quote:

Originally posted by SIG228:
"Fuck Trump"
"We'll stop him"
"Viva La Resistance"

No, there's no bias... The whole OIG report is sham just like everything else.

And the agents called Trump supporters pieces of shit.

Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all.

When the FBI was prosecutng the Mob, was there bias? There were some agents who went over to the dark side in Boston in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.... cost the government $102 million to the victims families and untold amounts besides in wasted agent, supervisor, management time. There have been others, no doubt.

The Commies, back when FBI agents infiltrated the Communist Party USA? Any agents rooting for those guys?

Judges are, must be impartial, jurors are supposed to be. Investigators and prosecutors? Not so much.

During the time since this all broke, until now, there has been a great deal of talk about intent, gross negligent, extremely careless and such like concepts.

The IG report Chapter 2 discusses the statutes involved, the requirements, interpretations and authorities, or lacks thereof, that are in play.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all.

When the FBI was prosecutng the Mob, was there bias? There were some agents who went over to the dark side in Boston in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.... cost the government $102 million to the victims families and untold amounts besides in wasted agent, supervisor, management time. There have been others, no doubt.

The Commies, back when FBI agents infiltrated the Communist Party USA? Any agents rooting for those guys?

Judges are, must be impartial, jurors are supposed to be. Investigators and prosecutors? Not so much.

Thanks for defending the completely corrupt FBI. I'm glad that you don't think they did anything wrong.

JALLEN, thank you very much for your continuing contributions to this thread. There are some of us who are interested in the facts and know that we don’t yet have them all no matter how soul-satisfying it would be to believe that.

In your shoes, and especially with the physical challenges you face, I personally would have no doubt said, “Screw it, let them believe what they want,” long ago. Your comments are one of the primary reasons I can stomach opening this discussion, so please hang in there.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all.

Like they were biased against Hillary Clinton during the investigation of her?

Or is that your point? That they were decidedly unnatural in that case.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

When the FBI was prosecutng the Mob, was there bias? There were some agents who went over to the dark side in Boston in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.... cost the government $102 million to the victims families and untold amounts besides in wasted agent, supervisor, management time. There have been others, no doubt..

No shit? You bring this up in defense? Might want to check into this - the DOJ prosecutor at the center of this particular fuck up, which included leaving 4 guys in prison that were not guilty, in order to protect his informant, was a guy named Mueller.

Wonder why we don’t trust any of these clowns?

Sometimes I think that those on the left are run solely by emotion, and they have no ability to conduct rational thought on their own.

Then, I read threads like this, and realize that it isn't limited to those on the left.

JALLEN, I too appreciate your points.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all.

When the FBI was prosecutng the Mob, was there bias? There were some agents who went over to the dark side in Boston in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.... cost the government $102 million to the victims families and untold amounts besides in wasted agent, supervisor, management time. There have been others, no doubt.

The crucial difference is that bias against the mob did not involve trying to engineer democratic elections. None of the mobsters was running for political office. The FBI was trying to keep Donald Trump out of the White House (Strozk: "We'll stop it.")-- will of the American people be damned. There's nothing usual about that kind of thing-- unless we are talking about Stasi.

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

When the FBI was prosecutng the Mob, was there bias? There were some agents who went over to the dark side in Boston in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.... cost the government $102 million to the victims families and untold amounts besides in wasted agent, supervisor, management time. There have been others, no doubt..

No shit? You bring this up in defense? Might want to check into this - the DOJ prosecutor at the center of this particular fuck up, which included leaving 4 guys in prison that were not guilty, in order to protect his informant, was a guy named Mueller.

Wonder why we don’t trust any of these clowns?

I know the story very well. Don’t assume I mention it by way of defense of the FBI.

I suppose the explanation could be incompetence, an always plausible explantion of government employee conduct, but if that was all there was to it, it likely won’t need 568 pages to cov... errr, explain it.

The report details a great many briefings of supervisors and management, two different organizations not always in exact step with each other, and even within each organization. I never worked in an environment like that, so maybe I can’t appreciate how it helps in a large organization. It seems to me there is a very large possibility of misunderstanding from layer to layer, miscommunication, not to mention differing goals, ambitions, fears, motives amongst the players. All these are while you are trying to do things straight forwardly. Trying to accomplish something under the table in that process must be terribly daunting.

By the editors of National Review

Yes, There Was FBI Bias

There is much to admire in Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s highly anticipated report on the FBI’s Clinton-emails investigation. Horowitz’s 568-page analysis is comprehensive, fact-intensive, and cautious to a fault.

It is also, nonetheless, an incomplete exercise — it omits half the story, the Russia investigation — and it flinches from following the facts to their logical conclusion. The media and the Left are spinning the report as a vindication of the FBI from the charge of bias, when the opposite is the truth.

The IG extensively takes on numerous issues related to the decision not to charge former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for, primarily, causing the retention and transmission of classified information on the non-secure “homebrew” server system through which she improperly and systematically conducted government business. (Our Dan McLaughlin usefully catalogues the topics Horowitz addresses here.) If there is a single theme that ties the sprawling report together, however, it is bias.

Or, as the report put it, “the question of bias.” It should not really be a question, because the evidence of anti-Trump bias on the part of the agents who steered the Clinton probe — which was run out of headquarters, highly unusual for a criminal investigation — is immense. In fact, the most hair-raising section of the report, an entire chapter, is devoted to communications among several FBI officials (not just the infamous duo of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page), which overflow with abhorrence for Trump (“loathsome,” “an idiot,” “awful,” “an enormous d**che,” “f**k Trump”) and his core supporters (“retarded,” “the crazies,” one could “smell” them). More alarmingly, the agents express a determination to stop Trump from becoming president (e.g., Strzok, on being asked if Trump would become president, says “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it”; and on being assured that his election is highly unlikely, opines that “we can’t take that risk” and that the bureau needs “an insurance policy” against him.) was

Yet despite marshaling this damning proof of bias, Horowitz spends much of his report discounting it with respect to individual investigative decisions. His approach obscures more than it illuminates. The IG says it is not his burden to second-guess “discretionary” investigative decisions unless they were irrational. Thus, even if agents exhibited bias, he presumes that such decisions as granting immunity, declining to seek relevant evidence, or forgoing subpoenas are defensible as long as some government policy arguably supports them — even if other, better options were available. FBI director Christopher Wray has pounced on this, disingenuously arguing that the IG “did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations impacting the investigation.” It is a misleading comment: The IG found overwhelming evidence of bias and merely withheld judgment on whether it affected the investigation at key points.

Of course, what principally drove decisions in the Clinton-emails investigation (or “matter,” as Obama attorney general Loretta Lynch, like the Clinton campaign, insisted it be called) was the certainty that President Obama and his Justice Department were never going to permit Secretary Clinton to be charged with a crime, notwithstanding the abundant evidence. (Without a hint of irony, the report’s executive summary speaks of the supposed difficulty of proving Clinton’s knowledge of the hundreds of classified emails inevitably on her system, and then explains that the FBI abjured use of the grand jury because it would have required exposing prodigious amounts of classified information.) That is, regardless of whether individual decisions were driven by pro-Clinton bias, the predetermined outcome surely was. That’s why then-director James Comey was drafting his exoneration remarks months before critical evidence was obtained, and before Clinton and other key witnesses were interviewed.

A comparison between the handling of the Clinton emails and that of the Trump-Russia probes would almost certainly illustrate the influence of this bias, but that is exactly what the IG report lacks.

The report’s fans will say this is strictly a matter of timing: The IG’s Clinton-emails report has been 18 months in the making; it may take the IG even longer to complete the Trump-Russia review, and it would be unreasonable to delay any reckoning that long. But the fact that the IG’s inquiries into the two probes are on different tracks does not alter the more essential fact that the two are inextricably linked. They were conducted at the same time, by the same sets of top FBI agents and Justice Department officials, in the operating environment of the same event — the 2016 election.

They were, moreover, perceived as interrelated by the agents themselves. Strzok’s first reaction, upon hearing that Ted Cruz had withdrawn from the GOP race, leaving Trump as the de facto nominee, was that this meant the Clinton-emails probe had to be wrapped up (i.e., formally closed without charges). When the Trump-Russia investigation got rolling, Strzok commented that, compared to the Clinton-emails probe, this was the investigation that really “MATTERS” (emphasis in original). And here is Strzok the day after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, on the opportunity to join his investigation of now-president Trump:

For me, and this case, I personally have a sense of unfinished business. I unleashed it with MYE [Mid Year Exam — the FBI’s codeword for the Clinton Emails investigation]. Now I need to fix it and finish it.

Later in the same exchange he adds that this is a choice of whether he wants to be just another FBI assistant director or participate in an “investigation leading to impeachment.”

It’s only Horowitz’s extremely forgiving standard for judging investigative decisions that allows him to say that the impact of bias on the Clinton investigation is inconclusive. This is not to dismiss the usefulness of the IG’s report. It reaffirms that the president had ample legitimate grounds to dismiss Director Comey, who is shown to be insubordinate and deceptive, a self-absorbed law unto himself. Furthermore, the IG’s equivocation about the role of bias does not detract from his powerful condemnation of the disrepute rogue agents have brought on the bureau. Still, there is important work left to be done in fully accounting for the decisions of an FBI whose reputation won’t soon recover from its performance in 2016.

Link

The Strzok text "No. No he's not. We'll stop it." has gotten a lot of attention.

The report has a footnote about this text.




Here is what Strzok said to IG about this text:



One huge problem with that line that they could have released the existence of the investigation - they would have had to say why they were investigating.

Even the media wouldn't publish the dossier because it was unverified. (except Yahoo News and Mother Jones)

Or they could have said something about Papadopoulos. Good luck w that. The Papadopoulos story has changed multiple times.

Maybe they could have revealed the results of their spy Stefan Halper.

Remember too that Comey didn't even brief Donald Trump about the counterintelligence investigation in January 2017 .

Strzok and Page are liars.

People forget there were news stories about Russia / Trump campaign collusion before the election.

From the Sept 2016 Yahoo story:

"Some of those briefed were “taken aback” when they learned about Page’s contacts in Moscow, viewing them as a possible back channel to the Russians that could undercut U.S. foreign policy, said a congressional source familiar with the briefings but who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. The source added that U.S. officials in the briefings indicated that intelligence reports about the adviser’s talks with senior Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin were being “actively monitored and investigated.”

A senior U.S. law enforcement official did not dispute that characterization when asked for comment by Yahoo News. “It’s on our radar screen,” said the official about Page’s contacts with Russian officials. “It’s being looked at.”"

long article by Andy McCarthy


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

trying to capture the message, but leaving a lot out:

What do you do with an FBI agent, sworn to uphold the law, who flagrantly violates the law in a rogue investigation aimed at making a name for himself by bringing down some high-profile targets?

Why . . . you promote him, of course.

At least that is the way the Justice Department answered that question in the case of David Chaves, an FBI agent who serially and lawlessly leaked grand-jury information, wiretap evidence, and other sensitive investigative intelligence to the media in his quest to make an insider-trading case against some celebrities. And when finally called on it, the Justice Department circled the wagons: proceeding with its tainted prosecution, referring the now-retired Chaves for an internal investigation that has gone exactly nowhere after nearly two years, and using legal maneuvers to block the courts and the public from scrutinizing the scope of the misconduct.

It has become a refrain among defenders of the FBI and Justice Department that critics are trying to destroy these vital institutions. In point of fact, these agencies are doing yeoman’s work destroying themselves — much to the chagrin of those of us who spent much of our professional lives proudly carrying out their mission.

The challenge today is the ethos of law-enforcement. You see it in texts expressing disdain for lawmakers; in the above-it-all contempt for legislative oversight; in arrogant flouting of the Gang of Eight disclosure process for sensitive intelligence (because the FBI’s top-tier unilaterally decides when Bureau activities are “too sensitive” to discuss); in rogue threats to turn the government’s law-enforcement powers against Congress; and in the imperious self-perception of a would-be fourth branch of government, insulated from and unaccountable to the others — including its actual executive-branch superiors.

The FBI’s New Strategy: Strategic Leaks to Media
There is more crime than federal law enforcement’s finite resources can handle. So when an investigation yields nothing after a reasonable time — to say nothing of two years— it is usually deemed time to move on to more-fruitful cases. But not for agent Chaves. He doubled down with a new strategy: strategic leaks of grand jury, surveillance, and other sensitive investigative information to select journalists.

In 2013, Chaves began arranging phone calls, meetings in restaurants, and other modes of communication with reporters for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Although federal law criminalizes the disclosure of grand-jury and sealed wiretap information, details of the probe were expansively revealed to the press

the Bureau hoped that the pressure generated by media coverage would “tickle the wire.” This is a venerable law-enforcement expression for sudden events that panic conspirators into blurting out incriminating statements on tapped phones. Unexpected developments — e.g., the disappearance or arrest of a conspirator, a price spike or crash — can yield valuable evidence of association, pecking order, and consciousness of guilt . . . but investigators are not supposed to bait their targets with lawless leaks to the media

top SDNY officials discussed the astonishing revelation that, when the Times had to retract its initial accusation against Mickelson, not only did reporter Ben Protess complain about having “to walk back his story”; Protess also described being threatened by the FBI. The reporter told the SDNY that his source “did not like being called out for lying or the story being walked back”; the source had also become “a bit threatening,” warning Protess that he and the Times were now “on the radar.”

But here’s the kicker: By the end of 2014, Chaves was promoted, becoming the head of all white-collar FBI investigations in New York.

When the government was finally called out for the outrageous leaking, its first reaction was to deny, deny, deny.

As in the Justice Department’s stonewalling of the congressional committees pressing for answers about investigative tactics in the Russia probe, if the president does not take remedial action and demand transparency, the disreputable behavior will continue, and public faith will continue to plummet.

For their part, if the Justice Department and FBI wish to maintain their standing as rule-of-law pillars in a free society, they need to stop whining about their critics — many of whom love these institutions. They need to start looking within.

This McCarthy essay is the same one I linked to here yesterday at 8:07 AM.

The fix was in from the start on what can only be described as a sham investigation.

American Spectator
George Parry


It seems like a day doesn’t go by without some female high school teacher getting arrested for having sexual relations with an underage student. The story line is always the same. Ms. Hotpants either gets caught in the act or because her student paramour shares with the world the naked selfies that for some weird reason she just had to send to his cell phone. Invariably the teacher is quickly and unceremoniously condemned, fired from her job and arrested.

This sequence of events always seemed appropriate. But, having had the benefit of reading the recent report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General regarding the FBI and DOJ’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s unsecured email server, I now realize that I have been jumping to many unwarranted conclusions about the intentions of these teachers. Enlightened by the OIG’s careful and even-handed analytical approach, it’s clear to me that I have been too rash in attributing base motives to these women without giving proper credit to their side of the story.

To illustrate this point, let me apply the OIG’s reserved and non-judgmental standards to the hypothetical case of Teacher 1 and Student A who have been caught naked in a car parked behind the local Piggly Wiggly. Herewith is an excerpt from the hypothetical report by the Pleasant Valley School District’s Office of Inspector General:

We asked Teacher 1 why she and Student A had been in her car at Midnight. She replied that he had been doing poorly in her class, and she was tutoring him. We acknowledge that such additional instruction would be a valid and proper pedagogical undertaking. Nevertheless, we asked why they were not wearing clothes. She explained that they had become hot and sweaty, and she believed that it was important that teacher and student should eliminate physical discomforts to maximize the learning experience.

We asked why they had an open bottle of vodka and a box of condoms. She explained that these items had been left in the car by her husband. Since her spouse is not an employee of the school district, we were unable to question him regarding this matter.

While we found Teacher 1’s answers to be unpersuasive, she made no direct declaration as to why she had engaged in this drunken, naked and nocturnal meeting with Student A. Consequently, we have no definitive proof that she was motivated by a desire to engage in sexual relations. Therefore, we make no finding regarding her motive or intent.

As silly as this hypothetical may seem, it is no more absurd than the OIG’s bizarre conclusion that it could not attribute a political bias or motive to the utterly fake investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of her private and unsecured email server to transmit and receive classified materials. Given the nature of Clinton’s alleged conduct and the potential criminal charges, it was absolutely essential to have her and all material witnesses appear before a grand jury to testify on the record and under oath. But this was not done. Why?

According to the OIG, there wasn’t enough time to call witnesses to testify before the grand jury since the investigation was to be completed “well in advance” of election day. Consequently, the OIG’s report states the following:

It was not unreasonable for Department prosecutors to consider the delay that could result from motions to quash [grand jury] subpoenas and search warrants. Both Department and FBI witnesses told us that they hoped to complete the investigation well in advance of the election, if possible, to avoid influencing the political process. Indeed, Comey pressed in early May for the prompt completion of the investigation. However, in seeking to avoid delay, prosecutors were required to balance the need for timely completion of an investigation against the need to ensure a thorough and complete investigation.We did not identify bias or improper considerations affecting that judgment call by the prosecutors. [Emphasis added]

But why did the investigation have to be completed before the election? The DOJ’s long-standing and well-established practice is to make no public statement regarding the outcome of an investigation unless and until it results in criminal charges. But, in the Clinton “matter,” it was decided that there had to be a public announcement of the investigative findings even though she was to be exonerated. Consequently, there wasn’t enough time for the investigation to be thorough and complete.

But, if the FBI and DOJ wanted to “avoid influencing the political process,” then why have any public announcement of the investigation’s findings? By its very nature, the announcement, regardless of the investigation’s outcome, would necessarily impact the political process and affect the fortunes of Clinton and Donald Trump. As such, a public announcement would be intrinsically and inescapably a political act.

So what was the true purpose of the investigation? Was it to get to the truth and let the chips fall where they may? Or was it to hoodwink the electorate into thinking that the vaunted FBI and DOJ had conducted an impartial and thorough investigation and found that Clinton was not a criminal? The fact that no grand jury was used is irrefutable proof that the investigators had no intention of rooting out the facts.

Here’s the elephant in the room that the OIG tries to step over: Clinton was going to win the election and become the next president. All of the pols, polls, and pundits agreed on this point. Consequently, there was no way that the FBI and DOJ were going to do a serious investigation of Clinton. Such a course would incur her wrath and needlessly put jobs, careers, and agency budgets at risk once she took the oath of office.

Faced with the inevitability of a Clinton presidency, the FBI and DOJ went into self-preservation mode by going through the motions of doing an investigation and publicly exonerating her. But it was all a vaudeville act staged to help Hillary put one over on the rubes who comprise the great unwashed voting public. By their actions, the FBI and DOJ contrived to lend their credibility to Clinton’s candidacy.

In short, even though the participants in the Clinton investigation never expressly confessed their intentions to the OIG, the clear and unambiguous facts compel the inescapable conclusion that the FBI and DOJ acted with the basest of political motives to save Hillary Clinton from criminal charges.

As the old song goes, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The same is true for the OIG and political bias and motive. Whether the OIG wants to say it out loud, the shameful facts speak for themselves: James Comey and his FBI and DOJ colleagues played presidential politics to secure their positions in the incoming Clinton administration. Their plan would have worked like a charm if only their candidate hadn’t lost.

Link

I've been the dude that has ran around here for the last 10 years being the "cup half full" type while others have been attracted to doom and gloom.

I still am.

But.....

The level of the deep state is breathtaking. The left is so entrenched in "by any means necessary" to include using the government as a weapon. I fear that we only see the tip of that iceberg.

The thing that scares me is the fact that obvious criminal offenses (by statutory authority and definition) have occurred and there is no appearance of an attempt to lock people in the swamp up for their offenses. Matter of fact, they seem to be going in the opposite direction of "din do nuffin" double speak that amounts to maybe another committee on capitol hill, or another special counsel on the road to nowhere. Their is NO accountability of the ones that have weaponized the government against the people. That is the most troubling thing. Why? Because now they have a taste for it. Now they know that even with the other guys in power, they are safe. All they have to do is plead the 5th, and blame it on a low level drone in the Cincinnati office and the world keeps spinning. Trump won't be in the White House to protect the non-Elite class forever. Eventually, it is possible that we could see all chambers and the White House controlled by the left. And you don't think that once they have complete control the hijinks of 2016 won't look like a birthday party at the park?

This is what concerns me the most about all of this. This is the thing that will lead to the next civil war. Washington had better remove its head from its ass and stop playing politics as usual. Not paying attention to the message sent from the ballot box by the majority in this country because you have the power to control the narrative is a huge mistake. Because, despite your spin in the media and social media, eventually comes the ammo box.

quote:

The thing that scares me is the fact that obvious criminal offenses have occurred and there is no appearance of an attempt to lock people in the swamp up for their offenses. Matter of fact, they seem to be going in the opposite direction of "din do nuffin" double speak that amounts to maybe another committee on capitol hill, or another special counsel on the road to nowhere.

And there won't be. Sessions and Wray are swamp creatures through and through. This fact should be painfully obvious to all but the comatose. They will never allow the public to know the TRUTH.

re: "Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all."

just to clarify, as there is SO much clutter and confusion throughout the Realm these days....are we 'still' applying the old school civics class concept that 'innocent until proven guilty'? Or making an observation of how the FBI view of a 'subject of investigation' has morphed into 'criminal' just due to being investigated?

Is this a subtle bit of sarcasm or a hint of observational bias of the investigation process?

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:
re: "Isn’t it natural for FBI agents and prosecutors to be biased against the subjects of investigations? They are criminals after all."

just to clarify, as there is SO much clutter and confusion throughout the Realm these days....are we 'still' applying the old school civics class concept that 'innocent until proven guilty'? Or making an observation of how the FBI view of a 'subject of investigation' has morphed into 'criminal' just due to being investigated?

Is this a subtle bit of sarcasm or a hint of observational bias of the investigation process?

Neither, really. Maybe it can start thinking and discussing about this apparently ambiguous situation.

Look at the predicate. How did agents view the Italian Mafia during the years when they were actively building cases against them? I bet they weren’t often invited to victory parties, weddings, baptisms in the 5 Families, certainly weren’t hopeful of future considerations.