Thread by @The_War_Economy

This will be a thread about the OIG report, which is 568 pages long and titled "A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election".

justice.gov/file/1071991/d…

"... that expressed statements of hostility toward then candidate Donald Trump and statements of support for then candidate Clinton. We also identified messages that expressed opinions that were critical of the conduct and quality of the investigation."

They interviewed Comey, Lynch, Sally Yates, FBI agents and supervisors, Department attorneys and supervisors, the FBI's senior executive leadership and BILL CLINTON.

They didn't look at evidence (highly classified information) that could have been relevant to the investigation.

"But our review did not find evidence to connect the political views expressed in these messages to the specific investigative decisions that we reviewed."

"Midyear team members told us that they based this assessment on a lack of evidence showing intent to place classified information on the server."

Tarmac meeting played a role.

However, no evidence of what happened on the plane.

"We found that this interpretation of Section 793(f)(1) was consistent with the Department's historical approach in prior cases under different leadership."

141,000 e-mails were found on Weiner's laptop.

COMEY: "I don't know that I knew that [Weiner] was married to Huma Abedin at the time."

YOU'RE THE FUCKING FBI DIRECTOR

state, clintonemail and BlackBerry domain emails were found on Weiner's laptop.

NO MEMBER of the Midyear Investigation squad did ANYTHING with Weiner's laptop until October 24, and they only did so after the Weiner case agent spoke with SDNY, forcing SDNY to talk with the ODAG on October 21.

The Midyear Investigation squad KNEW that potentially classified information was on Weiner's laptop on September 29, 2016, but did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with the information.

"We did not have confidence that Strzok's decision to prioritise the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias."

"We searched for evidence that the Weiner laptop was deliberately placed on the back-burner by others in the FBI to protect Clinton, but found no evidence in emails, text messages, instant messages, or documents that suggested an improper purpose."

"We found no evidence that Comey's decision to send the October 28 letter was influenced by political preferences." [...] "... and his view that candidate Clinton was going to win the presidency..."

What.

Comey messed up by treating the Midyear Exam investigation differently to the Russia investigation and the Clinton Foundation investigation.

OIG got the text messages of FIVE FBI employees who were assigned to Midyear.

ALL FIVE were found to have brought discredit to themselves and sowed doubt about the FBI's handling of the Midyear investigation and the FBI's reputation, because they were ALL detrimental to Trump and supportive of Clinton.

"We learned during the course of our review that Comey, Strzok and Page used their personal email accounts to conduct FBI business."

Comey's use of a personal email account was inconsistent with Department policy.

"We found that Strzok used his personal email accounts for official government business on several occasions, including forwarding an email from his FBI account to his personal email account about the proposed search warrant the Midyear team was seeking on the Weiner laptop."

Page left the FBI on May 4, 2018, so an actual date there.

LEAKS.

"We identified numerous FBI employees, AT ALL LEVELS OF THE ORGANISATION and with NO OFFICIAL REASON to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters."

BRIBERY AS WELL.

"In addition, we identified instances where FBI employees improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events."

"We found that the FBI ethics officials and attorneys did not fully appreciate the potential significant implications to McCabe and the FBI from campaign donations to Dr. McCabe's campaign."

FBI ethics officials getting called out.

HOWEVER, it ALSO said "On this issue, we believe McCabe did what he was supposed to do y notifying those responsible in the FBI for ethics issues and seeking their guidance".

"With respect to these investigations, we agreed with the FBI's chief ethics official that McCabe was not at any time required to recuse under the relevant authorities".

Really?

REALLY?

"Kadzik did not recognise the appearance of a conflict that he created when he initiated an effort to obtain employment for his son with the Clinton campaign while participating in Department discussions and communications about Clinton-related matters".

OH FUCK OFF

Is there even any point in continuing?

"Lastly, because the government information in the 'Heads up' email had in fact been released publically, we did not find that Kadzik released non-public information or misused his official position."

"The 60-Day Rule is not written or described in any Department policy or regulation. Nevertheless, high-ranking Department and FBI officials acknowledged the existence of a general practice that informs Department decisions".

So we're now okay with unwritten rules?

"Several witnesses told the OIG that Page circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge".

Hence the relationship.

Wow, an actual diagram of the chain of command for the Midyear Exam.

"Proseutor 3 similarly told the OIG that EDVA's supporting role in the Midyear investigation was unusual, but he attributed this to logistics." [...] "But [the] FBI kept a pretty tight hold of the classified documents."

The Midyear core team that attended the Midyear briefings.

Comey / McCabe authorised Midyear agents to go around the prosecutors several times, and also allowed Mills and Samuelson to attend the Hillary interview.

YATES: "Although Department leadership understood the significance of the Midyear investigation, they agreed that it should be handled like any other case."

ALSO YATES: "I received more frequent updates on the Midyear investigation than on other cases."

"While McCabe attended meetings at which the Midyear agents and prosecutors debated whether and how to obtain the Mills and Samuelson laptops, the highest ranking official representing the Department's position at those meetings was Toscas."

Axelrod: "Senior Department officials made efforts to... set up a structure that would maintain the integrity of this matter."

Still calling it a matter then.

"The Midyear team also believed that some work-related emails could have been deleted from Clinton's servers before her attorneys reviewed them for production to the State Department."

The meeting between Comey and Lynch happened on September 28, 2015.

Lynch and Toscas call Comey a liar and say that him taking calling the investigation a "matter" was not an instruction at all.

"In a 'pen and pad' with reporters on October 1, 2015, Comey used the term 'matter' in response to questions about whether the FBI had opened an investigation."

It's okay to openly talk about FBI investigations if you're President Barack Obama.

LYNCH: "I never spoke to the President directly about it, because I never spoke to him about any case or investigation. He didn't speak to me about it either."

SO WHY IS OBAMA TALKING ABOUT AN OPEN FBI INVESTIGATION PUBLICLY AND ALREADY MAKING CONCLUSIONS?

EARNEST on January 29, 2016: "But, again, based on what we know from the Department of Justice, it does not seem to be headed in that direction."

NEWMAN: "I've spoken to the White House and asked them to clarify this, to make clear they have no insight into this investigation."

"Earnest told her that he had based his comments on what he had read in news stories, not conversations with anyone in the Department."

"She said that no one in the White House ever reached out to her about the Midyear investigation."

"The only interactions they had with the White House concerning the investigation were with the White House Counsel's Office to obtain a classification review of documents in a Special Access Program controlled by the White House and to interview a NSC staffer."

"However, former President Barack Obama again made public comments about the Midyear investigation in an interview with FOX News Sunday on April 10, 2016."

"She would never intentionally do anything to endanger the security of the United States with her emails." -- Obama

FBI: "We need to find all devices to locate the missing 31,830 emails!"

ALSO FBI: "However, the FBI did not seek to obtain the personal devices of State Department employees, besides Clinton..."

"None of the emails, including those that were found to contain classified information, included a hearer or footer with classification markings."

"This absence of clear classification markings played a significant role in the decision to close without prosecution."

"The FBI, with the assistance of other USIC agencies, identified '81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails that were classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time the emails were drafted on UNCLASSIFIED systems from Clinton's server."

"Twelve of the 81 classified email chains were not among the 30,490 that Clinton's lawyers had produced to the State Department, and these were all classified at the Secret or Confidential levels. Seven of the 81 email chains contained information associated with an SAP."

"The emails containing the '(C)' portion markings were part of the 30,490 that Clinton's attorneys had provided to the State Department in 2014 but the FBI did not notice them until June 2016 after the IC IG discovered them."

"The LHM also stated that the FBI identified one successful compromise of an account belonging to one of former President Clinton's staffers on a different domain within the same server former Secretary Clinton used during her tenure."

"Numerous individuals had email accounts on the Pagliano Server, including former President Clinton, former President Clinton's staff, Huma Abedin and Clinton herself."

"According to the LHM, PRN employee Paul Combetta migrated the email accounts from the Pagliano Server to the PRN server."

"The FBI learned through witness interviews that the Apple Server, in use from 2007 to March 2009, was ultimately discarded and, thus, the FBI was never able to access it for review."

"The FBI's ability to review emails on both the Pagliano and PRN servers was limited."

"FBI analysts told us that emails in the unallocated space were often fragmented and difficult to reconstruct."

"Combetta used BleachBit."

So all three servers magically had issues.

Sounds like a tremendous success of an investigation, no problems here at all.

"Clinton's office assistant told the FBI she did not recall ever receiving [the wiped laptop]".

"After Clinton's attorneys voluntarily provided the FBI the Pagliano Server pursuant to an August 7, 2015 consent agreement, the FBI discovered through its own investigation that there was a successor server - the PRN server."

"The Midyear team was never able to locate the Archive Laptop and Archive Thumb Drive, both of which, according to Hanley and others, contained a complete copy of Clinton's archived emails."

Oh, how convenient.

Case closed.

"The FBI's investigation identified a total of 13 mobiles associated with Clinton's 2 known telephone numbers which potentially were used to send emails using Clinton's clintonemail email addresses. They asked Clinton's attorneys, but they said they were unable to locate them."

"There were six laptops that Clinton's attorneys had provided the FBI early in the investigation with consent to store, but not search, and that they would have liked to search these laptops."

WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THIS INVESTIGATION

"Although the Midyear team left open the possibility of obtaining process to search the six laptops, the team ultimately never sought a search warrant."

"He told us that he would have liked to review emails between Abedin and Cooper regarding what Clinton may have said about the server. We questioned the prosecutors as to why the consent agreements were not scoped, since the Clinton server was the target of the investigation."

"We asked some FBI and Department witnesses why they did not use a filter team instead of allowing Cooper to delete his personal files. They told us that they were not concerned by the limitations in the consent agreements for the Cooper laptops, because he was cooperative."

Just shut the FBI down. It's a pointless organisation.

"The investigators determined that, in addition to their official State email accounts, Sullivan and Mills used personal Gmail accounts and Abedin used a personal Yahoo! account and her clintonemail account to conduct government business."

* 1 classified Word document in Abedin's Yahoo! account.
* 7 classified emails, 208 suspected classified emails in Mills' Gmail account.

"Neither the confirmed classified emails nor any emails to or from Clinton continued to reside in Mills's or Abedin's personal accounts."

"The FBI found Sullivan's electronic business card, which identified him as an employee fo the State Department and listed his private Gmail address."

So he's not even trying, got it.

"The FBI also had identified an unmarked email determined to contain information classified at the TOP SECRET level at the time it was forwarded by another State Department employee to Sullivan's Gmail account."

* 496 emails suspected to contain classified information.

"The FBI never made a follow-up request for a search warrant after receiving the 2703(d) returns."

"Neither the classified emails nor any emails to or from Clinton continued to reside in either account."

"There was likely no probable cause to seek a search warrant."

"Both Strzok and Anderson said that, at the outset of the investigation, former Deputy Director Giuliano generally advised the team that the purpose of the investigation was not to follow every potential lead of classified information."

... What?

"He did not remember any meaningful discussion before Oct. 2016 about obtaining the senior aides' devices, aside from the laptops used by Mills and Samuelson to cull Clinton's emails for production of her work-related emails to the State Department."

"The team did not obtain Abedin's personal laptop and Blackberry, even after she told the FBI that she gave those devices to her attorneys."

"The only reason the FBI later obtained the Weiner laptop was because 'it had ended up in our laps'."

"... showed that the Midyear team did not review all of Abedin's clintonemail emails on the server; rather, they limited their searches to her email exchanges with Clinton. This was questioned, since the focus was Clinton's server, not Clinton herself."

"Several witnesses told us that they did not seek to review all of Abedin's emails because her role was administrative in nature."

Well, case closed. Good work, Federal Bureau of Matters.

"The FBI discovered unmarked classified emails that Abedin had forwarded to Weiner. During an FBI interview on January 6, 2017, Abedin acknowledged-"

Okay, why is this interview happening after you've already closed the case again and cleared everybody?

"Attorney drafted a memo stating that review of classified materials was necessary to complete the investigation."

"The FBI never finalised the memo or received access to those classified materials."

Well done again.

Strzok and Laufman entered the interviews with Abedin, Mills, Samuelson, Sullivan and Clinton because of the enormous implications and potential consequences of the Midyear investigation in, apparently, an attempt to be independent and impartial.

That didn't work out.

Pagliano was paid to support Clinton's private email server while he was employed at the State Department.

He wasn't charged though because he was paid for work for the Clintons (Bill) and not the State Department.

State Department told him it wasn't necessary to disclose.

"Everyone assessed that Pagliano was scared but truthful."

Nobody thought to wonder why a guy who built a server was scared and asking for immunity deals and pleading the Fifth? Nobody?

"He decided not to implement Transport Layer Security between the Clinton email server and State server because at the time he understood the Clinton email server to be a personal email server and did not see a reason for encryption".

Were you lied to then?

Combetta lied to the FBI without an immunity deal in place.

"The interview was voluntary and there was no immunity agreement."

"However, he denied that PRN 'deleted or purged' Clinton's emails from the PRN server."

Combetta "jokes" that an e-mail sent on December 11, 2014 about the Hillary Coverup Operation was just a joke after he implemented the 60 day retention policy. The FBI did not speak with his colleague in the same email chain, just took Combetta's word for it.

"Both prosecutors and agents also told us that Combetta was not someone the government was interested in prosecuting given his role in the case."

Oh, okay, so NOW low level people are not relevant and can walk away free regardless of what they do.

"The prosecutors told us that Combetta's attorney had informed them in advance of the May 3 meeting that Combetta would plead the Fifth Amendment in the grand jury. They further told us they believed they had no real choice but to grant Combetta immunity."

"The guy who set up her server, the guy who panicked and deleted emails, he is really not our interest. Our interest is trying to figure out did he give us anything against her." -- James Comey

"... using BleachBit to shred any remaining copies of Clinton's email on the server, despite his awareness of Congress's preservation order and his understanding that the order meant that he should not disturb Clinton's email on the server."

It's okay, you're free to go!

"Limitations in the Consents to Search the Culling Laptops".

"The fact that Pete [Strzok] met with [Prosecutor 1] and hashed all this out and capitulated really pisses me off."

"OMG. I'm so defeated. Why do I bother?"

"Comey told the OIG that he told Yates in April 2016 that the closer they got to the political conventions, the more likely he would be to insist that a special counsel be appointed."

"We did not find evidence that Comey ever seriously considered doing this."

On May 11, 2016, during the culling laptop saga, the FBI had already decided that the investigation was headed toward a declination and they did not think the laptops would change their views on this.

Interestingly, on May 16, that was when a draft was getting written...

This whole section is based on the idea that Strzok and Page are denying any bias was involved in theirs and Comey's decision to try and finish the Midyear Exam investigation before the election.

Despite Strzok being condemned for bias.