What we covered here
- The Justice Department’s Inspector General released its 568-page report into the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
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The Clinton email report is out
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The Clinton email report was released today. Here's how it went down
The Department of Justice Inspector General released a highly anticipated report today on DOJ and FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
The inspector general found that former FBI Director James Comey’s actions in the email investigation were “extraordinary and insubordinate” and flouted the department’s norms but that Comey was not motivated by political bias.
Here’s everything you need to know about the report:
- No evidence of political bias: The IG found no evidence that prosecutors were affected by bias.
- The FBI’s actions: The inspector general found that FBI’s actions ultimately “cast a cloud” over the bureau and senior leaders did lasting damage to the FBI’s reputation.
- The text messages: The report also included newly found text messages between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok. In a message on Aug. 8, 2016, Page says, Trump’s “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok replies: “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
- The Clinton-Lynch meeting: The report faults former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her meeting with Bill Clinton on a Phoenix airport tarmac. But it says there was no evidence that Lynch and Clinton discussed the investigation into Hillary Clinton or any other inappropriate discussions.
- Comey’s personal email: The report found that Comey used a personal Gmail account for official government business when he was the FBI director.
FBI director says the bureau's "brand is doing just fine" after months of controversy
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray says he’s well aware of the recent criticism surrounding the FBI, but added the bureau’s brand is “doing just fine.”
“There’s no shortage of opinions about us out there,” he said in response to a CNN reporter’s question asking if its reputation has suffered. “I will tell you the opinions that I care the most about are the opinions of the people who actually really know us and know us through our work.”
Wray said despite the criticism, the FBI’s admission rates remain high and thousands of prospective agents have continued to apply to join the bureau.
Attacks on our character will not deter us from protecting Americans, FBI organization says
Thomas O’Connor, president of the FBI Agents Association, defended the bureau’s agents, saying the Inspector General’s report shows the investigation was not biased.
“It shows that agents perform their duties with a focus on complying with the law and the Constitution,” he said in a statement. “We support, as always, the bureau reviewing and utilizing its policies and disciplinary processes to help ensure that we remain the world’s premier law enforcement organization.”
FBI Director Wray: I take this report "very seriously"
FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at a news conference, outlined steps the law enforcement agency will take as result of the findings in the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s report.
“I take this report seriously and we accept its findings and recommendations. It’s also important to note what the Inspector General did not find,” he said.
“This report did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations actually impacting the investigation under review.”
The report, however, identified “errors of judgment, violations of or disregard for policy, and decisions that, at the very least, in hindsight, were not the best choices,” Wray said.
“The OIG’s report makes clear we have work to do but let’s also be clear on the scope of this report,” he said.
Because of that, he said the FBI will enforce these measures:
- All employees will be held accountable for any misconduct.
- Ensure all FBI employees understand “the lessons of this report.” Employees will be trained on what went wrong so mistakes aren’t repeated.
- Policies, procedures and training will be created to the ensure employees remain objective and avoid “the appearance of personal conflicts and political bias.”
Hillary Clinton on Comey's personal email usage: "But my emails"
Hillary Clinton has weighed in on today’s news that fired FBI Director James Comey used a personal Gmail account for official government business while FBI director, after leading the investigation into the Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, as the Justice Department’s inspector general said Thursday.
Her comment to all that?
“But my emails.”
Loretta Lynch: Report proves I had no political bias in Clinton email investigation
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Inspector General’s report proves her actions surrounding the Clinton email investigation “had no political motivation or bias.”
“The report outlines how I, along with the career prosecutors I oversaw at DOJ, did everything we could to handle a sensitive probe in a highly politicized environment in a way that was non-partisan, impartial, and fair,” she said in a statement. “I’m also grateful that the report outlines for the American people the in-depth legal analysis and investigative work done by the outstanding team.
Lynch’s actions in the Clinton email probe raised some eyebrows after she privately met with former President Bill Clinton for roughly 30 minutes on a tarmac in Arizona.
As time has passed, Lynch has said she regretted the encounter, but she never formally recused herself from the investigation – instead saying she would accept the recommendations of career Justice Department staff and the FBI.
Trump "swung and missed" if he thought he could use the report to stop Mueller's probe, Schumer says
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a news conference on the Justice Department’s Inspector General findings, said “anyone hoping to use this report to undermine” Robert Mueller’s investigation “will be disappointed.”
He said if the President was planning to use this to take down the investigation, he “swung and missed.”
How the IG report handled emoji and emoticons
The Inspector General explained that emojis, emoticons and other formatting symbols were omitted from the report — “unless they affected the meaning of the text message.”
For example, in instant messages exchanged between Agent 1 and Agent 5 on page 411, the +o( emoticon appears.
The report explains in a footnote on the same page that this represents the “sick face” emoticon, which in emoji language is this one: 😷.
Here’s the excerpt from the report:
After the letter was sent by the FBI to Congress on October 28, Agent 1 sent a series of instant messages to other FBI employees about the reactivation of the Midyear investigation.
Beginning at 1:46 p.m., Agent 1 exchanged the following messages with Agent 5. The sender of each message is identified after the timestamp.
1:46 p.m., Agent 5: “jesus christ… Trump: Glad FBI is fixing ‘horrible mistake’ on clinton emails… for fuck’s sake.”
1:47 p.m., Agent 5: “the fuck’s sake part was me, the rest was Trump.”
1:49 p.m., Agent 1: “Not sure if Trump or the fifth floor is worse…”
1:49 p.m., Agent 5: “I’m so sick of both…”
1:50 p.m., Agent 5: “+o( TRUMP”
1:50 p.m., Agent 5: “+o( Fifth floor”
1:50 p.m., Agent 5: “+o( FBI”
1:50 p.m., Agent 5: “+o( Average American public”
James Comey wanted special counsel for the Clinton email investigation
Former FBI Director James Comey wanted then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel to oversee the Clinton email investigation, according to the the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report.
Comey was also concerned about the appearance of political bias as the Justice Department considered throughout 2016 announcing they would close the investigation without bringing charges. Federal investigators had realized a full year before the 2016 presidential election that they were unlikely to find the evidence for a case, the report said.
In addition, the FBI had collected classified information in early 2016 that alleged Lynch tried to hurt the investigation – but the allegations weren’t credible, Comey and several other witnesses told the inspector general. (See this May 2017 story for context.)
Comey raised the possibility with several top Justice Department officials, but a special counsel ultimately wasn’t appointed.
Still, Comey’s concerns about the public appearance of Lynch played into his decision to make a public statement about the investigation without clearing what he would say with Lynch.
Andrew McCabe "did what he was supposed to do" on recusal, report says
The Department of Justice watchdog examined whether former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe “should have recused himself from the Clinton email server and Clinton Foundation investigations” earlier than Nov. 1, 2016 — based on any conflicts of interest he may have had due to his wife’s 2015 state senate campaign in Virginia and campaign donations she received.
The Inspector General concluded that McCabe “was not required to recuse himself” from the Clinton investigations because the possible conflict only became an issue after the press covered it in October, 2016.
FBI ethics officials should have considered “potential significant implications” of McCabe’s wife’s campaign, the IG found.
The DOJ IG found 3 instances that McCabe participated in matters involving the Clinton Foundation investigation, violating his recusal: Emails about new Wall Street Journal stories, which made him “angry.” McCabe told investigators those conversations involved leaks, not the content of the investigation.
5 FBI employees sent messages that raised concerns of bias, report says
The Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report reveals that three more FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation sent messages over official FBI channels that also “raised concerns of potential bias.”
The texts from the three officials, who are unnamed, come on top of the politically-loaded Peter Strzok and Lisa Page text messages that have been previously disclosed:
- Two Clinton investigation team members, referred to only as Agent 1 and Agent 5, “expressed support for Clinton and hostility toward Trump” in messages, the report says. Agent 1 was one of the two agents that interviewed Clinton as part of the email investigation. The two agents are married, the report says.
- One FBI employee, referred to only as FBI Attorney 2, who also later served on the FBI’s investigation into Russian election interference and later on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, wrote messages “that discussed political issues,” the report says. “Most of these exchanges appeared to be jokes or attempts at humor, often involving Trump,” the report says. Attorney 2 left the Mueller investigation and returned to the FBI in late February 2018, shortly after the IG provided Mueller with some of the messages that were found, the report says.
The report slams the three unnamed employees and Strzok and Page for having “brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI.” But the IG ultimately finds that there is no evidence directly connecting the bias in the messages to the decisions made in the Clinton email investigation that it reviewed.
The IG says they referred the messages to the FBI to consider whether the five employees violated the bureau’s code of conduct.
Some prosecutors upset Comey was informing Congress about Anthony Weiner's laptop, report says
Prosecutors with knowledge of Hillary Clinton emails seemed angered that former FBI Director James Comey was informing Congress about the Anthony Weiner laptop and thought the search was not likely relevant to the email investigation’s conclusions.
Prosecutors said they disagreed with Comey’s decision to notify Congress on October 28. One called the decision “totally nuts,” and that prosecutor along with others told the inspector general they thought it was unlikely the search of Weiner’s laptop would turn up anything that would change the investigation.
“Like, of course Huma has other emails,” one unnamed prosecutor said. “Like, how is this a game changer?”
FBI counterintelligence official David Laufman said “the entire CES team found the notification ‘highly objectionable.’” And both Laufman and another prosecutor opposed to Comey’s October 28 letter said based on how the Clinton investigation had gone and their prior review of Huma Abedin messages made it unlikely that Weiner’s laptop would affect the midyear investigation’s results.
White House: FBI texts "point out a political bias"
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was just asked about the FBI texts cited in the new IG report.
“This points out the political bias that the President has been talking about, and I have repeatedly been mentioning on behalf of this administration that we found to be a huge problem and I am glad they are taking a look at it,” Sanders said.
About the texts: A newly released text message exchange between disgraced FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Strzok says “We’ll stop” Trump from becoming president, according to the IG report.
The Aug. 8, 2016 message exchange went like this:
Inspector General criticizes Comey for using personal email for FBI business
Former FBI Director James Comey used a personal Gmail account for official government business when he was the FBI director, according to the Inspector General’s report, which cites five examples, including times he sent himself drafts of a testimony he planned to deliver to Congress and drafts of bureau-wide updates he planned to send to mark milestones during the year.
The use of the personal email account is “inconsistent” with Department of Justice policy, given a lack of “exigent circumstances and the frequency” at which the use occurred, the report says.
Asked by IG investigators if he had any concerns about conducting FBI business on his personal device and account, “Comey stated that he did not,” the report says.
“Because it was incidental and I was always making sure that the work got forwarded to the government account to either my own account or [FBI chief of staff James Rybicki], so I wasn’t worried from a record-keeping perspective and it was, because there will always be a copy of it in the FBI system and I wasn’t doing classified work there, so I wasn’t concerned about that,” Comey told investigators, according to the report.
Comey further explained that he did not use his personal email or laptop for classified or sensitive information, and only did “when I needed to word process an unclassified [document] that was going to be disseminated broadly, [such as a] public speech or public email to the whole organization,” the report says.
Other examples cited in the report include emails Comey forwarded from his unclassified FBI account to his personal account containing corrections to a newspaper article he had sent to bureau officials, and proposed responses to requests for information from a federal agency.
"Error in judgement" for Loretta Lynch to meet Bill Clinton, report says
The inspector general criticized former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s judgment regarding the controversial June 2016 tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton.
The 20-minute meeting on a hot tarmac in Phoenix was days before Hillary Clinton’s interview with the FBI regarding the email investigation, which Lynch was overseeing at the Justice Department.
The Inspector General found:
White House: The report "reaffirmed the President's suspicions" about Comey
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the newly released Justice Department Inspector General report “reaffirmed the President’s suspicions” on Former FBI Director James Comey.
Analysis: Report show FBI leaders "dropped the ball"
The newly released Inspector General’s report shows that there was “complete incompetence” on the part of the FBI’s leadership when it came to its handling of the email investigation, CNN’s Evan Perez noted.
He said some FBI officials had long known about the hundreds of thousands of emails on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop before former FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress in late October saying they’re going to look at them, he said.
He continued: “They had no idea that people underneath them were not doing the work they were supposed to be doing.”
People in the FBI, he said, wondered why they were sitting on the information and not doing something about it.
“Perhaps this could have been wrapped up a month before and that perhaps changed the course of history,” Perez said.
Here's what Andrew McCabe's lawyer says about the report
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s attorney says the newly released report “exonerates Mr. McCabe of any charges of bias or improper influence” — but it also “erroneously” blames him for a delay in email handling.
The Inspector General report assesses the actions of a number of key players and events, including McCabe’s response to the discovery of new emails found on Weiner’s laptop.
Here’s part of the statement from McCabe’s lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich:
Comey: "The conclusions are reasonable, even though I disagree with some"
Former FBI Director James Comey, who is a major focus of the IG report, just tweeted that he doesn’t agree with all the conclusions in this report:
This tweet mirrors what he wrote for the New York Times as well. You can read that here.
New text message shows FBI official telling another: "We'll stop" Trump from becoming president
Asked about the message, Peter Strzok told OIG investigators that “he did not specifically recall sending it, but that he believed that it was intended to reassure Lisa Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation,” according to the report.
Strzok also told investigators that “he did not take any steps to try to affect the outcome of the presidential election, in either the Midyear investigation or the Russia investigation,” the report says.
He added that if he had in fact wanted to prevent Trump from winning the election, he and the FBI in general would not have kept confidential the bureau’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign in the months before the election, the report says.
Page mirrored Strzok’s response in an interview with OIG investigators, according to the report, saying that the FBI’s decision to keep the Russia investigation confidential “shows that they did not take steps to impact the outcome of the election.”
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