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I believe in the
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James Comey and the FBI decided to come clean on Anthony Weiner's laptop because they thought they were protecting a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Federalist
David Marcus
JUNE 15, 2018

In late October of 2016 James Comey knew Donald Trump’s candidacy was as dead as a doornail. That must be distinctly understood or nothing wonderful can come from the story I am going to relate. Time soothes the edges of old emotions. We forget the shock of that election night. Almost two years now of articles and TV takes, even books, make Trump’s election seem understandable, even sometimes inevitable.

But that’s not how it was then. When FBI director Comey and the FBI dropped their late October Anthony Weiner surprise, they did so fully confident that Hillary Clinton would win. What we now know for certain from the Department of Justice inspector general report that came out Thursday is that the FBI chose to disclose the Weiner email fiasco to protect a Clinton presidency, a foregone conclusion, from potential claims from Trump that the FBI had rigged the election.

Who Knows What Comey Remembers?

Comey gave us a taste of this back in April when George Stephanopoulos asked if he was assuming Clinton would win. He said: “I don’t remember consciously thinking about that, but it must have been. I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump. I’m sure that it was a factor. I don’t remember spelling it out, but it had to have been. That she’s going to be elected president, and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out.”

Whatever acid trip Comey was on that makes him feel only now that somehow this reality must have unconsciously affected his decision-making, the IG report presents much more self-aware choices. Take this testimony from Comey himself. The norm he talks about is not revealing information that can affect an election in the days leading up to it:

And so I said okay, those are the doors. One says speak, the other says conceal. Let’s see what’s behind the speak door. It’s really bad. We’re 11 days from a presidential election. Given the norm I’ve long operated under, that’s really bad. Open the second one. Catastrophic. And again this is something reasonable people can disagree about, but my view was to conceal at that point given all I had said would be catastrophic. Not just to the Bureau, but beyond the Bureau…

What does “beyond the bureau” mean? Well, the IG report gives us a good idea what “beyond” means here. It means consequences to a Hillary Clinton presidency. This just becomes clearer and clearer as you read the report. This wasn’t just Emo Twitter Comey having a lot of threads in his old Duder head, it was a calculated approach by the FBI to protect Clinton’s presidency from claims that the FBI rigged her election. That was the big fear at the time: When Clinton obviously wins, will Trump accept the results, or foment a revolt based on spurious claims of election-rigging. Remember?

We no longer have to wonder if such political concerns influenced the FBI. Former FBI general counsel James A. Baker spelled it out in the IG report: “If she’s been elected president of the United States, then Donald Trump would say, oh my God, these people knew this beforehand and didn’t say anything. This is a rigged system. This is, this, these people intentionally hid that until after the election so they could get her elected and, and thwart me.”

So what we now know, despite the IG report’s claims otherwise, is that politics played a significant role in the FBI’s decision to reveal the renewed investigation into Weiner’s laptop just days before the election. It was a calculated risk. Might it hurt Hillary? Sure, but she can’t lose, so better to protect against potential damage after her slam-dunk election passes through the hoop. Then election night happened. Hoo boy.

Greek Tragedy Strikes Again

In retrospect, it’s remarkable that Comey’s spectacular hubris may have been the hinge that ironically thrust Trump to the presidency. In his effort to appear more than fair, he may have swung an election to the man who would ultimately expose him and destroy his legacy.

Comey and the FBI got a little too cute in 2016. We all knew Trump would lose. They were preparing for the reaction to that. Let’s remember it was the Left that was concerned Trump supporters would shout “not my president” after Clinton broke through the glass ceiling. We weren’t prepared for the other impossible possibility. But here we are.

Comey used his office and the FBI to attempt to create a safe landing for President Hillary Clinton. There would be no allegations that the FBI had held back on damaging information about Carlos Danger and his possession of thousands of Clinton’s emails. They’d get out in front of it. She was going to win anyway — until she didn’t.

Comey released his information about Weiner’s laptop for one main reason: to protect the future Clinton administration. We had a hint of this before. Now we can see it is blatantly true. It’s a disgraceful misuse of his office. The only solace we can take is that karma and irony are alive and well. And Trump’s election has exposed Comey’s perfidy.

Link

These last week antics didn’t cost her my vote. Does anyone know anyone whose vote changed by these revelations?




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by sdy:
“I was real proud of Chris Wray, the new director of the FBI, yesterday for his statements on the IG report,” Sessions told Lackawanna College. “We’re not going to be defensive. We’re going to confront any problems, and we’re going to deal with them one-by-one, in a proper, fair, and appropriate way.”

“We’re going to reaffirm and recommit ourselves to the first ideals of that great agency — the FBI — One of the greatest investigative agency, maybe the greatest in the history of the world, as far as I’m concerned,” he added. “If we make a mistake, we’re going to confront it.”

“While the Inspector General didn’t find any evidence of political bias or improper consideration impacting the investigation under review, all of us at the FBI take this report seriously, and we accept its findings and recommendations, Wray said.

“We’ve already taken steps to address many of the concerns it raises. We’ll change what we need to change and improve what can be made better and stronger, and we’ll move forward with renewed focus and determination. Because that is the essence of the FBI — we learn from the past, we get better at what we need to do, and we continually strive to be the very best we can be,” he added.

Wray also said the report found “errors in judgment” and policy violations, but it found no evidence of political bias or improper consideration “actually impacting the investigations under review.”

All of this drivel is another way of saying what I said a few pages back. Liberals dig into their back pocket and pull out the tried and true, "We apologize and we promise to do better next time."

Now, AG Sessions may not be a true liberal, but he is led around by the nose by true liberals. He is easily intimidated and completely ineffective. I knew it while watching him wet his pants during his confirmation hearing and he proves it again every day that he is in a position so far above his ability.

He is a sad and weak man. Completely wrong for the job of AG.


________________________________________________________
"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.
 
Posts: 21001 | Location: Montana | Registered: November 01, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
goodheart
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Another take, this from Mollie Hemingway:

quote:
11 Quick Things To Know About The Inspector General’s Report
The Justice Department inspector general report about the FBI reveals a shocking anti-Trump, pro-Hillary bias endemic to the agency's related investigations.

Mollie Hemingway
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a long-anticipated report on the FBI’s handling of the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server that handled classified information. Here are some quick takeaways from the report.

1. Learn How To Interpret An IG Report

The best way to understand an inspector general (IG) report is less as a fiercely independent investigation that seeks justice and more like what you’d expect from a company’s human resources department. Employees frequently think that a company’s human resources department exists to serve employees. There’s some truth in that, but it’s more true that the human resources department exists to serve the corporation.

At the end of the day, the HR department wants what’s best for the company. The FBI’s IG Michael Horowitz has a good reputation for good reason. But his report is in support of the FBI and its policies and procedures. As such, the findings will be focused on helping the FBI improve its adherence to those policies and procedures. Those who expected demands for justice in the face of widespread evidence of political bias and poor judgment by immature agents and executives were people unfamiliar with the purpose of IG reports.

The IG is also a government bureaucrat producing government products that are supposed to be calm and boring. In the previous report that led to Andrew McCabe’s firing as deputy director of the FBI and referral for criminal prosecution, his serial lying under oath was dryly phrased as “lack of candor.” In this report detailing widespread problems riddled throughout the Clinton email probe, the language is similarly downplayed. That’s particularly true in the executive summary, which attempts to downplay the actual details that fill the report with evidence of poor decision-making, extreme political bias, and problematic patterns of behavior.

2. FBI Agent Who Led Both The Clinton and Trump Probes Promised He’d Prevent Trump’s Election

Such as this one! On page 420, the IG says that the conduct of five FBI employees who were caught talking about their extreme political bias in the context of their duties “has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI.” The Midyear investigation was the code for the Clinton probe. Or note this blistering passage:

[W]hen one senior FBI official, [Peter] Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, [Lisa] 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 is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.

The report goes on to say that the text messages and Strzok’s decision to prioritize the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign over the Clinton email criminal investigation “led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

This text is not just interesting because the FBI’s deputy head of the counterintelligence division who was investigating a major-party candidate told the woman he was cheating on his wife with that “we” would stop the candidate from becoming president. It’s also interesting because this text was hidden from congressional committees performing oversight of the FBI.

3. Comey Mishandled The Clinton Probe In Multiple Ways

It’s worth re-reading Acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s May 9, 2017, recommendation that James Comey be fired as FBI director. He cited Comey’s usurpation of the attorney general’s authority in his press conference announcing that Clinton’s case would be closed without prosecution, the release of derogatory information about Clinton despite the decision to not indict her, and Comey’s letter to Congress announcing the FBI had reopened a probe against Clinton.

The IG backs up each and every one of those critiques, and adds much more detail to them.

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.

The IG said Comey violated longstanding department practice to avoid “trashing people we’re not charging.” He also inadequately and incompletely explained how Justice prosecutors came to make decisions. “Many of the problems with the statement resulted from Comey’s failure to coordinate with Department officials,” the IG wrote. Had he talked with them, they would have warned him about the problems his statement posed. What’s more, the prosecutors had a very different understanding of why they were declining to charge Clinton than the one Comey claimed they had in his public press conference.

Comey also violated departmental practice in announcing publicly he reopened the probe after additional relevant emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Both of these decisions were controversial inside and outside the agency.

4. Comey Is Slippery And Weird

The 568-page report includes many examples of Comey being duplicitous and sneaky during his handling of the Clinton email probe. For instance, he asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch how to handle questions regarding the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information on a secret server. She told him to call it a “matter.” He didn’t object and even complied.

But a year later, the conversation was leaked to The New York Times in a story that painted Comey as a non-partisan truth-teller beset by both Democrats and Republicans. Daniel Richman, the same man who was used to leak Comey’s anti-Trump memos, was a source for the anti-Lynch story.

Comey threatened to appoint a special counsel in the Clinton probe if Justice officials didn’t help him get what he wanted. He bizarrely claimed he was going to announce he’d make no recommendation on the Clinton email probe. He decided he was going to make a solo announcement trashing Clinton while announcing she was not being charged, but let the Justice Department think they would be making a statement together:

Comey admitted that he concealed his intentions from the Department until the morning of his press conference on July 5, and instructed his staff to do the same, to make it impracticable for Department leadership to prevent him from delivering his statement. We found that it was extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to do so, and we found none of his reasons to be a persuasive basis for deviating from well-established Department policies in a way intentionally designed to avoid supervision by Department leadership over his actions.

He claimed that he didn’t grasp the significance of the hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails being found on Weiner’s computer because he didn’t know that Weiner was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Beyond being too ridiculous to believe, the claim is hardly exonerating. It would mean he was not interested to learn that hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails relevant to a highly charged criminal investigation were found on the laptop of an unrelated man.

Comey asked Justice officials for feedback on his decisions but did so through assistants, suggesting he viewed any feedback as a dangerous encroachment on his decision-making.

“We asked Comey why he asked for the Department’s feedback and then ignored the feedback that he received,” the IG wrote. Later, “Both Lynch and [Deputy Attorney General Sally] Yates explained that they were concerned that any direct discussion with Comey—particularly any discussion in which they told him not to send the letter—would be perceived as an attempt to prevent him from fulfilling his ‘personal ethical obligation’ to notify Congress. Both stated that they were concerned that the fact of any such direct discussions would leak and would be portrayed as Department leadership attempting to ‘prevent information damaging to a candidate from coming out’ (Lynch) or ‘strong-arming’ Comey (Yates).”

5. FBI Has A Massive Leak Problem And Is Doing Nothing About It

As mentioned, both Lynch and Yates were worried that performing legitimate oversight of Comey would be leaked against them to the media. Fear of leaks was also mentioned by many top FBI officials as a major reason that the Southern District of New York was able to force the FBI to reopen the Clinton probe.

“We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review,” the report stated. Two attachments were included showing rampant discussions with reporters by people not authorized to be talking to reporters. One FBI executive was caught having had 26 conversations with one reporter and seven conversations with another reporter. They even created charts to help show how rampant the conversations were:


The report showed myriad FBI employees violating FBI policy and department ethics rules.

FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events.

The IG said the leaks were difficult to track down because of how many people had access to classified and non-public information. The IG also said the culture of widespread leaking made it difficult to crack down:

Second, although FBI policy strictly limits the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, we found that this policy appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks.

6. FBI Almost Got Away With Ignoring Clinton Emails On Weiner Laptop

In September 2016, when an investigator in the Southern District of New York found hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails and Blackberry messages on a laptop being searched in relation to an investigation of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, he immediately alerted his supervisors. They alerted the FBI, who sat on the information for weeks, only acting after the New York office complained repeatedly.

By October 3, the case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation expressed concern that the FBI appeared to be sitting on what he’d told them. Later he told the IG:

The crickets I was hearing was really making me uncomfortable because something was going to come crashing down…. And my understanding, which is uninformed because…I didn’t work the Hillary Clinton matter. My understanding at the time was I am telling you people I have private Hillary Clinton emails, number one, and BlackBerry messages, number two. I’m telling you that we have potentially 10 times the volume that Director Comey said we had on the record. Why isn’t anybody here? Like, if I’m the supervisor of any CI squad in Seattle and I hear about this, I’m getting on with headquarters and saying, hey, some agent working child porn here may have [Hillary Clinton] emails. Get your -ss on the phone, call [the case agent], and get a copy of that drive, because that’s how you should be. And that nobody reached out to me within, like, that night, I still to this day I don’t understand what the hell went wrong.

And I told her, I’m a little scared here. I don’t know what to do because I’m not political. Like I don’t care who wins this election, but this is going to make us look really, really horrible. And it could ruin this case, too. And…I said the thing that also bothers me is that Comey’s testimony is inaccurate. And as a big admirer of the guy, and I think he’s a straight shooter, I wanted to, I felt like he needed to know, like, we got this. And I didn’t know if he did.

Although all the relevant information was given to the FBI by September 29, they came back to the agent weeks later to ask questions he’d repeatedly answered. But the FBI agents claimed that the information they learned in late October was new to them. The IG says this is not true: “By no later than September 29, the FBI had learned virtually every fact that was cited by the FBI in late October as justification for obtaining the search warrant for the Weiner laptop.”

The FBI claimed that they didn’t take action on the laptop because “1. The FBI Midyear team was waiting for additional information about the contents of the laptop from NYO, which was not provided until late October. 2. The FBI Midyear team could not review the emails without additional legal authority, such as consent or a new search warrant. 3. The FBI Midyear team and senior FBI officials did not believe that the information on the laptop was likely to be significant. 4. Key members of the FBI Midyear team had been reassigned to the investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. election, which was a higher priority.”

The IG said these excuses were hogwash, saying that the first was “unpersuasive,” the second “illogical,” the third “inconsistent” and “insufficient,” and the fourth “unpersuasive and concerning.” The overarching feeling of the report is that the FBI leaders who handled both the Clinton and Trump probes worked very hard to pretend the Weiner incident didn’t happen, only being forced by the New York office’s insistence that protocol be followed.

7. Breathtaking Bias

Some FBI defenders latched onto the IG’s claim that he “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific
investigative decisions we reviewed.” All that means is that none of the politically biased texts specifically said political bias was leading them to make certain decisions. Of course, that would be a weird thing to find in any case.

What the investigators found, however, was breathtaking anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias from five of the key employees handling the Clinton email probe. No evidence was found of pro-Trump bias. And this evidence of profound bias is only for those who were foolish enough to record their extreme views. The IG also apparently had no texts from Justice Department officials, perhaps because Justice didn’t preserve them.

The texts range from vile insults of Trump and his supporters to fears about how awful a Trump presidency would be and the need to prevent it. One employee said Trump voters were “all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer discussed feeling “numb” by Trump’s November 2016 election win, later proclaiming “Viva le Resistance” when asked about Trump.

Strzok wrote in July 2016, “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.” After the election, Page wrote that she’d bought “All the President’s Men,” adding, “Figure I needed to brush up on watergate.” The two openly fantasize about impeachment.

In the preparation to interview Clinton as part of the criminal probe, Page tells a handful of her colleagues to take it easy on Clinton. “One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear.”

After each text exchange, the IG report includes defenses from the agents, some even harder to believe than the previous:

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.

Sure, hoss.

All five of the FBI employees were referred back to the FBI for disciplinary action.

8. Clinton Got Breaks, But Some Backfired

While Comey harmed Clinton with how he handled his public announcements about her case, the IG report paints an investigation that was overall quite favorable toward her and her associates. During the Robert Mueller investigation, the federal government has played hardball with Trump associates, ringing them up on false statement charges, raiding their offices, arresting them without warning, and encroaching on attorney-client relationships. For Clinton, a much different approach was taken.

To take just one example, look at the case of Paul Combetta, an employee who handled the migration of Clinton’s email accounts across servers then later deleted the emails. Clinton probe members were sure he was lying about the deletion of the emails in violation of a congressional preservation order. In repeated interviews, he claimed he didn’t delete her emails.

The agents had an email where he talked about the “Hilary coverup operation.” They decided that wasn’t a big deal. One agent said he believed Combetta should have been charged with “false statements for lying multiple times.” But overall they decided it was just so confusing, that the failure to tell the truth was “largely due to a lack of sophistication and poor legal representation.” They gave him immunity, and he started singing. He admitted deleting the emails “despite his awareness of Congress’s preservation order and his understanding that the order meant that ‘he should not disturb Clinton’s email data on the PRN server.'” Sounds nice.

It seems likely that Clinton’s handling of classified information on a secret server, and the FBI’s investigation of it, caused her problems during the 2016 election. But it’s also interesting how the efforts by many to help Clinton kept backfiring. More than anything, there is a lack of confidence that political considerations were absent from the decision to let Clinton skate.

President Obama gave interviews where he stated that Clinton didn’t have intent to harm national security, a talking point later carried by Comey himself. Even before Comey followed Obama’s lead, observers worried that Obama was giving guidance as opposed to offering his opinion. An Obama White House spokesman said he knew Clinton was not a “target” of the investigation, suggesting he had insider knowledge. The FBI claimed he didn’t have insider knowledge.

When the New York office told the FBI about Weiner’s laptop, it appears that the FBI tried to run out the election clock before dealing with it. It would have worked, too, if the New York office hadn’t pushed the matter right before the election — the absolute worst time to deal with a reopening of the investigation.

9. Obama Lied When He Said He Knew Nothing About Hillary’s Secret E-mail Scheme

The IG found that Obama was “one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail[.]com account.”

In fact, Clinton used her private email for “an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary,” a move that led investigators to believe hostile actors had likely gained access to her server. But a paragraph in a draft of Comey’s exoneration of Clinton was changed from Obama to “another senior government official,” and later deleted.

Obama had falsely told reporters he didn’t know of Clinton’s private email system.

10. FBI Agent Joked Clinton Associate Who Lied Would Never Be Charged, Questioned Legitimacy Of Investigation

FBI agents discussed how a witness who obviously lied to them about the Clinton probe would never be charged:

FBI Employee: ‘boom…how did the [witness] go’
Agent 1: ‘Awesome. Lied his -ss off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility] at res, to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic,’
FBI Employee: ‘would be funny if he was the only guy charged n this deal’
Agent 1: ‘I know. For 1001. Even if he said the truth and didnt have a clearance when handling the secure fax – aint noone gonna do sh-t’

That same agent also openly discussed political considerations affecting the Clinton probe. The IG gave a few examples:

January 15, 2016: Responding to a question of when the investigation would be finished, Agent 1 stated, ‘[M]y guess is March. Doesnt matter what we have, political winds will want to beat the Primarys.’
January 28, 2016: ‘…The case is the same is all of them. Alot of work and bullsh-t for a political exercise.’
February 1, 2016: ‘…Its primary season – so we’re being dictated to now….’
February 1, 2016: ‘This is the biggest political sh-t show of them all. No substance. Up at dawn – pride swallowing seige. No headset and hermetically sealed in SIOC.’
February 2, 2016: Responding to a question about how the investigation was going, ‘Going well…. Busy, and sometimes I feel for naught (political exercise), but I feel good….’
May 6, 2016, to Agent 5: ‘pretty bad news today…someone has breathed some political urgency into this…. Everyday DD brief and once a week D brief from now on.’

11. FBI’s Insulting Response

FBI Director Christopher Wray gave a press conference in front of a compliant press corps where he said, “nothing in this report impugns the integrity of our workforce as a whole or the FBI as an institution.” In fact, the report paints a picture of an FBI with a problematic culture.

It’s not just Comey’s usurpation of authority and failure to comply with practices. Multiple people were involved in his condemned decisions. Others were cited for bad judgement in recusal decisions or failure to adhere to recusals. Political bias was rampant in the team of people who handled both the Clinton and Trump email probes. So were leaks, accepting gifts from reporters, incompetence, and other problems.

Instead, Wray issued a strawman defense of employees, bragged about the high number of applicants to the agency, and talked about the low percentage of recruits who were accepted.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway


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Posts: 18622 | Location: One hop from Paradise | Registered: July 27, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
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quote:
Originally posted by Flashlightboy:
For all of you that wanted the IG to dress up and play Rambo with the players I'm just going to come right out and say it - you're idiots.
Flashlightboy is a proud graduate of the parabellum school of diplomacy
 
Posts: 110044 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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FBI Agents Called Hillary "President" While Investigating Her, Texted "Screw You Trump" On Election Day

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...xted-screw-you-trump

One of four FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton's email server - not Peter Strzok or Lisa Page, referred to Clinton as "the President" in a text exchange with another FBI employee four days after interviewing the Democratic candidate, according to Thursday's DOJ Inspector General report.



Then, in a different text exchange with one of the other three Clinton email investigators (not Peter Strzok or Lisa Page), another agent wrote "screw you trump" after the first agent admitted "You should know...that I'm...with her."



Those FBI investigators were dating at the time and were later married, meaning all four FBI case agents working the Hillary Clinton email investigation - the other two being Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - were ardent Clinton supporters, and at least three harbored animus towards Trump.

The report released yesterday by the inspector general for the Department of Justice referred to these two FBI agents not by their names but as “Agent 1” and “Agent 5.”

The report said of these FBI agents that “we identified two instant message exchanges that appeared to combine a discussion of politics with the Midyear investigation.” (The FBI referred to the Clinton email investigation as “Midyear Exam,” “Midyear,” or “MYE.”) -CNS News

The same agent who texted "screw you trump" - "Agent 5" - also wrote "she better win... otherwise i'm gonna be walking around with both of my guns... and likely quitting on the spot," as well as "fuck trump" on December 6.

Clinton was interviewed by FBI agents on July 2 about her use of a private, unsecured email server which housed classified information while she was Secretary of State. According to the IG report, however, the FBI had already decided against recommending prosecution unless Clinton lied or confessed.

“By the time of Clinton’s interview on July 2, we found that the Midyear agents and prosecutors, along with Comey, had decided that absent a confession or false statements by Clinton, the investigation would be closed without charges,” reads the IG report.

James Comey announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton three days later despite "evidence of potential violations of statutes."

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said.

At the same time, Comey thanked FBI personnel for what he called their “remarkable work” on the Clinton case and said that Americans would better understand how “proud” he was of these FBI agents when they had a “better sense” of the work they had done on the Clinton case. -CNS News

“I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case,” Comey said. “Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.”

Just remember, the Obama administration was "scandal free," and according to the DOJ, after investigating itself, there was no evidence that any of the overt and well documented bias harbored by agents crept into the Hillary Clinton email investigation.


_________________________
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
Mark Twain
 
Posts: 13476 | Registered: January 17, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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An interesting and informative read from 'sundance' at The Conservative Treehouse reagarding weiner's laptop -

https://theconservativetreehou...-his-personal-email/
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Posts: 3631 | Location: Lehigh Valley, PA | Registered: March 27, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
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Problems at the Justice Department and FBI Are Serious

National Review
Andrew McCarthy

There is another interesting and lengthy analysis of problems at DOJ/FBI

https://www.nationalreview.com...partment-of-justice/




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
The Senate Judiciary Comm is still set to meet w Horowitz on Monday.

18 June 2018 2pm

I think this is going to be a public session.

Sen Chuck Grassley is chair of this comm.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

regarding the post two above, a question is bring asked :

Did anyone ever review the 675,000 emails and Blackberry communications that were found on Weiner's computer ?

from the report:


This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,
 
Posts: 19759 | Registered: July 21, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
The Senate Judiciary Comm is still set to meet w Horowitz on Monday.

18 June 2018 2pm

I think this is going to be a public session.

Sen Chuck Grassley is chair of this comm.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

regarding the post two above, a question is bring asked :

Did anyone ever review the 675,000 emails and Blackberry communications that were found on Weiner's computer ?


That is a very good and interesting question.

Presumably the laptop contents are still available to the FBI. The laptop discovery was well after the scrubbing of the server which was being investigated in MYE presumably.

There were ~147,000, or ~350,000 or ~700,000 e-mails. They can say positively that some relative few contained classified matter.

So, what are the rest? Clinton Foundation? Election rigging? Yoga and wedding shower planning?




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Bytes:
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
this is a painful post for me.

I have tried to believe Jeff Sessions would come out of this mess w his reputation in good shape.

But I give up. He is part of the problem.


^^^ THIS ^^^

In the past I have been a Sessions defender, no more.

Maybe it's time for an executive order, firing Mueller and then directing Sessions to un-recuse himself and take charge.

Either he follows it, or resigns. Either way, Mueller is gone and if Sessions doesn't toe the line, he'd be gone too.
 
Posts: 15235 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Something wild
is loose
Picture of Doc H.
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by JALLEN:
James Comey and the FBI decided to come clean on Anthony Weiner's laptop because they thought they were protecting a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Federalist
David Marcus
JUNE 15, 2018

And Trump’s election has exposed Comey’s perfidy.

Link


And ultimately, it is to be hoped, many others.



"And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day"
 
Posts: 2746 | Location: The Shire | Registered: October 22, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by joel9507:
quote:
Originally posted by Bytes:
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
this is a painful post for me.

I have tried to believe Jeff Sessions would come out of this mess w his reputation in good shape.

But I give up. He is part of the problem.


^^^ THIS ^^^

In the past I have been a Sessions defender, no more.

Maybe it's time for an executive order, firing Mueller and then directing Sessions to un-recuse himself and take charge.

Either he follows it, or resigns. Either way, Mueller is gone and if Sessions doesn't toe the line, he'd be gone too.


Suppose Sessions says, “OK, fine. I withdraw the recusal.” Now What? What is the benefit?

The detriment is that everything DOJ does thereafter on these issues is suspect and rendered arguably corrupt.

Nobody can order you to unrecuse. Recusal is a matter of professional ethics. You can be fired, of course. So be it, but be careful what you wish for.

As I pointed out in the other thread, confirming a new AG right now may be a cure which is worse than the disease.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
I don't have a good suggestion re Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller.

But anything that makes Donald Trump look good, or innocent of any Russia collusion, or innocent of any wrong doing, will be attacked and denied by the DEMs, neverTrumpers, and the media.

That will happen no matter what.

My thoughts are centered on:

Given that Sessions and Rosenstein are focused on preserving the integrity of the DoJ versus defending the President from a massive conspiracy, how should the President proceed?

President Trump should have Rosenstein come to the WH and show the President and Kelly the FISA warrant application, the texts, and the EC. Whatever review is needed, takes place.

Then President Trump unclassifies every last piece that he reasonably can. He makes it public.

He does it in stages. Every day or two he releases another piece. That way we don't get saturated and the damning evidence keeps piling up.

Right now the people fighting for the truth are the Senate Judiciary Comm, House Intel comm, and House Judiciary Comm.

President Trump needs to empower them and inform them as much as possible.

Given this bizarre situation, President Trump should consider assigning someone on his staff as the point person to coordinate a review and inform the public about the conspiracy. He should publicly call it a conspiracy. Getting the truth out is his most powerful weapon .
 
Posts: 19759 | Registered: July 21, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Glorious SPAM!
Picture of mbinky
posted Hide Post
quote:
What is the benefit?


The immediate benefit would be having someone besides Heinrich Rosenstein with the ability to oversee Mueller. Rosenstein has allowed him to go WAY outside of scope with zero repercussions. Every minute the Stasi chief Rosenstein spends in his position is an affront to justice everywhere. He was given orders to take down Trump, and with his attack dog Mueller he is trying to do just that.

I do believe Sessions will go down in history as the man who allowed justice to die on his watch.

I hope Huber will bring some semblance of justice back to the nation but I am not too hopeful.

And yes, Trump should declass EVERYTHING. Get it out there and stop Rosenstein's illegal obstruction.

And what about the thing that started this whole mess? Clinton absolutely 100% mishandled highly classified information with ZERO repercussions. She needs to be prosecuted just like any other American would be. The conviction will be up to the jury but she needs to be in court and stand accused.
 
Posts: 10640 | Registered: June 13, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wishing we
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I am going to try to get thru as much of the IG report as I can. But 500 pages translates to a lot of time. Probably won't get it completely done and it will be a slow process.

In looking at page 2 of the report one thing seemed odd. Maybe I am too paranoid.



The FBI investigation of Clinton's emails was called Midyear Exam. In the Strzok texts you see references to MYE.

The report says
"whether Clinton intended to transmit"
" knew that info ... was classified"

The weasel words are right at the start.

Someone who is head of State Dept and an original classification authority must have a good sense of what is classified. When in doubt, questions need to be asked of people w more detailed knowledge.

How could Clinton interact with foreign leaders and not have a good grip on what would be classified ?

I thought the "intent" aspect was introduced by Comey late in the game, but the report implies it was there from the start.
 
Posts: 19759 | Registered: July 21, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
I am going to try to get thru as much of the IG report as I can. But 500 pages translates to a lot of time. Probably won't get it completely done and it will be a slow process.

In looking at page 2 of the report one thing seemed odd. Maybe I am too paranoid.



The FBI investigation of Clinton's emails was called Midyear Exam. In the Strzok texts you see references to MYE.

The report says
"whether Clinton intended to transmit"
" knew that info ... was classified"

The weasel words are right at the start.

Someone who is head of State Dept and an original classification authority must have a good sense of what is classified. When in doubt, questions need to be asked of people w more detailed knowledge.

How could Clinton interact with foreign leaders and not have a good grip on what would be classified ?

I thought the "intent" aspect was introduced by Comey late in the game, but the report implies it was there from the start.


I believe you are referring to language appearing in the second column of the Executive Summary rather than the body of the report itself. Several writers, me included, have noticed that the summary appears to have been prepared by parties other than the report writers who were perhaps not familiar with the report, as there seems to be a number of divergences between the summary and the same topic in the report. Bias seems to be one area of disagreement. Maybe careful study will bring better understanding of this.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
JALLEN,

I hope your comment above proves to be true. However, this report is from the Office of the Inspector General.

The Executive Summary is 14 pages long. The total report is 568 pages long.

Horowitz knows most people will read the Exec Summary and very little of the body of the report. The IG should have been very careful to have the summary align w the body.

Perhaps we will learn more in the congressional hearings.

Monday is the Senate Judiciary Comm.

Then on 19 June 2018, Horowitz testifies to the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform


https://oversight.house.gov/re...fbi-actions-in-2016/

On Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at 10:00 a.m., the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform will hold a joint hearing on “Oversight of the FBI and DOJ Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election.” At the hearing, Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify before the Committees on the findings of the forthcoming report on Justice Department and FBI actions in advance of the 2016 presidential election.


The hearing will be webcast live at judiciary.house.gov and oversight.house.gov.
 
Posts: 19759 | Registered: July 21, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I kneel for my God,
and I stand for my flag
posted Hide Post
"Fuck Trump"
"We'll stop him"
"Viva La Resistance"

No, there's no bias... Roll Eyes The whole OIG report is sham just like everything else.
 
Posts: 1897 | Location: Oregon | Registered: September 25, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gracie Allen is my
personal savior!
posted Hide Post
quote:
Horowitz knows most people will read the Exec Summary and very little of the body of the report.

This is why one would expect that Congressional staffers are currently digging through the report itself. If the discrepancies are material and become known, the abstract will fade to the same sort of irrelevance of an abstract preceding a reported court case.
 
Posts: 27313 | Location: Deep in the heart of the brush country, and closing on that #&*%!?! roadrunner. Really. | Registered: February 05, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
JALLEN,

I hope your comment above proves to be true. However, this report is from the Office of the Inspector General.

The Executive Summary is 14 pages long. The total report is 568 pages long.

Horowitz knows most people will read the Exec Summary and very little of the body of the report. The IG should have been very careful to have the summary align w the body.



Also, be alert for the shadings and nuances of language. The IG says he is not second guessing, but merely looking for acts and decisions that were abnormal exercises of prosecutorial/investigative discretion. If no innocent justification is possible, then that’s a problem, but as long as the decision or action or inaction was within the bounds of legimate prosecutorial or investigative judgment, even if bias is flagrant, it’s not a problem.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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