Oh my...... Say it isn't so.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/insubo...c4679bb0426fe3d06fe04&ref=article_email_share
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 500-page report covers plenty, but it can be distilled to two words he uses to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 2016 election: insubordination and bias. Two terms that are chilling in connection with such a powerful agency.
That won’t be the message from Democrats and most of the press, who will focus on a few episodes they will claim cost Hillary Clinton an election. Watch for them to blame former FBI Director James Comey, whom the report faults for “a serious error of judgment,” for having “concealed information” from superiors, and for “violation of or disregard for” departmental and bureau policies.
True, the report is damning about the man who lectures Americans on “higher loyalty.” It describes how an “insubordinate” Mr. Comey was, as early as April 2016, considering how to cut his Justice Department bosses from a public statement exonerating Hillary Clinton. He hid this scheme for fear “they would instruct him not to do it”—and therefore was able to “avoid supervision.” He then “violated long-standing Department practice and protocol” by using his July 5 press conference for “criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct.” In October, he made public that the FBI had reopened the investigation, even though the Justice Department recommended he not do so. Mr. Comey went rogue, and President Trump had plenty of justification in firing him in May 2017.
Yet it is the report’s findings on the wider culture of the FBI and Justice Department that are most alarming. The report depicts agencies that operate outside the rules to which they hold everybody else, and that showed extraordinary bias while investigating two presidential candidates.
There’s Loretta Lynch, who felt it perfectly fine to have a long catch-up with her friend Bill Clinton on a Phoenix tarmac and whom the inspector general slams for an “error in judgment.” Mr. Comey’s entire staff was complicit in concealing the contents of the July press conference from Justice officials. We discover that significant FBI “resources” were dedicated in October to spinning FBI “talking points” about the Clinton investigation—rather than actually investigating the new Anthony Weiner laptop emails the bureau discovered in September. We even find that Mr. Comey used personal email and laptops to conduct government work.
There’s former Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, who was tipping off the Clinton campaign even as he took part in the investigation, and who “failed to strictly adhere to [his] recusal” when he finally stepped away. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also did not “fully comply with his recusal,” and he’d already been found to have lied to the bureau about a leak to the media. Speaking of leaks, Mr. Horowitz needed full attachments and charts to list the entire “volume of communication” between FBI employees and the press. Not only did these folks have “no official reason to be in contact with the media,” but they also “improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”
Be ready to hear the report absolves the FBI and DOJ of “bias.” Not true. It very carefully states that “our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed.” Put another way, he never caught anyone writing down: Let’s start this Trump investigation so we can help Hillary win.
But the bias is everywhere. It’s in the texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and those of three other employees who are routinely “hostile” to Candidate Trump. It’s in Ms. Page’s freak-out that Mr. Trump might win the presidency and Mr. Strzok’s reply: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” It’s in a message from an unnamed agent in November 2016 who writes that although the FBI found Clinton aide Huma Abedin had “lied,” it doesn’t matter since “no one at DOJ is going to prosecute.” To which a second agent replies. “Rog—noone is going to pros[ecute] even if we find unique classified.”
It’s in the Justice Department’s decision to cut deals with Mrs. Clinton and her staff and shelter them from a grand jury. And to agree to limitations in searching for and in devices. And in immunity agreements. The report is largely neutral on all this, giving officials the broad benefit of the doubt on “discretionary judgments made during the course of an investigation.” But it immediately follows that statement by noting that its job of evaluating the integrity of decisions was “made significantly more difficult” by the obvious bias among key players, which “cast a cloud” over the entire “investigation’s credibility.”
The current FBI and Justice Department leadership can no longer justify its refusal to come clean on its other actions. A neutral arbiter has found they made a hash of the Clinton investigation, and it is reasonable to assume that those same players made a hash of the Trump probe. The sooner they acknowledge it, the sooner Congress can move to reform these agencies so that no such thing ever happens again.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/insubo...c4679bb0426fe3d06fe04&ref=article_email_share
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 500-page report covers plenty, but it can be distilled to two words he uses to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 2016 election: insubordination and bias. Two terms that are chilling in connection with such a powerful agency.
That won’t be the message from Democrats and most of the press, who will focus on a few episodes they will claim cost Hillary Clinton an election. Watch for them to blame former FBI Director James Comey, whom the report faults for “a serious error of judgment,” for having “concealed information” from superiors, and for “violation of or disregard for” departmental and bureau policies.
True, the report is damning about the man who lectures Americans on “higher loyalty.” It describes how an “insubordinate” Mr. Comey was, as early as April 2016, considering how to cut his Justice Department bosses from a public statement exonerating Hillary Clinton. He hid this scheme for fear “they would instruct him not to do it”—and therefore was able to “avoid supervision.” He then “violated long-standing Department practice and protocol” by using his July 5 press conference for “criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct.” In October, he made public that the FBI had reopened the investigation, even though the Justice Department recommended he not do so. Mr. Comey went rogue, and President Trump had plenty of justification in firing him in May 2017.
Yet it is the report’s findings on the wider culture of the FBI and Justice Department that are most alarming. The report depicts agencies that operate outside the rules to which they hold everybody else, and that showed extraordinary bias while investigating two presidential candidates.
There’s Loretta Lynch, who felt it perfectly fine to have a long catch-up with her friend Bill Clinton on a Phoenix tarmac and whom the inspector general slams for an “error in judgment.” Mr. Comey’s entire staff was complicit in concealing the contents of the July press conference from Justice officials. We discover that significant FBI “resources” were dedicated in October to spinning FBI “talking points” about the Clinton investigation—rather than actually investigating the new Anthony Weiner laptop emails the bureau discovered in September. We even find that Mr. Comey used personal email and laptops to conduct government work.
There’s former Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, who was tipping off the Clinton campaign even as he took part in the investigation, and who “failed to strictly adhere to [his] recusal” when he finally stepped away. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also did not “fully comply with his recusal,” and he’d already been found to have lied to the bureau about a leak to the media. Speaking of leaks, Mr. Horowitz needed full attachments and charts to list the entire “volume of communication” between FBI employees and the press. Not only did these folks have “no official reason to be in contact with the media,” but they also “improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”
Be ready to hear the report absolves the FBI and DOJ of “bias.” Not true. It very carefully states that “our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed.” Put another way, he never caught anyone writing down: Let’s start this Trump investigation so we can help Hillary win.
But the bias is everywhere. It’s in the texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and those of three other employees who are routinely “hostile” to Candidate Trump. It’s in Ms. Page’s freak-out that Mr. Trump might win the presidency and Mr. Strzok’s reply: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” It’s in a message from an unnamed agent in November 2016 who writes that although the FBI found Clinton aide Huma Abedin had “lied,” it doesn’t matter since “no one at DOJ is going to prosecute.” To which a second agent replies. “Rog—noone is going to pros[ecute] even if we find unique classified.”
It’s in the Justice Department’s decision to cut deals with Mrs. Clinton and her staff and shelter them from a grand jury. And to agree to limitations in searching for and in devices. And in immunity agreements. The report is largely neutral on all this, giving officials the broad benefit of the doubt on “discretionary judgments made during the course of an investigation.” But it immediately follows that statement by noting that its job of evaluating the integrity of decisions was “made significantly more difficult” by the obvious bias among key players, which “cast a cloud” over the entire “investigation’s credibility.”
The current FBI and Justice Department leadership can no longer justify its refusal to come clean on its other actions. A neutral arbiter has found they made a hash of the Clinton investigation, and it is reasonable to assume that those same players made a hash of the Trump probe. The sooner they acknowledge it, the sooner Congress can move to reform these agencies so that no such thing ever happens again.
