Althouse: "I was not certain I was right about those things at the time. That’s the nature of hard decisions; they don’t allow for certainty."

June 15, 2018

"I was not certain I was right about those things at the time. That’s the nature of hard decisions; they don’t allow for certainty."

"With the added benefit of hindsight, the inspector general sees some things differently. My team believed the damage of concealing the reopening of our investigation would have been catastrophic to the institution. The inspector general weighs it differently, and that’s O.K., even though I respectfully disagree."

Writes James Comey in "This Report Says I Was Wrong. But That’s Good for the F.B.I." (NYT).

71 comments:

Matt Sablan said...: Why is the media focused on the Comey statements and not the bribery, intimidation and perjury? Comey's insubordination is getting way more play and focus in the media than the actual breaking news. We knew he broke protocol. This isn't news.; 6/15/18, 6:28 AM
Ken B said...: He was certain enough to hide his intent from his bosses. He was certain enough to have made up his mind before collecting the evidence. He was certain enough to still be certain.; 6/15/18, 6:28 AM
Temujin said...: Sometimes a person doesn't know when he's turned into a bizarre version of his former self. It can happen so gradually that one might not notice it. And when surrounded by sycophantic employees, the bizarre version of yourself gets approval over and over again. Shown to the world, that person gets shocked to find out that they appear to be crazy.

Comey is crazy. But I don't think he's evil. John Brennan is evil. James Clapper is evil.; 6/15/18, 6:30 AM
Matt Sablan said...: Also. It wouldn't have been a hard decision if he hadn't compromised the investigation from the start and if the FBI hadn't sat on the laptop for a month. There was no reason to close the investigation when he did given principal actors had been lying to investigators and destroying evidence. Comey was in a dilemma of his own making and earns no sympathy.; 6/15/18, 6:30 AM
Curious George said...: "Comey is crazy. But I don't think he's evil. John Brennan is evil. James Clapper is evil."

No, Comey is evil too. All deserve to put up against a wall and shot.; 6/15/18, 6:36 AM
Darrell said...: The confession doesn't fit the evidence of the crime. Hillary's felonies were evident.

1. With the new law in place at the start of the Obama administration, all work emails had to be on a gov't server. Having a private server is a felony, and prosecutors could make a case for a separate felony for every email on that server, especially for a great number of them.

2. Every classified email on a private server is at least one felony. You can make a mishandling argument that add additional felony charges.

3. Stripping "classified" headers off a classified message is a felony.

4. Letting people without a security clearance view classified messages is a felony.

5. Destroying emails ordered by a court to be turned over is a felony.

Etc. How many emails in total passed through Hillary's private server? That's a lot of felonies. Might be a US record number.

Comey's explanation ignores all of the above. His reopening of the case got Anthony Weiner's laptop away from the NYC police. Recall that all the emails--or a great number of them--were backed up on that laptop. The FBI was concerned about leaks from the NYC police or copying of the hard drive.; 6/15/18, 6:39 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Comey is trying to distract. He announced the reopening of an investigation that was phony to begin with.
His so-called investigation was a way to cover up and exonerate Hillary. They thought they had put the whole private server issue to bed until Weiner's laptop surfaced and they had to scramble to deal with that. Comey's re-opening announcement was to further cover for Hillary and to protect himself. Comey made his decision believing, like most everyone else, that Hillary had a lock on the election.

A Modified Limited Hangout is what this is.; 6/15/18, 6:46 AM
David Begley said...: Comey, “My team made it look like we conducted a legit investigation of Crooked Hillary but it was a complete sham. We point shaved the investigation. We obstructed Justice.”; 6/15/18, 6:48 AM
Matt Sablan said...: One interesting point is according to the IG report, even Comey felt his team wasn't being aggressive enough. A theme running through the report is lack of follow through by the investigation and direct orders to limit the scope. That's more telling than a lot of other stuff there. Whenever given a choice between play hardball and give Clinton's team a pass, the team have them a pass. Compare that approach with the same players' approach in other investigations and it doesn't add up.; 6/15/18, 6:48 AM
Matt Sablan said...: From the beginning by the way, the FBI added the non existent intent standard. Combined with instructions to not look too closely or follow leads. Add on a limp twisted deferential prosecution that decided before hand there'd be no charges and this is what you get.; 6/15/18, 6:52 AM
Steve said...: What sort of supervision existed in regard to the bribery, leaking, political atmosphere in the FBI. If no one monitored and punished employees for that ongoing misbehavior, then you should imagine it was supported by the upper levels whether or not there exists express support for the misbehavior. These are all intelligent and capable people, so if they ignore misbehavior it is because they are comfortable with it.; 6/15/18, 6:54 AM
Hagar said...: I do not think James Comey was "insubordinate. I think Loretta Lynch refused to play, but agreed to stay quiet if not provoked, and they (the White House) made do with Comey, and "mistakes were made" in the hustle, as the saying goes.; 6/15/18, 6:58 AM
Paco Wové said...: Comey sure got that response written and published fast. In the NYT no less.; 6/15/18, 6:58 AM
Ray - SoCal said...: But my email?

- Hillary; 6/15/18, 7:31 AM
gilbar said...: "With the new law in place at the start of the Obama administration,"

Yeah? Well; Colin Powell did it too!! If a republican, back at the turn of the century, violated a law that wasn't written yet; how could you prosecute Hillary when she something far worse years after it was?
Besides! She 'didn't have intent!'
AND! She did have intent to Ruin ANYONE In Her Way!; 6/15/18, 7:36 AM
MadisonMan said...: even though I respectfully disagree

Ugh. What does that word 'respectfully' add? Nothing.

Ban useless adverbs.

Hillary's tweet shows a remarkable lack of self-awareness. Surprisingly. (eyeroll); 6/15/18, 7:43 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: Actually, I don't think Comey is wrong here. There was no good solution, given what Comey had done at his press conference in the summer and the fallout in Congress.

I plan to spend some time with the report's analysis of the prosecutorial conclusions about Clinton. Based on the under-informed stories I have read and the Executive Summary, I don't understand how Team Clinton got away with this (33,000 emails deleted after notice to preserve; failure to seize and analyze staff computers; excused because materials weren't marked confidential--I thought they had "C" marks indicating confidentiality). I am surprised that the DOJ and the FBI swallowed the lame "dog ate my homework" excuses of Team Clinton, and Strzok's lame excuses and non-explanations of his worst tweets seem to have bamboozled the OIG in this investigation. I think the details of the report may be quite damning, whatever the Executive Summary and Conclusions say.

I went through too many exercises in corporate training (diversity, anyone?) to believe that training will do much fundamental good at the FBI. They'll change their attitude about text messaging for a while. They need to hire different people at headquarters.; 6/15/18, 8:02 AM
Sebastian said...: "It wouldn't have been a hard decision if he hadn't compromised the investigation from the start and if the FBI hadn't sat on the laptop for a month."

This. The real tell was the delay. Of course, Comey carefully avoids the issue. The IG report makes he clear he and McCabe both knew a month before. He is lying even now.

There was no good investigative or prosecutorial reason for it.

The only reason for the delay was to run out the clock, avoid embarrassing Hill and O, and cover everything up after she won.

The only reason for reopening the investigation was that a whistleblower was about to expose their shenanigans.

The whole episode shows how all participants' blatant political bias blatantly biased their decisions, refuting the IG's own conclusion that there was no evidence of such bias.; 6/15/18, 8:05 AM
Darrell said...: Comey--You fucked up!! You trusted me.; 6/15/18, 8:24 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "Based on the under-informed stories I have read and the Executive Summary, I don't understand how Team Clinton got away with this."

-- According to the report, because Obama said nothing was done, they had pressure to find that. In addition, Clinton's team intimidated them, they were given instructions not to follow leads, and from the start of the investigation were told they needed to prove intent (something the statute DOES NOT require.); 6/15/18, 8:29 AM
narayanan said...: "Sometimes a person doesn't know when he's turned into a bizarre version of his former self."

I don't see a character devolution in Comey - he has been truly incompetent all along - well suited for power plays and ass licking
.
recall his teenage story on this blog where he framed the wrong guy even though his kid-brother was able to change his identification of the culprit.; 6/15/18, 8:35 AM
Matt Sablan said...: Correction: Obama said nothing illegal was done. Basically, the report says the investigators felt pressure to not go counter to what Obama said, which poisoned the investigation from the start.; 6/15/18, 8:36 AM
William said...: I thought it was the President's job to make the hard decisions. The fact that this decision wasn't referred to the President is itself evidence of bias.; 6/15/18, 8:47 AM
William said...: The FBI under Hoover was biased against Communists and Black Panthers. Therefore, Communists and Black Panthers were innocent.; 6/15/18, 8:50 AM
Kevin said...: The motto of the Obama Administration was “E pluribus nothing happened.”; 6/15/18, 8:51 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Crazy Comey still doesn't get it. But that's ok.

His Hillary whitewash inadvertently sunk her.

The Trump frame up failed too - thank you Wisc, Mich and Penn.

Hillary is still not President.

The last remaining threads are:

1) Mueller - who can't prove collusion (except for 13 Russian internet trolls) and now has been blunted by the IG Report on the Comey obstruction charge.

2) Cohen - the fixer, who probably cleaned up several messes for Trump, but none related to the 2016 campaign.

3) Huber - who is making Brennan and Clapper sweat.

So far, it's IG 2, Mueller 0

The drama continues.; 6/15/18, 8:57 AM
Ambrose said...: I did not read Comey's column but I thought it was telling that NYT handed him the platform to rebut - almost pre-rebut - the IG report.; 6/15/18, 9:12 AM
Derek Kite said...: Coney was put into an impossible situation. He couldn't proceed with a Clinton indictment. He was the good little boy doing what he was told. Except it stuck in his craw, so he did what every passive aggressive weasel does. He got his way.

What did Obama expect would happen?

I blame the passive aggressive weasel in chief.; 6/15/18, 9:12 AM
William said...: My study of the movies leads me to believe that attractive people meet and fall in love while investigating serial murderers. Apparently, there's a variant of this dynamic at play in the FBI. Agents meet and fall in love while investigating Trump.......We need another Weinstein with the courage and ability to make movies of these star crossed lovers. I'm not sure if this is rom com material, but, if so, there's a part for Sandra Bullock. Perhaps they should do it as a procedural. I'm thinking Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro, but maybe they're a little too old. Perhaps Ashley Judd and Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey could bring out the comic potential in this material......In retrospect, it's regrettable that Comey didn't fall in line with long established FBI ethos and fall in love during his tenure as FBI chief. His investigation would not have been altered nor in any way diminished if he had been carrying on a clandestine affair with Valerie Jarret or Loretta Lynch.; 6/15/18, 9:41 AM
Kevin said...: Obama says Hillary’s server didn’t pose a national security problem: How dare you question the FBI’s ability to handle the case!

Trump says he hopes Comey can find it possible to take it easy on Flynn: OMG! Special counsel required!; 6/15/18, 9:44 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: "I do not think James Comey was "insubordinate. I think Loretta Lynch refused to play, but agreed to stay quiet if not provoked, and they (the White House) made do with Comey, and "mistakes were made" in the hustle, as the saying goes."

My view is that the FBI, to some extent, was caught between a rock and a hard place. The DoJ was not going to cooperate with the FBI, and they weren't going to prosecute Crooked Hillary. Period. The fix was in, and there were orders from the top - in this case, the public ones were from President Obama telling them that Clinton hadn't done anything wrong. Very likely, ValJar was much more explicit in private. Supporting Clinton here in her WH bid, was part of the deal that put Obama in the WH. Covering for her transgressions was part of that deal. They knew what she was doing, when she was doing it, and turned a blind eye to it, because another part of the deal that had bought Clinton support for Obama was giving her the State Dept for his first term as her private fiefdom, to monetize as she thought appropriate. And, even if the could have otherwise turned against her in 2016, there were those pesky emails between Clinton and Obama using fake credentials on his part and not his official account, which showed that he knew that she was operating illegally, and was doing so himself.; 6/15/18, 9:44 AM
Kevin said...: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair; 6/15/18, 9:49 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: William said...
In retrospect, it's regrettable that Comey didn't fall in line with long established FBI ethos and fall in love during his tenure as FBI chief.

Ah, but he did! He fell in love with his mental image of James Comey!; 6/15/18, 9:58 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Comey was in love with himself, but in bed with Hillary.; 6/15/18, 10:05 AM
James K said...: It wouldn't have been a hard decision if he hadn't compromised the investigation from the start and if the FBI hadn't sat on the laptop for a month.

As I understand it, they would have sat on it longer (till after the election), but the NYPD was threatening to go public. So Comey had to reveal it, pretend to look into it, and then clear her a few days later.; 6/15/18, 10:15 AM
Christopher said...: He's a narcissist. He's the hero in his own story and therefore will never admit that he fucked up. To do so would destroy his whole worldview.

Be prepared for him to spend the rest of his life trying to justify his actions.

But he's pulled this shit for years and it's only caught up with him now because of the whole Trump circus.; 6/15/18, 10:20 AM
Kevin said...: “BREAKING: IG report found that on numerous occasions, James Comey used a personal Gmail account to conduct official FBI business”; 6/15/18, 10:26 AM
Leland said...: Let's just remember that everyone involved in the Hillary email investigation was given immunity to testify, and then nobody saw the inside of a courtroom. The investigation of Trump still doesn't have a clear crime associated with it, and nobody is being offered immunity, and a few are receiving constant threats of jail for process crimes that dubious on their face, before considering that they have nothing to do with the original claim for the investigation.

It's time to quit accepting the fix was in for Hillary, and the lawfare on Trump is just part of the game.; 6/15/18, 10:35 AM
etbass said...: Given her reputation as a mean, vindictive bitch, plus the liklihood of her becoming POTUS, plus the improper pronouncements of her innocence by Obama, one can understand why in such an unprecedented situation, Comey might lean toward giving Clinton a pass. The ones I can't excuse are those who took action to prevent Trump from taking office.; 6/15/18, 10:35 AM
Matt Sablan said...: “BREAKING: IG report found that on numerous occasions, James Comey used a personal Gmail account to conduct official FBI business”

-- If by breaking, they mean, Hillary Clinton already revenge tweeted this fact yesterday, then yes. Breaking. Just another reason he was the wrong guy for the investigation.; 6/15/18, 10:41 AM
James K said...: There is a sense in which Comey hurt Hillary: By failing to recommend her indictment in July 2016, he left her in place to suffer a humiliating defeat at the polls.; 6/15/18, 10:45 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: "The FBI under Comey was a ship of fools. And cost Clinton the election" by Jill Abrahamson.

She's a leftwinger, but she gets one important thing right. Money quote:

First came his terrible decision to denounce Clinton’s carelessness despite his bureau’s conclusion that she did not deserve to be indicted in the email case. That was a departure from prosecutorial practice, where legal norms call for public silence when there are no charges. On this serious misstep the report states, “It was extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to do so,” and the inspector general added, “and we found none of his reasons to a persuasive basis for deviating from well-established department policies in a way intentionally designed to avoid supervision by department leadership.”

She misses, though, the more substantive point about the DOJ/FBI's biased, concerted effort to whitewash the Hillary case. But, hey, broken clock syndrome.; 6/15/18, 10:52 AM
Matt Sablan said...: Bay Area Guy: Exactly. I'm dumbfounded by the focus on Comey's big mouth. That's not new. It was one of the litany of reasons he was fired.

You'd think journalists would be focusing on the NEW things found out. That these NEW things might new NEWsworthy. Instead of rehashing old talking points.; 6/15/18, 10:57 AM
etbass said...: The Clintons did themselves in. BJ's meeting with Lynch that was not supposed to be known, Clinton's use of the private server, her aide, Huma's husband's laptop, all drove Comey to his decision. The Clintons have no one to blame but themselves and it is so satisfying to see the bad guys lose.; 6/15/18, 11:29 AM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: Comey fucked up big time. He ignored advisors who told him not to give Congress a heads up about Clinton being reinvestigated, he didn’t think it would leak? Oh please. He also erred in not then revealing that trump was also under investigation. Had couldn’t have helped Trump more. The one thing that was a good decision on Trump’s part, was to fire him. Trump was lucky that Comey was such a fuck up, that allowed him to get the “relief” from the FBI investigation he was so worried about at that time...or so he thought.; 6/15/18, 11:55 AM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “The Clintons did themselves in. BJ's meeting with Lynch that was not supposed to be known, Clinton's use of the private server, her aide, Huma's husband's laptop, all drove Comey to his decision. The Clintons have no one to blame but themselves and it is so satisfying to see the bad guys lose.”
————————————
“We found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the (email) investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussion during their tarmac meeting.”

IG Horowitz
————————————
How did the Clintons lose here? It looks like they got away with it.; 6/15/18, 12:00 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Inga sez: "The one thing that was a good decision on Trump’s part, was to fire him."

I agree. But isn't that the basis of the "obstruction of justice" charge by Mueller?

My view is that firing Comey was both a good decision and constitutionally permissible. Therefore, I think the Mueller inquiry on this issue is totally bogus.; 6/15/18, 12:01 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Amadeus 48 wrote:

"I am surprised that the DOJ and the FBI swallowed the lame "dog ate my homework" excuses of Team Clinton, and Strzok's lame excuses and non-explanations of his worst tweets seem to have bamboozled the OIG in this investigation."

There are two parts here I want to delve into:

(1) The report details in excruciating fine print that the FBI and DoJ swallowed the lame "dog ate my homework" excuses because that is what the leadership at the DoJ wanted, and that the underlings doing the work understood this implicitly. However, without documentary evidence outlining this desire on the part of Obama/Lynch/Yates/Comey/McCabe, or testimony directly saying they got these orders to conduct a fake investigation, Horowitz can't state it so in the report. Remember back to the McCabe report- Horowitz demonstrates conclusively that McCabe gave answers in several interviews that are contradictory to each other and contradictory to Page's texts, and yet Horowitz never once stated McCabe lied to investigators because that isn't Horowitz's job.

(2) Again, Horowitz can't prove Strzok was lying in his explanations about the texts- all Horowitz can do here is let Strzok make his argument and let the readers draw their own conclusions. It would be up the a US Attorney with grand jury power to delve into the veracity of Strzok's explanations.; 6/15/18, 12:05 PM
Tom said...: Was it a tough decision to use a personal gmail account to sent office business emails? I'm sure that was excruciating.

I'd say the IG report is defense exhibit A if Trump is indicted for obstruction for firing Comey.; 6/15/18, 12:11 PM
Yancey Ward said...: As I wrote very, very early this morning: the IG report makes it clear that Comey knew the existence of the Weiner laptop and its contents in late September- the same day that McCabe knew of it. Comey had carefully concealed this in his public statements after the election, and apparently no one in Congress was smart enough to ask him the direct question when he appeared for sworn testimony (I have been going over transcripts this morning, and have come up empty). At no point, other than in the IG investigation, did Comey admit that he knew of the laptop a month before he sent the letter to Congress, and 5 weeks before he took any action to investigate the contents. One of Comey's excuses for the lack of action is that he "didn't know Weiner was married to Huma Abedin". That explanation is shocking- either Comey is simply lying, or he is a fucking ignoramus.; 6/15/18, 12:14 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "Had [I assume this is meant to be "He"] couldn’t have helped Trump more."

-- Yes he could have.

"Trump was lucky that Comey was such a fuck up, that allowed him to get the “relief” from the FBI investigation he was so worried about at that time...or so he thought."

-- He specifically told Comey, and everyone after Comey, to continue the investigation.

These two statements show the problem with the left: complete ignorance of reality.; 6/15/18, 12:20 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "That explanation is shocking- either Comey is simply lying, or he is a fucking ignoramus."

-- Embrace the power of And... wait, that doesn't work here...; 6/15/18, 12:21 PM
Achilles said...: Matthew Sablan said...
Why is the media focused on the Comey statements and not the bribery, intimidation and perjury? Comey's insubordination is getting way more play and focus in the media than the actual breaking news. We knew he broke protocol. This isn't news.

Obvious question.

Obvious answer.

They have to keep idiot lefties focused on the right things.

Focusing on leftist corruption of our institutions and obvious partisanship of the FBI/DOJ doesn't help leftists gain more power over other people.; 6/15/18, 12:22 PM
Achilles said...: Inga said...

“We found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the (email) investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussion during their tarmac meeting.”

IG Horowitz
————————————
How did the Clintons lose here? It looks like they got away with it.

It certainly gave cover for amoral soulless losers to keep supporting the democrat party for sure.

But every decent human in this country knows exactly what Lynch and Clinton talked about.

Everyone knows both Clintons and Obama belong in jail now.

But some of us are willing to destroy the rule of law in order to get more power over other people.

i.e. democrats.; 6/15/18, 12:26 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Can one imagine how different the October presidential debates might have been if the public knew about the Weiner laptop in late September? That 4 week gap where nothing was done speaks volumes to anyone with two brain cells. The goal is blatantly obvious- cover up the laptop's existence until after the election, if not forever. This worked until someone threatened to go public a couple of weeks before the election. Even after Comey's letter to Congress, he still did nothing with the laptop's contents for almost another week- only under pressure from Clinton's supporters did the DoJ finally get a court order to examine what has been claimed to be hundreds of thousands of e-mails, all examined in 3 days we are told.

And all this time, Comey has let people think it was McCabe alone in the FBI hierarchy who knew about the laptop, and that his decision to reopen was some sort of tortured event made under a tight, tight deadline.; 6/15/18, 12:28 PM
Achilles said...: Inga said...
Comey fucked up big time. He ignored advisors who told him not to give Congress a heads up about Clinton being reinvestigated, he didn’t think it would leak? Oh please. He also erred in not then revealing that trump was also under investigation. Had couldn’t have helped Trump more. The one thing that was a good decision on Trump’s part, was to fire him. Trump was lucky that Comey was such a fuck up, that allowed him to get the “relief” from the FBI investigation he was so worried about at that time...or so he thought.

Inga doesn't know the difference between a criminal investigation and a counter intelligence investigation.

Then she in ignorance spouts stupidity.

Another day ending in Y.; 6/15/18, 12:28 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Comey sent the letter to Congress, it is now clear, because the laptop couldn't be kept secret any longer than he had already done. It would have been far worse for Clinton if the laptop had been revealed by a whistleblower- far worse. The FBI and the DoJ officials would then have had to either confirm the story or deny it, and denying it doesn't seem even remotely likely to work since the story itself would have been true.; 6/15/18, 12:42 PM
Yancey Ward said...: And, I will remind Inga, that the Trump investigation wasn't kept secret- the Obama Administration leaked about it repeatedly to the media under stories attributed to "law enforcement and intelligence sources". Now, I wonder who those sources were. I think there is a good chance we will eventually find out given the IG's report.; 6/15/18, 12:44 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: It does not matter what sort of investigation. A counterintelligence investigation is every bit as much concerning, especially if the person under investigation or their campaign is running for PRESIDENT.

What is wrong with you?; 6/15/18, 12:52 PM
Jim at said...: The Trump frame up failed too - thank you Wisc, Mich and Penn.

Be sure to thank the voters in those states who voted third party.; 6/15/18, 1:25 PM
Real American said...: part of the political calculation that infiltrated all of these characters' thinking - Comey, McAbe, Strzok, Page and others - was the politics of assuming (more or less) that Clinton would win. They believed Trump was so far out of bounds that "of course, he can't win." As such, the entire purpose of the investigation was to clear Hillary, but make it look like they were thorough. Comey so much admitted it to the IG - he wanted to make sure Hillary was seen as legitimate after she was elected - and he took it upon himself to make sure that was the take. That's why he held that ridiculous press conference and sent that letter.

Now, we see more clearly that the entire investigation was a joke. The FBI gave Clinton every benefit of the doubt and every accommodation they could. They figured, at least until the very end, that Clinton would win easily and they'd need to do what they could to keep their jobs. That was a political calculation. Even if it wasn't explicitly "help Hillary win" bias, it was "Help Hillary because she's going to be our boss" bias.

What it wasn't was their job.; 6/15/18, 1:50 PM
rcocean said...: As shown by his behavior toward Trump, Lynch, and before that Bush's AG, Comey has an ego problem and is insubordinate. For some odd reason, he doesn't feel the rules apply to him when he thinks the situation demands it.; 6/15/18, 3:40 PM
Yancey Ward said...: The really striking thing about the report is this- there isn't a single piece of documentary evidence presented in it that shows the e-mail investigation was anything other than a predetermined exercise right from the start- not a single piece of evidence.; 6/15/18, 4:56 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I mean, even the Clinton supporters in the investigation seemed to believe they weren't doing anything other than finding a publicly palatable way to exonerate her. This comes through over and over and over in the text messages- they all knew the investigation was a fraud- all of them.; 6/15/18, 5:08 PM
etbass said...: “We found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the (email) investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussion during their tarmac meeting.”

IG Horowitz

One would have to be a complete fool to believe that Bill Clinton would fly into Phoenix, arrive at the very same tarmac as Lynch's plane, just decide casually to stroll over and chat about grands, golf and the hot Phoenix weather. They hardly knew each other. Of course, what they talked cannot be proven as both have most powerful incentive to deny any impropriety and there were no recordings. But the timing, the utter unlikelihood of such a chance meeting, even the prolongation of the meeting that made Lynch so nervous, all shout out its real nature. (Lynch knew that others, outside their hearing would be questioned about the length of the conversation at least.) But it took more than a moment for Clinton to 'splain to Lynch the upsides and downsides of her handling of the e-mail "matter."

There is no intelligent person on the planet who could believe their account of that conversation.; 6/15/18, 5:23 PM
walter said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/18, 6:47 PM
walter said...: Paco Wové said...Comey sure got that response written and published fast. In the NYT no less.
--
Yeah..he's efficient that way..like pre-writing Hil's exoneration.
And re the emails in the reopened case..that amazingly efficient process they used to determine no there there.
I love Wray's framing as if Comey had simply gone a bit astray..including honest mistakes stuff, not following policy etc.
Gives us hope that should we find ourselves under the FBI's scrutiny, the same sort of understanding will be afforded us.
It's also comforting to see Bill Clinton's new doting grandfather phase so strong that he's willing to interrupt travel plans..even on a tarmac.
He's come so far.; 6/15/18, 6:52 PM
Gk1 said...: Now that we know and have complete corroboration the FBI investigation of the Hillary emails was a farce can the DOJ now reopen it and do it properly? Half of the country doesn't think the "matter" is closed and the FBI will never be seen as a serious agency again if it doesn't reopen an investigation now know what we know. What is Sessions waiting for? Or did he recuse himself from this too?; 6/15/18, 7:11 PM
Matt Sablan said...: We really can't. Too much of the evidence is lost or compromised. Nothing is happening to them. Accept it. There might be consequences for lying to the FBI but I doubt that too.; 6/15/18, 7:48 PM
Michael K said...: Everybody, except a few leftist foos, know this was a double setup.

One wing was to hush up all the evidence of Hillary's crimes.

The other was to punish Trump (nobody thought he could win) to intimidate any Republican who would dare lift his head after this whipping in public.

The FBI criminals never dreamed they would be exposed by a Hillary loss.

I just hope that Utah USA is ready for this.; 6/15/18, 9:22 PM
Rusty said...: Blogger Derek Kite said...
"Coney was put into an impossible situation. He couldn't proceed with a Clinton indictment. He was the good little boy doing what he was told. Except it stuck in his craw, so he did what every passive aggressive weasel does. He got his way.

What did Obama expect would happen?

I blame the passive aggressive weasel in chief.

6/15/18, 9:12 AM"

He always could have walked away.; 6/16/18, 7:49 AM