IG Report (Part I) – Despite Claims to the Contrary, a Tale of Political Bias Emerges
Yesterday, June 13th, following a seventeen-month-long investigation, the Inspector General’s Report on how the FBI and the Justice Department mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server while she was Secretary of State, was finally released. In its summation, Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there was no conclusive evidence that political bias played a part in the decision not to bring charges against Mrs. Clinton, despite the fact that the report was replete with evidence of political bias on the part of senior officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Amongst its findings were:
– that FBI Director James Comey was insubordinate in his July 2016 announcement that, despite evidence of crimes committed by Mrs. Clinton, no charges would be levied against her. In doing so, Comey usurped the authority of Attorney General Loretta Lynch and stepped well outside his bounds as head of the bureau charged with investigation, as it is beyond the purview of the FBI to decide whether or not criminal charges are brought forth;
– that Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe illegally leaked documents relating to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server, as it is standard operating policy that no such leakage is allowed during an active investigation;
– that the FBI Agent in charge of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, one Peter Strzok, willfully and knowingly sat on evidence of illegal dissemination of classified information when emails containing “secret documents” appeared on a laptop computer owned by Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, who was not authorized to view such documents- clear violations of established law, and the fact that this information was also obtained by foreign operative constitutes espionage on the part of Hillary Clinton;
– that Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave the appearance of impropriety when she met with former President Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac just days before Mrs. Clinton was questioned by FBI agents, in direct violation of Justice Department policy;
– that at least five FBI agents, including Peter Strzok, expressed overt bias against Donald J. Trump, both as candidate and as President-elect, in text messages exchanged with Lisa Page, which promised to prevent his election and sabotage his subsequent presidency, and in other communiques expressing contempt for American citizens who voted for candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election;
– that former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton used private e-mail accounts, under pseudonyms to hide their identities, to communicate with each other on official business, and that James Comey also used a private e-mail account to illegally communicate with members of the mainstream media in like fashion;
– that several employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation accepted gifts of vacations, golf outings and other such forms of entertainment from members of the mainstream media, in exchange for illegal leaks of classified information, and in direct violation of bureau policies and federal law.
To suggest that politics had no bearing on the Clinton e-mail investigation is ludicrous, to say the least, given the activities of senior-level FBI and Justice Department officials charged with investigating actual crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and alleged collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia. The fact that James Comey was found to be grossly insubordinate in his announcement exonerating Hillary Clinton is also proof positive that President Donald Trump was well within his bounds to fire the FBI Director, thus disproving any charges that the new President obstructed justice in doing so.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz has yet to release the reports of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the investigation into allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign (part II) and in the use of undocumented and salacious dossiers (part III), paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, to obtain FISA warrants to surveil American citizens associate with the Trump campaign.
In these subsequent releases, Mr. Horowitz will either vouchsafe claims that he has pursued these investigations without political bias, or else confirm that he is nothing more than another part of a deep state whose aims are to sabotage the Trump presidency and cover up the crimes committed by Hillary Clinton. His due diligence in thoroughly investigating the events surrounding the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton, though commendable, does not in and of itself, prove that politics did not play a large role in both his investigation, and in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton.
While his report does suggest the illegitimacy of the circumstances under which rogue members of the FBI brought about the Mueller investigation (after all, it was James Comey who placed Peter Strzok in charge of the investigation into Russian collusion and it was Comey who leaked information to the press concerning this investigation, which resulted in the Mueller probe), we won’t know the full story about what prompted the Mueller investigation until such time as these reports are made public.
Stay tuned…it is all just beginning to hit the fan.
-Drew Nickell, 15 June 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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