"... the effect of that bias on the Clinton and Russia investigations, and the FBI’s total failure to investigate the 'intent' standard that it wrongly read into the Espionage Act."
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122 comments:
An incredible performance, but he has been doing this for years. When he leaves the House I'd like to see him prosecuting the idiots at DOJ/FBI.
I agree with Khesanh.
Gowdy looks good in a vandyke.
It struck me as I was watching this that the old prosecutor was showing how he would have presented such things in court. Then it really struck me (as Khesanh 0802 notes) that he'd be perfect as either an SC or a US Attorney charged with prosecuting people involved in this. Now I really am wondering whether his retirement from the House is preparation for doing just that in an already thought-out plan to nail some of these sleazeballs to the wall.
CNN and MSNBC were too busy talking about kids at the border to notice.
Beating up 9n the IG is pointless. If Gowdy wanted to fix the Justice Dept and FBI, he’d call for resignations from Wray, Rosenstein and Sessions. That he’s not tells you he’s pulling the usual Republican two face two step.
Nice piece of work. Yes, when it comes to classified information the question of intent does not arise. If you didn’t take care of the data entrusted to you, then there are three words that describe you:
Guilty, guilty, GUILTY
We've got is the text messages of Strzok, Page and the other 3, which, as Gowdy demonstrates is smoking gun written evidence of bias. You are kidding yourself if you think that Comey, Brennan, Clapper and Mueller don't share very one of those views of Trump and of their official mission to stop Trump.
Lance said...
Beating up on the IG is pointless. If Gowdy wanted to fix the Justice Dept and FBI, he’d call for resignations from Wray, Rosenstein and Sessions. That he’s not tells you he’s pulling the usual Republican two face two step.
Ya think.
That was powerful. I'm not a lawyer but if I was I would like to do the voodoo like he do.
I didn’t view that as “beating up” the IG. I found it empathetic and collegial.
Gowdy the prosecutor knows how not to turn off the “jury” by going too hard on a sympathetic witness.
About as good a job as I’ve ever seen of leading a horse to water even if he won’t drink - or is afraid to.
@ Lance Gowdy was laying the ground work for further action against the DOJ/FBI. He did not beat up on Horowitz. In fact I thought Horowitz rather enjoyed being quietly able to agree that there was, indeed, bias and that the behavior of many in the FBI/DOJ was antithetical to what proper practice should have been. Horowitz looked perfectly comfortable with Gowdy's questioning. Have you watched Gowdy question Comey? Now there was a guy Gowdy beat up on and it was great fun to watch.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/06 note one of the outed gnu agents Sally Moyer was not identified as fbi counterintel just fbi attorney, in accounts back to december
Horowitz seems to enjoy answering that he would rather cross-examine Strzok than directly examine him. Excellent question, Gowdy.
11:20. Killer.
khesanh082: In fact I thought Horowitz rather enjoyed being quietly able to agree that there was, indeed, bias and that the behavior of many in the FBI/DOJ was antithetical to what proper practice should have been.
I also thought horowitz looked perfectly comfortable and was agreeing with gowdy's 'connect the dots' approach.
So when are these bums in the FBI and DoJ going to jail? A lot of noise but so far nothing.
Gowdy was superb at organizing and delivering the case. Really exposed how corrupt the FBI became under Comey. Horowitz did not argue the case, acknowledging the facts.
Horowitz kept repeating the point that he did not see evidence that political bias drove the decision not to prosecute Clinton. He kept emphasizing that he was talking about the political bias of the prosecutors (as opposed to the FBI). But there were no prosecutors in the Clinton matter. There was only Comey. Sounded like Horowitz was playing his own little game. I suppose you can say there as no bias by prosecutors if there were no prosecutors to have political bias.
I like Gowdy, he's as sharp as they come. But he looks like a mutant. The beard makes him look MUCH better.
Khesanh 0802 said...
When he leaves the House I'd like to see him prosecuting the idiots at DOJ/FBI.
I would love to see that, but I believe that when he announced his intention to retire, he indicated that he did not relish the "third degree" prosecutor role that he so expertly demonstrates. I'm betting we see him in law school professorship for a few years until his kids are grown. Would love to see him on the Supreme Court although his non-Yale/Harvard JD probably works against him (more's the pity).
robother said...
You are kidding yourself if you think that Comey, Brennan, Clapper and Mueller don't share very one of those views of Trump and of their official mission to stop Trump.
Their mission to stop Trump will (hopefully) be unveiled in the next IG report, although it probably won't be finished until after the mid-year elections. One of the bright spots this past week was watching Democrat after Democrat claim their undying admiration and faith in Horowitz's neutrality. Haha - they'll try to bury him when the FISA abuse report comes out, but Too Late Suckers!
Now more informed, we voters deserve a do-over: Hillary vs Trump in 2020.
Gowdy is either very clever at playing a deep game or he is just a show pony.
To mix metaphors, he strikes me as all hat and no cattle.
@Crimso I agree that the "would you rather cross examine Strzok" question was the high point of the whole thing- even Horowitz enjoyed sticking the knife in. That and the "antithetical" answer. Absolute killers!
cubanbob said...
So when are these bums in the FBI and DoJ going to jail? A lot of noise but so far nothing.
cubanbob is being “outcome-determinative”.
When is Stormy Daniels scheduled to testify?
I agree with Meade -- it's only fair that Hillary be given a third bite at the apple. Anything less would be sexist and deplorable.
Sally Moyer and who?
Kevin kleinsmith, he has kept a lower profile.
Meade, that's not a joke. Hillary i convinced that dark masculine forces have deprived her of her rightful place as President in 2008 and 2016. Her actions and statements are consistent with someone gearing up for another run. She is that far gone -- she really believes that she will win the Precious. While a Hillary Trump repeat in 2020 wold be entertainment for the ages with the same result, I cannot imagine her making it through the primaries.
According to this:
https://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_dceace1ccc2d60ca0bb50fe5af5a39ff
<<<------ Red Wave
If anyone is still wondering why the left had to launch the "poor, poor children" narrative this week instead of in October then look no further than the details still emerging from the OIG report and the subsequent testimony. It is far more damning than the ludicrous summaries try to suggest.
Gowdy was a dynamite prosecutor and by his own admission he is wasting his time as a Congressman.
"...she really believes that she will win the Precious."
Best autocorrect ever?
"Her actions and statements are consistent with someone gearing up for another run."
I agree and the Democrats seem so crazy nowadays that she might actually be nominated.
Now more informed, we voters deserve a do-over: Hillary vs Trump in 2020.
Elijah Cummings was leading the "Hillary Got Screwed" charge today. Do you think even he wants a rematch?
Fabi, no typo. Hillary s obsessed with the elusive power of the White House like Gollum descended into obsessive amorality at the power of the Ring. It was all consuming and turned Gollum into a hideous shell of insane ambition. Hence the White House is the Precious, jut like the Ring.
No that I think about it, I have never seen Hillary and Gollum in the same room at the same time,
Somebody on this website mentioned the OJ Simpson trial the other day.
Remember how the press covered allegations that Mark Fuhrman was biased?
Now compare how they don't think the FBI was biased.
cronus titan:
I have seen Hillary and James Carville in the same room. Not sure how that affects your theory.
I love it either way, cronus titan. Agree that she would eat a bowl of glass to become president. She's had one singular ambition since her college days and only rigor mortis will end those aspirations. She's running in 2020. Her recent public policy statements have lurched hard left. Maybe she'll even campaign in Wisconsin this time!
Great theater, but we've seen Gowdy play this role before. John Koskinin anyone?
Nothing ever happens.
Two guys who both seemed serious and on top of the facts. Very impressive by Gowdy.
On Monday, The Daily Caller published an article titled Russian Who Claim FBI Ties Offered to Sell Clinton Dirt, Trump Associates Claim, written by Chuck Ross, one of the best reporters about the RussiaGate hoax.
According to the article, Michael Caputo and Roger Stone say that in May 2016 they were approached by a certain Henry Greenberg, who offered to sell them information damaging to Hillary Clinton. Greenberg said he would provide the information in exchange for $2 million. Caputo and Stone refused to pay that price.
Recently Caputo paid a private investigator to investigate Greenberg. It turns out that Greenberg is a Russian immigrant, whose birth name is Gennadiy Vasilievich Vostretsov, and that he has worked as an informant for the FBI.
-----
Caputo and Stone both claim that they "forgot" to mention Greenberg's offer when they were questioned by members of the staff of Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller.
Of course, I don't believe that Caputo and Stone "forgot". I think that both of them did not mention Greenberg deliberately. I think they were playing a cat-and-mouse game with Mueller's staff.
Caputo and Stone recognized that the FBI and Mueller's staff were trying to entrap them just like they had entrapped George Papadopolous. Because Papadopoulos had mentioned Joseph Mifsud, Papadopolous eventually found himself charged criminally for trivial discrepancies in his statement.
-----
Now that the FBI and Mueller's staff are discredited and weakened, Caputo and Stone feel emboldened to tell the public that they had been offered political dirt by FBI informant Greenberg in May 2016.
-----
I expect that the Republicans in Congress will pressure the FBI to reveal its employment of Greenberg as an informant and agent provocateur targeting Trump's campaign associates in May 2016.
I speculate that Greenberg was a key informant for the first FISA application, which was rejected in about June 2016. The FBI has kept the public and Congress completely in the dark about that first, rejected FISA application.
Kids in cages. Kids in cages!
Now more informed, we voters deserve a do-over: Hillary vs Trump in 2020.
I don't think Hillary would survive another campaign. She's just not up to it, physically.
cubanbob said...
So when are these bums in the FBI and DoJ going to jail? A lot of noise but so far nothing.
Don't know if it means anything, but Strzok was escorted from FBI HQ Friday.
Gowdy is very good at the thing he does.
Horowitz was enjoying himself during that line of questioning from Gowdy.
The original idea of the Trump-hating geniuses at the top of our Intelligence Community was that Donald Trump was being blackmailed by Russian Intelligence. Only much later did they concoct their other idea that Trump was colluding with Russian Intelligence.
These geniuses never had any evidence that Trump was being blackmailed. They simply assumed that Trump was such a sleazy businessman involved with so many sleazy Russians that he must be being blackmailed. They thought that it was only a matter of time until the US Intelligence Community would discover such evidence.
By late May 2015, however, the geniuses figured that they better concoct some evidence, because they would have to destroy Trump between August and November.
I speculate that Greenberg's offer to sell political dirt to a couple of Trump's associates for a lot of money was an effort to create an illusion that Trump was being compelled to pay blackmail money to Russians. The idea was that Trump was giving the money to Caputo or Stone, who was giving it to Greenberg (aka Vostretsov), who was giving it to Russian Intelligence or to the Russian Mafia.
Mike Sylwester said...
Greenberg said he would provide the information in exchange for $2 million. Caputo and Stone refused to pay that price.
As I recall hearing the story from Stone, Greenberg insisted that they take the offer to Trump to pay the money directly, which goes to the intent to frame Trump himself.
That was great theater, but it's only a Congressional committee with no real power. They can score a few points, but nobody's going to jail, and the public will forget it all in 24 hours. We've been through this throughout the Obama Administration ever since the GOP took control of the Congress.
What we need is a Republican President. The President can appoint an Attorney General to clean out the Augean Stables of the DOJ and FBI and prosecute those malfeasants who deserve to be prosecuted.
Oh. Wait a minute.
”I also thought horowitz looked perfectly comfortable and was agreeing with gowdy's 'connect the dots' approach.”
Horowitz has been comfortable throughout the two days. He knows what the hell happened in the Hillary investigation and I think he enjoys exposing it to the extent he can.
I’ve always thought that one explanation for why Comey held his July press conference trashing Hillary is that he was damn mad at having to let her skate.
”I don't think Hillary would survive another campaign. She's just not up to it, physically.”
Not a deal breaker for me.
+1 for Original Mike at 9:51
I’ve always thought that one explanation for why Comey held his July press conference trashing Hillary is that he was damn mad at having to let her skate.
Letting her skate cost him both job and reputation -- is likely to go down in the history books as being worse than J. Edgar in terms of using his office to play politics. Maybe if he had gotten his agency on the case sooner rather than later, she would not have yet been the anointed one.
I’m not saying he doesn’t regret it now, Big Mike.
He regrets he got caught:
https://mobile.twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1009182094956941313
”Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) just outed 2 of the unidentified anti-Trump, pro-Hillary FBI investigators referred for punishment by IG & both work for the general counsel of FBI, not in "counterintelligence" as the FBI claimed as an excuse to w/hold their names”
Horowitz didn’t even look upset at this exchange.
I have been saying for months that Trump has criticized Sessions because Sessions needs the political space to effectively operate. If Sessions were viewed as too close an ally, he would have unnecessary difficulties. The press has dutifully covered the fake Trump outbursts. But Sessions remains.
Horowitz serves a similar function. The IG insulates the AG from the political process. The facts have been sorted but the obvious conclusions are left unsaid. Gowdy got to say those things without implicating the apolitical nature of these investigations. And Horowitz played his role incredibly well.
One step below all the public foofaraw the real work is happening. Sessions is managing to get the worst offenders shuffled out of the FBI/DOJ. The underlings no longer have their safe environment to spin their own political strategies. I'd expect the new job performance reviews that Sessions has implemented will see many of the lower-level players depart.
And most importantly, under all of this cover, AAG Huber is connecting the dots that IG Horowitz studiously avoided. This process is slow and not made for TV.
You can see why they're giving the border children so much air time. They definitely don't want to cover this. The FBI, Hillary, and the media all come out of this looking bad. Maybe if they ignore it as much as possible, it will all go away. That's a tactic that's worked in the past......The Japanese internment camps were instituted by FDR and the sainted Earl Warren. They were opposed by J. Edgar Hoover. Who even knows that? The internment camps are not generally mentioned as a New Deal Program, but they were.
Has anyone ever explained why the Clinton private server investigation was called the "Mid Year Exam"?
Gowdy’s good at this kind of thing but it’s all theater. At his core he’s just a debater. You pick the side he’s on and he’ll argue it. When the bullets star whizzing, don’t expect Gowdy to be in the foxhole with you. Wish I didn’t have to say this but look at the wake when his boat goes by: all wave, no overturned skidoos.
*How many metaphors did I have going there? Not enough, that I can tell you.
My theory: Obama's two terms were the first half of the "year," Clinton's presumed two terms would be the second half of the "year," the "investigation" was the Mid Year Exam, and passing the exam meant a pro-Clinton outcome to the "investigation."
Gowdy is an incompetent boob who did a horrible job.
Hearings with witnesses are not occasions to make speeches. They are times to QUESTION THE WITNESS. He did the same damn thing with Hillary. Shooting off his mouth rather than obtaining real evidence.
His statements are not evidence. They don't amount to a damn thing.
Agree with Birkel. And this is only the first report. Reports will spawn investigations, which will spawn indictments, which will spawn prosecutions, which will hopefully bring convictions. Sessions has to play the long game to make sure the case is ironclad. Nothing less will do.
I have seen Hillary and James Carville in the same room.
The horror! The horror!
Next up this week:
The FBI/DOJ finally coughing up the highly classified information on the FISA warrants and other matters that Nunes has subpoenaed...but has been stonewalled on.
From the Nunes interview by the Money Honey on Sunday:
"...And, look, here's the bottom line. Mr. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and Director Wray have to decide whether or not they want to be part of the cleanup crew or they want to be part of the cover-up crew.
That's really the decision that they have to make for themselves here. The best way they can be part of the cleanup...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NUNES: Of this mess is give us all the documents this week, so that we can put this behind us and let the American people begin to heal."
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2018/06/17/rep-devin-nunes-talks-meeting-with-fbi-doj-officials.html
A long-festering wound that won't begin to heal until the scab is picked.
Also evokes peeling the onion of Watergate!
I hope you are right Birkel.
"Congressman Trey Gowdy... does a beautiful job of tying together"
I enjoyed it, but at the same time, what he did was entirely obvious. Many of us on this very blog had made those connections long ago--even before the report came out and we just had some of the naked evidence of texts exchanged, leaks confirmed, and Hillegality excused. That a "beautiful job" is needed to belabor the obvious attests to the corruption of the political process and the MSM.
Thought experiment: suppose we righties had spun this tale in, oh, 2014 or so--rogue FBI officials shield a felonious Dem and concoct a scheme to stop the GOPer in the way they did. Can you imagine the howls of lefty outrage? Yet here we are, and progs will justify anything and everything after the fact.
Now we just need to wait and see if the Birkel Option plays out. I'm not holding my breath.
"You are kidding yourself if you think that Comey, Brennan, Clapper and Mueller don't share very one of those views of Trump and of their official mission to stop Trump."
The CIA is the shoe that hasn't dropped yet. Brennan was worse than Comey. He crafted the blackmail smear (even continued long after the election) and was key to the collusion shenanigans. Who are the Stzroks and Pages in the CIA? What did they say and do? Or, by contrast with Comey, did Brennan really direct the attack on Trump, from the outset and in all material respects?
Gowdy’s good at this kind of thing but it’s all theater. At his core he’s just a debater.
Why did Gowdy a week ago, put himself on record saying the FBI did what they were supposed to do.\?
I have been saying for months that Trump has criticized Sessions because Sessions needs the political space to effectively operate. If Sessions were viewed as too close an ally, he would have unnecessary difficulties. The press has dutifully covered the fake Trump outbursts. But Sessions remains.
I’m sympathetic to this interpretation, even though I think it is wrong. Sessions and Trump are faking it? For how long? Trump will have been in office for two years this January. It’s a little too exquisite for my taste.
The abrupt and I believe unnecessary recusal by Sessions almost immediately after Trump was sworn in without a word to Trump beforehand was the first red flag. That is NOT the usual or acceptable behavior between a subordinate and his boss. In civilian life if Sessions would have done the same a corporate CEO would have fired him immediately. But it was perfect timing and a perfect tactic IF your goal is to help install a Special Counselor.
Refusing to resign after multiple public humiliations by Trump is another troubling fact. Are we to believe that Sessions has NO pride?
I note also that however you define The Swamp, Sessions’ background as a member in good standing of the elite in the Congress for many years and in his home state fits Sessions into that category.
I further note that Sessions is STILL the AG and with the exception of the Mueller investigation he has direct authority over the DOJ. Yet Sessions has allowed the DOJ to stonewall Devin Nunes on documents for months – a behavior Sessions could stop with a single memo. Is this part of the scheme cooked up by Sessions and Trump?
“When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is happening is battlefield preparation. The targets are the leadership of the Democratic Party; Obama, Clinton, Justice, CIA, et. al. The whole of the American people are the jury. The most effective, dependable way to make the case is to have direct testimony from insiders that the orders came from the top. The fires under the kettle are being stoked. The pressures are rising. Popcorn.
On a YouTube video, Michael Caputo tells how he was able to investigate FBI informant Henry Greenberg (born Gennadiy Vasilievich Vostretsov).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIDRoiL-Ylg&feature=youtu.be
I recommend both of Sebastian's comments above, along with Grackle's at the end. I would like to believe Birkel's theory, but don't. All I can say is this- I think Horowitz is doing his job in the only way it can be done, and I expect that continue into the more important reports to come. I also hope it is true that Sessions has directed Huber to form a grand jury and hope he is investigating all of this as Horowitz builds the evidence locker, but am ready to be disappointed in this regard.
One last thing- the commenter (Cronus Titan, I think) made the important point about the Clinton investigation- there was no prosecutor assigned to it. The DoJ basically sent it over to the FBI and told the FBI to investigate with no tools of compulsion. Someone chose that team of hard-core Hillary supporters- that is the key information I want to know- how was that team selected, and by who.
Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller indicted a Russian company called Concord Management and Consulting, which surprised Mueller by hiring a lawyer and appearing in court to defend itself against the indictment.
Mueller has asked the judge for delays and gag orders.
Concord's lawyer recently submitted to the judge a motion that begins with this paragraph:
[quote]
Having produced not one iota of discovery in this criminal case the unlawfully appointed Special Counsel requests a special and unprecedented blanket protective order covering tens of millions of pages of unclassified discovery. Having made this special request based on a secret submission to the Court and a hysterical dithyramb about the future of the American elections, one would think that the Special Counsel would cite to case holdings that support this remarkable request. But no, instead, the Special Counsel seeks to equate this make-believe electioneering case to others involving international terrorism and major drug trafficking, and relies only on irrelevant dicta from inappropriate, primarily out-of-circuit cases. In short, fake law, which is much more dangerous than fake news.
[end quote]
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/8r6nrf/holy_shit_the_defendants_motion_in_court_today/
"Gowdy is an incompetent boob who did a horrible job."
Not sure why you said that. Interested to see your background. Are you a trial attorney? If so, what sort of cases do you try? How long have you been doing it?
Personally, I thought that he did a significantly better job of examining Horowitz than most of the atty I have watched in court could do. Underneath his southern folksy charm, you can watch him do a classic job of leading the witness just where he wanted to go. He would get the IG to admit to fact, fact, fact... Baby steps. Then ask him why doesn't this string of facts mean X. Rinse and repeat. The goal that Gowdy accomplished there was to get the IG to admit that Strzok, at a minimum, probably violated the Hatch Act, and also the Russian probe (which now means the Mueller investigation) was politically motivated. I loved how he utilized their shared background as prosecutors to build a bond, and to leverage the IG to make the admissions that he wants. If I could have done half as well as Gowdy here, I would have gone into litigation, instead of patents.
"One last thing- the commenter (Cronus Titan, I think) made the important point about the Clinton investigation- there was no prosecutor assigned to it. The DoJ basically sent it over to the FBI and told the FBI to investigate with no tools of compulsion. Someone chose that team of hard-core Hillary supporters- that is the key information I want to know- how was that team selected, and by who."
Someone else pointed out something related that came out today: there was never a formal FBI investigation of Crooked Hillary. There was never a formal target named. They just went through the motions because there had been criminal referrals made. And those criminal referrals should have either resulted in a formal investigation opened, or reasons articulated why one wasn't being opened. None of that happened. And, I fully expect that the reason that no tools of compulsion were provided by the DoJ was that the word from Obama himself was that no crime had been committed. Seen, I think, as orders not to investigate from Obama, Lynch, and Yates. So, no prosecutors were assigned.
"The CIA is the shoe that hasn't dropped yet. Brennan was worse than Comey. He crafted the blackmail smear (even continued long after the election) and was key to the collusion shenanigans. Who are the Stzroks and Pages in the CIA? What did they say and do? Or, by contrast with Comey, did Brennan really direct the attack on Trump, from the outset and in all material respects?"
Brennan was a partisan hack, from day one. Comey seems to have consistently put his agency above partisan politics - which, I think was the reason for him to have violated department policies on several occasions. On several significant occasions, he personally exposed himself to make sure that his agency didn't end up looking like they put Clinton in office as President. Brennan never even bothered. He was just fine with the CIA being known for helping fix the election. His priority was get Clinton elected, and wasn't overly concerned with the CIA looking bad there.
The problem is that Horowitz doesn't get to investigate Brennan and Clapper. They had their own IG, who doesn't appear to have been as zeleous or dedicated as Horowitz has been. It is because the scheme involved multiple departments, coordinating at the top echelons, that I think a special prosecutor needs to be assigned. Horowitz won't really be able to determine what was happening with Misfyp, Downer, and Halper, because they were, almost assuredly, CIA assets. All he will be able to do is see how the FBI got ahold of the results of what they had done, and not how it was all put together. He will see that there was evidence that Trump's campaign looked like it was colluding with the Russians, but not how that evidence was created out of thin air by the CIA. And, ditto, with Clapper, who was very likely the one who put it all together, assigning the opening moves to Brennan, and the closing ones to Comey.
And they mocked the concept of "The Swamp."
The biggest issue facing the administration is prioritization.
There are limits on the time and resources they have, there is a very large list of issues from the last 8 years that merit in-depth investigations, and there is a very large list of current issues that need to be dealt with. Not enough time or resources to do everything.
Personally, I would prefer that they do more "investigations with the intent of making the truth known" than "investigations with the intent of looking to prosecute those who are guilty," because the former are faster. At this point I think that shining the light on as many of the mis-deeds of the Democrats and "the establishment" as possible is the most important thing.
Comey seems to have consistently put his agency above partisan politics - which, I think was the reason for him to have violated department policies on several occasions. On several significant occasions, he personally exposed himself to make sure that his agency didn't end up looking like they put Clinton in office as President.
Respectfully, it would help me understand if examples of Comey “consistently” putting “his agency above partisan politics” were offered. I suspect most of Comey’s odd choices were first to protect Comey himself and secondly Hillary, if he could do so without also damaging his own reputation to a fatal degree.
And the FBI’s reputation? Judging from the result, which is an FBI now mistrusted by a large portion of the population, if Comey had indeed had a thought to protect the FBI’s public image – he failed.
"So when are these bums in the FBI and DoJ going to jail? A lot of noise but so far nothing."
Patience; patience. It takes time to throw a former president and former first lady in the dock.
"I suspect most of Comey’s odd choices were first to protect Comey himself and secondly Hillary"
I think they were made under the assumption that Hillary would win, with the primary consideration being to shield her from post-election criticism/accusations by providing the appearance of a proper investigation. Secondary considerations were to not piss her off (again, with the assumption being that she was going to win) due to her reputation for vindictiveness, and to protect his position in the Hillary administration.
Since Hillary has not been indicted, that means she can continue to be investigated, no?
Maybe get some prosecutors and investigators to actually LEAN on Weiner, Huma and the rest of the Scooby Crew. Put them under oath. Record their statements. Compare their statements.
Let them know that they didn't skate. Let them know this isn't over.
Because the courts can and should get ONE bite at the apple. They never got that bite. And even if it is possible to argue they had, the corrupt nature of that investigation should annul the prior work.
Let her die as she lived: constantly under investigation for the illegalities of her own making.
There are 5 people in the FBI who are finished there forever. Seven if you include McCabe and Comey.
I would like to see those 5 people disbarred if it is possible. No sinecures at some Democratic law office where they can charge, it seems, $500 an hour for work.
Sure there can be direct pay offs, but that's pretty brazen. Benedict Arnold, while hated and despised by the English, still got his pay off. Hillary and Bill will do the same.
Have to do the same.
Apparently Strozk was escorted from the FBI building yesterday.
I don't see how we escape the conclusion that the FBI tried to put their collective thumb on the scale of the Hillary emails investigation in a way that would tend to help her.
(1) The FBI agents leading the investigation wanted Hillary to win the election.
(2) They knew that her chances of being elected would be improved if the FBI emails investigation exonerated Hillary;
(3) They deviated from standard practices (drafting the report before interviewing Clinton and others, allowing a witness -- Cheryl Mills -- to be present during the questioning of another witness; changing the language of the report to be helpful; there are probably more examples.
(4) They knew that Obama (by his public statements) and Lynch (by her statements and internal directives and her meeting with Bill Clinton) wanted the official result to be an exoneration of Hillary.
(5) The FBI investigators tried to or wanted to kick the Wiener laptop can down the road so that it wouldn't be announced until after the election; they were called on that by a lower level person in the NY office; then Comey realized how bad it might look -- how obvious might become the pro-Hillary thumb on the scale -- so he did this late October letter to Congress followed quickly by another announcement of Hillary's innocence -- essentially an ass-covering maneuver.
(6) After the election, the FBI wanted to hide this circumstantial evidence of their misbehavior, and they viewed the above points 1-5 as evidence, so they withheld or slow walked responses to Congress.
(7) "private" comments between other FBI investigators explicitly stated that "she'll never be charged with anything."
Points 6 and 7 are themselves part of the circumstantial case that leads me to conclude that there was a pro-Hillary bias in the investigation.
That said, it doesn't mean that Hillary was actually guilty of anything, or at least it's not obvious that a perfectly objective investigation in the Hillary emails might not have ended up in exactly the same place.
But it is a terrible indictment of FBI behavior during an election.
And that said, it is not clear (to me) how much political appointees (Lynch and Sally Yates at DoJ), or White House high ranking officials (say Valerie Jarrett), or Obama himself may be encouraged, directed, or knowingly allowed this FBI behavior. The alternative explanation is that it was done by career FBI investigators or staff more or less on their own, with the belief that it would be smiled upon by supervisors all the way to White House.
"Gowdy is an incompetent boob who did a horrible job."
Not sure why you said that.
In the sentences immediately following I explain exactly why Gowdy is incompetent.
I will say that I did not sit through his entire time, hearing only that part where he is said to be "brilliant," which consists of his forcing the witness to sit there listening to him talk. And, again, I also look at his experience with Hillary, which also involved a lot of him talking and little time of making her talk, amounting to exactly zero.
Mark, you do realize that he was questioning a friendly witness, not a hostile one, right? Yes, the witness was just an implement for Gowdy to make what amounts to a very effective oral argument, which is good lawyering. I hope you are not a lawyer.
Gowdy is limited by time. Better to state the facts and get concurrence than let the IG ramble and not make his points.
Starting with the assumption - yes, I am pretty sure that Comey believed that Crooked Hillary was going to be elected. He stated that on several occasions. Then, going backwards, Strzok and his team seem to have been the ones who tried to run out the clock and bury the Weiner laptop until after the election. This panicked an NYO FBI employee, probably the one who had detected Clinton emails on it. He didn't want to be the one on whom everyone hung Clinton's election, and didn't want the FBI on the hook either. So he tried to take it up his chain, and also met with two different SDNY AUSAs. Bubbled up so that Comey became aware/reaware of the laptop languishing in NYC. Comey appears then to have also panicked, telling Congress that he was reopening the Clinton non-investigation. His stated purpose was to prevent the FBI from being seen by the public as having been instrumental in electing Clinton. This worry about the FBIs reputation after helping elect Clinton appears, by his statements there, to have been the reason that he felt compelled to violate DoJ policies.
It was somewhat similar earlier, in the summer, when made that weird announcement, that Clinton was indeed Crooked, had massively violated the Espionage and Records Acts, with the use of her private email server for official business while she was Sec of State. He seems to have facing an internal revolt of his FBI employees over the apparent non-investigation investigation of Crooked Hillary and her cronies and peons and her private server, on the one hand, and a DoJ that has, essentially, refused to cooperate in the investigation, that wasn't providing the normal resources that they usually do for FBI investigations. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Comey seems to have been motivated in protecting the FBI from being seen as the fall guy, in the election of Clinton. Essentially saying that you shouldn't look at the FBI, but rather at the DoJ for the organization that helped get Clinton elected. But he couldn't actually say that, because the FBI is part of the DoJ, and he indirectly reported to AG Lynch (but, I think, implied it with his statement that no reasonable (DoJ) prosecutor would indict her based on negligence alone, and absent a smoking gun). Saying that would have been pretty gross insubordination. But doing what he did was also insubordination. In any case, he always seemed, to me, to have felt himself compelled to do what he did there, and his statements justifying what he did seem to have been driven by the desire not to see the FBI seen by the publication c as the organization that elected Clinton.
I agree, Bruce. Comey was in a tough spot with no perfect options. The world is not composed exclusively of heroes and villains.
I am not sure if Horowitz went into the interview with Gowdy as a friendly witness, or Gowdy converted him to one by using humor and shared experiences. But, you can definitely tell that he was one by the shared chuckling, esp towards the end. And, yes, that is what you do with friendly witnesses - use them to paint the picture that you want painted. Which is precisely what Gowdy did here, getting Horowitz to agree that Strzok and Page appear to have been highly biased, in a position to affect the election, and very likely did work for Clinton's election and Trump's defeat due to that bias. With what Gowdy got Horowitz to admit there, at a minimum, USA Huber very likely has enough to try the two of them for Hatch Act violations in how the two of them handled the Clinton email non-investigation and the Trump Russia investigation.
"I agree, Bruce. Comey was in a tough spot with no perfect options. The world is not composed exclusively of heroes and villains."
I do think that Comey believed himself the hero of the story, sacrificing his job, career, and good name to protect the FBI. BUT, as you say, I think that in reality, he was a flawed man in a hard position, put there by the politization of the DoJ in particular, that seems to have seeped into the top of his FBI.
On the other side, I don't see any real redeeming virtues in most of the rest of the have go level players here, from Obama, down through Lynch, Yates, McCabe, Strzok, Page, etc. They were using their official government positions for nakedly partisan benefit.
Questions have often been asked about why Comey took it upon himself to pronounce that there was no reason to proceed further in the Hillary investigation. Why did he not turn his evidence over to DOJ prosecutors? Why did he allow destruction of evidence re Hillary's aide's devices? Why did he seemingly panic at the discovery of another, previously unknown device, the Weiner laptop? Etc.
The information that Comey was also communicating FBI business on a private email account raises the possibility that he was covering for himself as well as Hillary and the President.
If the admitted political bias caused them not to ask the tough questions nor to play prosecutorial/investigative hardball by rolling up minions to force big fish to cooperate nor getting the servers and devices nor putting the principals under oath and really cross-examining them then it is impossible to say that the bias did not play a role in the sham decision not to prosecute because the truthful information and facts that would have compelled the indictment was not collected and processes.
Basically the small class of biased FBI personnel ran everything and The Fix was in.
They did not want to get to the bottom of it. They did not want the evidence. They did not want to ask too many questions. They did not try to establish a case. They did not want to acknowledge that "intent" has nothing to do with guilt when it comes to classified information nor to acknowledge that there was indeed negligence and incompetence. They did not want to see that the server was a clear intentional plot to evade FOIA.
The FBI not only did not ask the needed questions, it let evidence be destroyed. It handed out immunity to everyone without justification to shut them up so nothing inconvenient would come out. It ignored the clear intent of using Bleach Bit which only someone with something to hide would try.
So if you don''t collect the evidence it is hard to make a case.
Nobody forced the Dems to nominate a known corrupt figure with high unlikeability. Hillary's problems were entirely of her own doing. And she compromised everyone she touched...
Look at the contrast between how DOJ/FBI treated Hillary and Trump. Hillary got every accommodation and everyone got immunity. They wrote her conclusion months before interviewing her and had meetings 4 months prior on how to "roll out" the news. Meanwhile, Trump has opposition research used against him as a weapon and his aides are raided at dawn and their privileged records are seized (and leaked).
The Rule of Law used to matter.
Will asserts: They did not want to get to the bottom of it. They did not want the evidence. They did not want to ask too many questions. They did not try to establish a case.
This is it in a nutshell.
”I hope you are not a lawyer.”
If I were in court, I’d hope he was my opponent’s lawyer.
Comey was in a tough spot with no perfect options
He chose weaselly.
If the FBI hadn't dragged their investigation out until She was essentially nominated, his choices would have been better.
Bruce Hayden, I mostly agree with your analysis. Comey's fatal flaw, in my view, was letting DOJ off the hook from making their normal prosecutorial decisions. He should have completed his investigation into Hillary's e-mails, made a reporter to the relevant US Attorney or the special prosecutions section of main DOJ, and left it to them. He could have done his same public speech excoriating Hillary, but left out the conclusion that "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute this case." That's the fatal sentence he uttered, in my view. Let the AG off the hook entirely.
"Why did Gowdy a week ago, put himself on record saying the FBI did what they were supposed to do.\?"
As others have speculated, he did that so that, in essence, after those beautiful 16 min, there would be people on the left (and right) saying "Et tu, Brute?"
People who were thinking "Oh, well, Gowdy's gonna be all good with this after all! Good thing, too!" just got shivved.
"Why did Gowdy a week ago, put himself on record saying the FBI did what they were supposed to do.\?"
Wasn’t that comment specific to the counter intelligence actions against Trump?
Sad thing is Trey Gowdy not seeking re-election. Will be be the next A.G.?
"He could have done his same public speech excoriating Hillary, but left out the conclusion that "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute this case." That's the fatal sentence he uttered, in my view. Let the AG off the hook entirely."
I always read just the opposite into that statement, that the DoJ was refusing to allow its prosecutors to participate in the Clinton non-investigation investigation. Which seems to have been confirmed this week. What appears, to me, to have happened was that the FBI tried to open an investigation into the Clinton email scandal, based on criminal referrals. But when they went to the DoJ to get their typical assistance, such as using grand juries, or getting search warrants, the DoJ told the FBI "no". Not happening on Lynch's watch. The FBI could do whatever they wanted to investigate, but don't expect to use DoJ prosecutors. Or maybe just those investigatory tools were put off limits, since most of Clinton's minions were given some form of immunity (supposedly to get voluntary document production, since subpoenas and search warrants were off the table here), which likely required some sort of DoJ participation.
Yah..poor Comey.
Insta-book/tour Comey has revealed a surprising amount about his motivations and self-ordained autonomy. His ass-kissing of Obama..saying he wanted to stay in his role more than ever (due to Trump) has less to do with institutional reputation, more about his animus and God complex. Saying he didn't know the connection Weiner had to Clinton Inc is either a bold faced lie or absolute ignorance.
”Saying he didn't know the connection Weiner had to Clinton Inc is either a bold faced lie or absolute ignorance.”
So if Comey didn’t know the Weiner/Huma connection, how did he think Weiner obtained Clinton’s emails? And he sat on that?
Well..yes. We are supposed to believe that some outsider getting a hold of them would cause LESS alarm. And ya know..Comey using his own extra-governmental email for official business juuuuuust might cause a conflict of intereest when investigating exactly that.
The more we learn, the more sensible Comey's "make like a curtain" incident seems.
LBJ once told his staff to put out the word that his opponent was a pig fucker. When his staff complained that there was no evidence that the charge was true, LBJ said "That's OK, we'll make him deny it."
Now this headline in USA today about that sick loser Strzok:
"Donald Trump is wrong. My client Peter Strzok is a patriot, not a 'sick loser.'
Aitan Goelman, Opinion contributor"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/06/19/donald-trump-wrong-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-patriot-not-sick-loser-column/712673002/
He is probably not a pig fucker either. I'd like to hear him deny it, though.
John Henry
Blogger cronus titan said...
Horowitz kept repeating the point that he did not see evidence that political bias drove the decision not to prosecute Clinton.
Yes, and that is what the M5M led with in all the news. Carefully hidden was the next sentence where he said "However, I could find no other plausible explanation." (quote from memory and approximate)
So he believes that it was politically motivated, he just can't prove it in court.
John Henry
Listen to all the Strzok-Page texts and tell me no bias.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=863&v=3xyPFfozPDE
Blogger Meade said...
Now more informed, we voters deserve a do-over: Hillary vs Trump in 2020.
6/19/18, 8:27 PM
Why my friend? With 20/20 hindsight, we now know that the voters got this election right!
Yes, the witness was just an implement for Gowdy to make what amounts to a very effective oral argument
The time for oral argument is during oral argument, or on the House floor, or in a speech elsewhere. Conversely, examination of witnesses is NOT the time for oral argument.
You can make a speech any time. But you cannot have a witness before you at any time. Use the time to QUESTION THE WITNESS. You can grandstand any other damn time you want.
And, again - Gowdy was a DISASTER on Hillary. His investigations into her resulted in ZERO consequence.
The problem with the "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute this case" argument is that no case was really made.
At every step the FBI declined to strongly pursue justice and subpoena the devices and servers and rolll up the minions to put pressure on the big fish. When there was a subpoena Hillary gave a big middle finger to it and deleted 30,000 public records then wiped the server (with a cloth) and then Bleach Bitted it for good measure then used hammers on all the Blackberries.
So to say that "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute" ignores the fact that the FBI and DOJ broke loads of internal policies in their attempt to Sergeant Schultz the investigation "I know noooothing...noooothing!!"
What you had instead was a stacked deck where the baseball umpire threw out the Rule Book and turned his back to the field of play and refused to look at the runner being clearly thrown out by 10 feet at home by the Visitors while instead making the call based solely on the roar and catcalls of a partisan home crowd.
When you ignore the Rule Book and use irrelevant criteria to make the call on the field of play then Justice will not be done and sportsmanship is out the window. The game is rigged. The cheaters win.
Some of us still see a giant asterisk on the official record here and feel it is useful to Monday Morning Quarterback how the Referees and Umpires conspired to help the Cheater win the rigged game.
If I were in court, I’d hope he was my opponent’s lawyer.
If you were in court, then you would hear the judge tell the jury that the statements of your lawyer ARE NOT EVIDENCE. And if he went speechifying during examination of witnesses, the judge would tell him to shut the hell up and sit down if he didn't have any questions.
[Comey’s] … stated purpose was to prevent the FBI from being seen by the public as having been instrumental in electing Clinton. This worry about the FBIs reputation after helping elect Clinton appears, by his statements there, to have been the reason that he felt compelled to violate DoJ policies.
“Stated purpose?” For me everything Comey has ‘stated’ that has to do with either Trump or Hillary is suspect. All we can know for sure are the bare, verified facts of what (and when) Comey did what he did. Comey’s motivations at this point in time is speculation by all of us.
With that understood, I suspect Comey’s first presser, at which he exonerated Hillary, was to curry favor or at least not anger Hillary – whom Comey and everyone else thought was sure to be Comey’s next POTUS. A bright future in Hillary’s anticipated administration would have been a strong motivation.
I surmise that Comey had to detail the evidence against Hillary at the same presser for fear the same evidence would be later leaked by disgruntled FBI foot soldiers, some of which have been reported recently as being eager to testify about what they know about this issue.
The letter to Congress notifying Congress that Hillary was being re-investigated by the FBI was sent 11 days before the election. The polls had Hillary out so far ahead of Trump at that time that Comey had no reason to believe that the notification would impact the voters to the extent that Hillary would lose the election because of it.
Comey knew that Hillary would be allowed to skate by the MSM – which was exactly what happened. And just to make sure (an “insurance policy,” if you will) Comey announced two days before the election that “there was nothing new or incriminating about the purportedly new information.”
But to paraphrase something said by Scott Adams, I think: Any set of facts can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Former FBI Director James Comey said that former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still doesn’t understand why she was under FBI investigation for using a private email server during an event in Berlin on Tuesday.
Moderator Holger Stark asked Comey if he would apologize to Clinton after the Department of Justice Inspector General report revealed that Comey had used his personal email to conduct FBI business.
Stark referenced Clinton’s tweet responding to the IG report:
Hillary Clinton
Verified account @HillaryClinton
Jun 14
Hillary Clinton Retweeted Kyle Cheney
But my emails.
Kyle Cheney
Verified account @kyledcheney
IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.
10:42 AM - 14 Jun 2018
“No, and here’s why: again I don’t want to criticize her, but it shows me that even at this late date she doesn’t understand what the investigation in her case was about,” Comey said. “It was not about her use of personal email system, and she didn’t get that during the investigation.”
“That was not what it was about. It was about communicating about classified topics on that system,” Comey said.
--
"Curtains" Comey not mentioning his emails were "inconsistent with Department policy,"
With Trump, it's any remotely plausible theory of guilt, with Hillary, it's any remotely plausible theory of exoneration. That leaves a lot of scope for bias to operate "within the law."
hstad said...
"Why my friend? With 20/20 hindsight, we now know that the voters got this election right!"
Agreed. I like your 20/20 hindsight idea. Let's call it Election 2020 Hindsight. Give misguided 2016 Hillary voters their very own reset button. Trump wins greatest reelection landslide in U.S. history.
Dunno Meade,
TDS gives those folks purpose and fellowship.
Resist we much!
Will said...The FBI not only did not ask the needed questions, it let evidence be destroyed. It handed out immunity to everyone without justification to shut them up so nothing inconvenient would come out. It ignored the clear intent of using Bleach Bit which only someone with something to hide would try.
So if you don''t collect the evidence it is hard to make a case.
--
Sounds like Horowitz is engaging in "weasel words" in terms of referencing the "decision". It seems like he decided to lay out the case but absolve himself of any blowback...giving MSM and Dem pols their red meat to run with.
Bruce Hayden, agreed that's what happened. My point is that by publicly exonerating Clinton on the "no reasonable prosecutor" standard, Comey let Lynch off the hook and essentially excused her failure to do her job. He could instead have produced a report that stated that probable cause was found that Clinton had mishandled classified information (and lied to investigators about it, which is a whole other crime where there's a LOT of selective prosecution), and publicly left it for the AG to have to accept the report and then visibly be responsible for letting it vanish into a black hole. That's what someone with the courage of conviction that Comey likes to pretend to have would have done, and it's pretty obvious. Stick to your role, and force the bad guys to go on record.
But Comey instead let Lynch off the hook by going beyond what his role as a law enforcement officer called for. He volunteered that "no reasonable prosecutor" would prosecute, eliminating the need for any actual prosecutors to weigh in. It's as if a police officer wrote up a report of a crime, made public comments about it, then simply decided NOT to send the report to the district attorney's office. So the DA is not on the hook for any decision about what to do with the report, because it was never sent to them.
That was a massive error in judgment (being as charitable as possible) by Comey. If he truly cared about the FBI's reputation like he claims, he would have written the report sent it up to channels for formal consideration by DOJ, and let DOJ be responsible for the decision not to prosecute. Instead, he assumed authority that's not really his, to decide what a "reasonable prosecutor" would do.
He also could have formally requested guidance from various formal DOJ bodies and offices about interpretation of the law and the intent requirement as it might apply to Clinton's conduct. He could have requested DOJ to do actual RESEARCH into past departmental practices, to uncover the dozen or so cases of similar conduct being prosecuted as knowing that the internet was able to find within about 10 minutes of his press conference crucifying, but legally exonerating, Secretary Clinton.
By doing what he did, he gave MASSIVE political cover to the compromised Attorney General and political administration.
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