Washington is still buzzing about and fighting over the Inspector General report regarding the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal, the findings of which have inflamed both political parties. Amid the furor, the woman whose misconduct set the probe into motion -- precipitated by a counterintelligence referral from the intelligence community Inspector General to the FBI in 2015 -- decided to wade into the noise to troll former FBI Director James Comey. Mr. Comey (whose own reaction to the IG's conclusions is here) gets upbraided for insubordination and rogue decision making in the DOJ watchdog's conclusions. That assessment also unearthed this tidbit, which is laden with irony:
IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 14, 2018
In response, Mrs. Clinton retweeted this item, adding a snarky note, delighting her fans and going viral:
But my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018
While it's amusing context that Comey appears to have broken protocol by discussing some FBI business on his personal email account -- and yes, it is gratifying to see such a self-righteous character repeatedly and formally called out for his arrogance -- Hillary's sarcastic, implied equivalency is characteristically clumsy and dishonest. "But my emails" might be a more compelling clapback if Comey had:
(1) Set up a rules-violating, secret, woefully-unsecure, national security-compromising email server in his basement, then lying about the reasons for doing so.
(2) Disseminated thousands of classified emails through that server, including some top secret communications, featuring highly sensitive government secrets -- including missives about negotiations with Iran and North Korea's nuclear program.
(3) Ordered the permanent deletion of tens of thousands of those emails after the existence of the server was publicly reported -- swearing up and down that none of the destroyed emails were work-related (which are subject to public records laws), a claim that was repeatedly proven to be a lie.
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(4) Flagrantly lied that the server contained no classified material, eventually leaning on a dishonest distinction between "marked" and "unmarked" classification (the "at the time" caveat was also a lie) -- which wasn't even true anyway, leading to another ludicrous (if unprovable) lie:
In other words, we know Clinton lied during the interview, but we couldn't prove it. pic.twitter.com/eTdQB80c1F
— Jason Beale (@jabeale) June 14, 2018
Her lazy, glib comparison fails spectacularly. Her conduct was easily tantamount to unlawful gross negligence, regardless of whether criminal intent could be divined (the relevant statute does not require intent as a component for prosecution). But Hillary's pre-meditated, calculated decision to set up a scrutiny-free, outside-the-system email scheme, her after-the-fact destruction of evidence and wiping of devices, and her numerous 'false exculpatory statements' are ample proof of intent. She should have been charged. Her obvious lack of contrition is galling, and only reinforces the cosmic justice of her electoral loss. She will no doubt cite portions of the IG report as vindication (she has some legitimate beefs), further blaming Comey and the FBI for her defeat. But the Democratic Party willfully nominated someone under FBI investigation (on two fronts) due to her own brazen misconduct. The one person on earth who is far and away most responsible for Hillary Clinton's 2016 failure is Hillary Clinton. Also, by the way, please note these important clarifications of the widely-repeated Inspector General finding that 'no bias' could be proven to have impacted official FBI actions in the Clinton probe:
Here's the problem - it's messy. While the IG found no evidence that bias affected the *specific* investigative actions reviewed pre-July 2016, he *does not* have confidence that the delay in reviewing the Weiner laptop emails was "free from bias." https://t.co/iyhYoZ4oL8
— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) June 15, 2018
Laura is 100% correct. Anyone reporting that the IG report clears the FBI of any accusations of political bias are ignoring the post-July 2016 section where the Weiner laptop emerges. https://t.co/eBj7tEcc7S
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 15, 2018
I'll leave you with this snippet from the Inspector General, in which a lead FBI investigator in both the Hillary/email and Trump/Russia cases -- who'd discussed 'stopping' a Donald Trump victory and developing an "insurance policy" in case he won -- debated whether it would be worth joining Robert Mueller's team (he ultimately did, before Mueller kicked him off over the internal emergence of these text messages):
My God, cont'd. Does this not indicate that the Russia investigation was an effort to "fix" an undesirable outcome at the ballot box, at least in the minds of two leading investigators on the case? pic.twitter.com/p7SBLZu9Go
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 14, 2018
The "unfinished business" and "fix it and finish it" bits are clearly problematic, but pay attention to that very last line. In lamenting that an investigation may not produce enough evidence to trigger impeachment, Strzok (who'd been chasing the Russia matter for roughly a year at that point, mind you) confesses that his "gut sense and concern" is that there's no "big there there." That seems...notable, doesn't it? One more parting thought: How is Peter Strzok still on the payroll?
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