The long-awaited Department of Justice’s Inspector General Report on questionable actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been released. Our analysis of the Report found that while it acknowledges that some of the FBI’s personnel engaged in biased statements and actions, and while family members of key personnel obtained substantial donations or jobs from the Clintons, it shockingly claims that ultimately no significant harm was done to the administration of justice. The decision to essentially let Clinton off the hook for her negligent handling of national security emails, and, although not within the scope of the report, the decision to NOT prosecute her for her role in the sale of uranium interests to Russia followed by significant contributions to her foundation from Russia, cannot be ignored.
We strongly disagree with the conclusions of the report, which essentially says that although the appearance of impropriety is evident and best practices were not followed, not actual harm was done. Clearly, key personnel and leaders within the FBI whitewashed former Secretary Clinton’s wrongdoing and did so with the specific purpose of influencing the 2016 election.
Because insufficient media attention was paid to the key findings, we provide essential excerpts. Boldface has been added.
Summary Excerpts from Inspector General Report on Actions by the FBI in the 2016 Election
Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced [June 14] the release of a report examining various actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the DOJ in advance of the 2016 election in connection with the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server (referred to by the FBI and DOJ as the “Midyear” investigation).
During the course of the review, the OIG discovered text messages and instant messages between some FBI employees on the investigative team, conducted using FBI mobile devices and computers, that expressed statements of hostility toward then candidate Donald Trump and statements of support for Clinton. We also identified messages that expressed opinions that were critical of the conduct and quality of the investigation.
[The investigators] Did not seek to obtain every device, including those of Clinton’s senior aides, or the contents of every email account through which a classified email may have traversed. We found that the reasons for not doing so were based on limitations the Midyear team imposed on the investigation’s scope, the desire to complete the investigation well before the election, and the belief that the foregone evidence was likely of limited value. We further found that those reasons were, in part, in tension with Comey’s response in October 2016 to the discovery of Clinton emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton’s former Deputy Chief of Staff and personal assistant, Huma Abedin;
[Investigators] Considered but did not seek permission from the Department to review certain highly classified materials that may have included information potentially relevant to the Midyear investigation.
We found that, by the date of her interview, the Midyear team and Comey had concluded that the evidence did not support criminal charges (absent a confession or false statement by Clinton during the interview), and that the interview had little effect on the outcome of the investigation; and · Allowed Mills and Samuelson to attend the Clinton interview as Clinton’s counsel, even though they also were fact witnesses, because the Midyear team determined that the only way to exclude them was to subpoena Clinton to testify before the grand jury, an option that we found was not seriously considered. We found no persuasive evidence that Mills’s or Samuelson’s presence influenced Clinton’s interview. Nevertheless, we found the decision to allow them to attend the interview was inconsistent with typical investigative strategy.
Thus, a determination by the OIG that a decision was not unreasonable does not mean that the OIG has endorsed the decision or concluded that the decision was the most effective among the options considered. We took this approach because our role as an OIG is not to second-guess valid discretionary judgments made during the course of an investigation, and this approach is consistent with the OIG’s handling of such questions in past reviews. In undertaking our analysis, our task was made significantly more difficult because of text and instant messages exchanged on FBI devices and systems by five FBI employees involved in the Midyear investigation. These messages reflected political opinions in support of former Secretary Clinton and against her then political opponent, Donald Trump. Some of these text messages and instant messages mixed political commentary with discussions about the Midyear investigation, and raised concerns that political bias may have impacted investigative decisions.
In particular, we were concerned about text messages exchanged by FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Special Counsel to the Deputy Director, that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. As we describe in Chapter Twelve of our report, most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, the suggestion in certain Russia-related text messages in August 2016 that Strzok might be willing to take official action to impact presidential candidate Trump’s electoral prospects caused us to question the earlier Midyear investigative decisions in which Strzok was involved, and whether he took specific actions in the Midyear investigation based on his political views.
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Although we found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the Midyear investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussion during their tarmac meeting, we also found that Lynch’s failure to recognize the appearance problem created by former President Clinton’s visit and to take action to cut the visit short was an error in judgment. We further concluded that her efforts to respond to the meeting by explaining what her role would be in the investigation going forward created public confusion and did not adequately address the situation.
the prosecutors concluded that the evidence did not support prosecution under any of these statutes for various reasons, including that former Secretary Clinton and her senior aides lacked the intent to communicate classified information on unclassified systems. Critical to their conclusion was that the emails in question lacked proper classification markings, that the senders often refrained from using specific classified facts or terms in emails and worded emails carefully in an attempt to “talk around” classified information, that the emails were sent to other government officials in furtherance of their official duties, and that former Secretary Clinton relied on the judgment of State Department employees to properly handle classified information, among other facts. We further found that the statute that required the most complex analysis by the prosecutors was Section 793(f)(1), the “gross negligence” provision that has been the focus of much of the criticism of the declination decision. As we describe in Chapters Two and Seven of our report, the prosecutors analyzed the legislative history of Section 793(f)(1), relevant case law, and the Department’s prior interpretation of the statute. They concluded that Section 793(f)(1) likely required a state of mind that was “so gross as to almost suggest deliberate intention,” criminally reckless, or “something that falls just short of being willful,” as well as evidence that the individuals who sent emails containing classified information “knowingly” included or transferred such information onto unclassified systems. The Midyear team concluded that such proof was lacking.
We found that, by no later than September 29, FBI executives and the FBI Midyear team 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, including that the laptop contained: · Over 340,000 emails, some of which were from domains associated with Clinton, including state.gov, clintonfoundation.org, clintonemail.com, and hillaryclinton.com; · Numerous emails between Clinton and Abedin; · An unknown number of Blackberry communications on the laptop, including one or more messages between Clinton and Abedin, indicating the possibility that the laptop contained communications from the early months of Clinton’s tenure; and · Emails dated beginning in 2007 and covering the entire period of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. As we describe in Chapter Nine of our report, the explanations we were given for the FBI’s failure to take immediate action on the Weiner laptop fell into four general categories: · The FBI Midyear team was waiting for additional information about the contents of the laptop from NYO, which was not provided until late October; · The FBI Midyear team could not review the emails without additional legal authority, such as consent or a new search warrant; · The FBI Midyear team and senior FBI officials did not believe that the information on the laptop was likely to be significant; and · 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. We found these explanations to be unpersuasive justifications for not acting sooner, given the FBI leadership’s conclusion about the importance of the information and that the FBI Midyear team had sufficient information to take action in early October and knew at that time that it would need a new search warrant to review any Clinton-Abedin emails. Moreover, given the FBI’s extensive resources, the fact that Strzok and several other FBI members of the Midyear team had been assigned to the Russia investigation, which was extremely active during this September and October time period, was not an excuse for failing to take any action during this time period on the Weiner laptop. The FBI’s failure to act in late September or early October is even less justifiable when contrasted with the attention and resources that FBI management and some members of the Midyear team dedicated 14 to other activities in connection with the Midyear investigation during the same period.
these activities included: · The preparation of Comey’s speech at the FBI’s SAC Conference on October 12, a speech designed to help equip SACs to “bat down” misinformation about the July 5 declination decision; · The preparation and distribution of detailed talking points to FBI SACs in mid-October in order, again, “to equip people who are going to be talking about it anyway with the actual facts and [the FBI’s] actual perspective on [the declination]”; and · A briefing for retired FBI agents conducted on October 21 to describe the investigative decisions made during Midyear so as to arm former employees with facts so that they, too, might counter “falsehoods and exaggerations.”
In assessing the decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop, we were particularly concerned about text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions they made were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, and the implication in some of these text messages, particularly Strzok’s August 8 text message (“we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected), was that Strzok might be willing to take official action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. Under these circumstances, we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias.
We found no evidence that Comey’s decision to send the October 28 letter was influenced by political preferences. Instead, we found that his decision was the result of several interrelated factors that were connected to his concern that failing to send the letter would harm the FBI and his ability to lead it, and his view that candidate Clinton was going to win the presidency and that she would be perceived to be an illegitimate president if the public first learned of the information after the election. Although Comey told us that he “didn’t make this decision because [he] thought it would leak otherwise,” several FBI officials told us that the concern about leaks played a role in the decision. Much like with his July 5 announcement, we found that in making this decision, Comey engaged in ad hoc decisionmaking based on his personal views even if it meant rejecting longstanding Department policy or practice. We found unpersuasive Comey’s explanation as to why transparency was more important than Department policy and practice with regard to the reactivated Midyear investigation while, by contrast, Department policy and practice were more important to follow with regard to the Clinton Foundation and Russia investigations.
Comey, Lynch, and Yates faced difficult choices in late October 2016. However, we found it extraordinary that Comey assessed that it was best that the FBI Director not speak directly with the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General about how best to navigate this most important decision and mitigate the resulting harms, and that Comey’s decision resulted in the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General concluding that it would be counterproductive to speak directly with the FBI Director.
As we describe in Chapter Twelve, during our review we identified text messages and instant messages sent on FBI mobile devices or computer systems by five FBI employees who were assigned to the Midyear investigation. These included: · Text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page; · Instant messages exchanged between Agent 1, who was one of the four Midyear case agents, and Agent 5, who was a member of the filter team; and · Instant messages sent by FBI Attorney 2, who was assigned to the Midyear investigation. The text messages and instant messages sent by these employees included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for candidate Clinton, and several appeared to mix political opinions with discussions about the Midyear investigation. We found that the conduct of these five FBI employees brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI. Although 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 in Chapter Five, the conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the FBI Midyear investigation and sowed doubt the FBI’s work on, and its handling of, the Midyear investigation. Moreover, the damage caused by their actions extends far beyond the scope of the Midyear investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence.
We were deeply troubled by text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it” in response to her question “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”, it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice. We do not question that the FBI employees who sent these messages are entitled to their own political views. However, we believe using FBI devices to send the messages discussed in Chapter Twelve— particularly the messages that intermix work-related discussions with political commentary—potentially implicate provisions in the FBI’s Offense Code and Penalty Guidelines. At a minimum, we found that the employees’ use of FBI systems and devices to send the identified messages demonstrated extremely poor judgment and a gross lack of professionalism. We therefore refer this information to the FBI for its handling and consideration of whether the messages sent by the five employees listed above violated the FBI’s Offense Code of Conduct.
The Report Concludes Tomorrow
