Thread by @JohnWHuber

Some problems with the @FBI narrative on how it handled the discovery of CLINTON emails on Anthony Weiners laptop

MCABE and COMEY knew in early October / late September

Neither did anything til late Oct

Then magically discovered a way to avoid reading all the emails

THREAD

I'm going to piece this together from just two sources. The @JusticeOIG report and @Comey own book, "A Higher Loyalty"

First, FBI Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of New York Office WILLIAM SWEENEY is told about the discovery of huge numbers of Clinton emails on Weiners laptop on Sep 28 2016

He immediately tells FBI Deputy Director MCCABE, in charge of the Mid Year Exam Clinton email case

SWEENEY also tells other senior FBI leadership (two EAD's) one of whom tells the OIG under oath that they also informed MCCABE about the Clinton/Weiner emails. In his mind, there was "no doubt" MCCABE immediately "understood the gravity of what the find was"

COMEY writes in his book that MCCABE told him "in passing" about the Weiner laptop in "early Oct"

He says the same thing to the IG, conceding it could also have been "late Sep"

So: MCCABE understood the "gravity of the find", informs COMEY *straight away*, but only "in passing"

Then literally NOTHING happens for **TWENTY ONE DAYS**

That's not an opinion: the IG could find "no evidence" - ZERO - that anything happened between Oct 4-24 either by the Mid Year Exam team or anyone in FBI leadership, inc MCABE & COMEY

FBI New York then escalate to DOJ

Only after the DOJ escalation, MCCABE emails COMEY at the crack of dawn on Oct 27 asking him to meet with the Mid Year Exam Team

MCCABE doesn't even attend that meeting because he's "out of town" (in the IG's words)

That actually means: LONDON 🇬🇧

Yes: despite knowing the "gravity of the find" of Clinton emails for weeks, he bails to probably do something on Trump/Russia instead

https://twitter.com/johnwhuber/status/999401435078057984?s=21

At that Oct 27 meeting @Comey is told the Weiner laptop contains "hundreds of thousands of [Clinton domain] emails"

And that there is "no chance" a review of them can be completed before the election

No chance: from MYE team who have already had to review many Clinton emails

Shortly after this @Comey sends his letter to Congress effectively re-opening the Clinton email case, igniting a media/political firestorm

Now here comes the mysterious technical wizardry. @Comey checks in with the team every day and finds they have suddenly made a "huge breakthrough"

FBI "wizards" found a way to "de-duplicate" the emails

This means the FBI "didn't need to read hundreds of thousands of emails"

PETER STRZOK (who wants to "stop" Trump from becoming President remember) may be the source of this. He tells the IG the same story

Note, nobody actually says what this "wizardry" is. Or explains why it could be done now but not on any of the other Clinton emails months ago

🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨

FBI documentary evidence ("the FBI analysis of the [email] review") says "[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the EMAILS COULD NOT BE COMPLETELY, AUTOMATICALLY DE-DUPLICATED"

And the number of Clinton emails the FBI "assessed" may be as low as only *3,077*

I've read every page of the IG report. Unless I missed it, I couldn't find any explanation for this discrepancy.

STRZOK SAYS "amazing things" de-duplicated the emails

FBI DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE says the emails couldn't be completely de-duplicated

Huh 🤔

SUMMARY

How did 317,000 emails go to only 3,077? What *evidence* is there of unique "wizardry" discovered just at the time when FBI needed a quick solution?

And how many of the Weiner laptop emails were actually read by the FBI?

Someone should ask @JusticeOIG on Mon 18

/ENDS