must ensure that the communicated information is fully captured in a DOJ record keeping system within 20 days. If sending the email from a non-official account, the email user must copy his or her DOJ email address as a recipient. If receiving a DOJ business-related email on a non-official account, the DOJ email user must forward the business-related email to his or her DOJ email account. Once the user has ensured the capture of the email information in the DOJ account, the DOJ email should be removed from the non-official account.
So that’s something.
The bottom line after 18 months the IG did not find one single instance of political bias by the FBI either from Comey or from Strzok or Page. Comey violated protocols and they don’t agree with his reasons why. A lot of us, Democrats didn’t agree with them at the time and still don’t. Strzok and Page had an affair and improperly used their FBI phones to try and keep it a secret while exchanging their personal opinions about the candidates, but neither one of them did anything, ANYTHING, to impact either the election or to shade either the Clinton or Russia investigation for political reasons.
I think those criticisms are fair, but this does not “reaffirm” Trump’s claims that Comey is a “liar and leaker” — he's not, and on the whole, the FBI did nothing wrong here.
Thursday, Jun 14, 2018 · 11:28:21 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
In addition to their text complaints about Trump, of which there were many, another thing much of the doesn’t report is that Strzok and Page also criticized Bernie Sanders, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and others.
Page and Strzok sent other text messages about candidates and issues involved in the 2016 presidential election, unrelated to the Midyear or Russia investigations, and also sent numerous text messages, both positive and negative, about other public and government officials from both political parties. These included former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (“And Martin O’Malley’s a douche,”
- August 16, 2015, Strzok: “[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out.” 201
- November 3, 2016, Strzok: “[Jill]Stein and moron [Gary] Johnson are F’ing everything up, too.”
- October 14, 2015), Congressman Paul Ryan (“And I hope Paul Ryan fails and crashes in a blaze of glory,”
- November 1, 2015), Ohio Governor John Kasich (“Poor Kasich. He's the only sensible man up there,” “Exactly re Kasich. And he has ZERO appeal,”
- March 4, 2016), former Attorney General Eric Holder (“Oh God, Holder! Turn [the television] off turn it off turn it off!!!!” “Yeah, I saw him yesterday and booed at the tv,”
Page and Strzok told us that these additional text messages were relevant because they reflected that Trump was not singled out by them for criticism or criticized for partisan reasons.
Yeah, that too.