The OIG Report os over 600 pages and I have neither the time nor the interest (my CCW class is later this morning) to read the whole thing. Andy McCarthy does have several serious columns on the topic this week.
The Ethos of Law Enforcement
It has become a refrain among defenders of the FBI and Justice Department that critics are trying to destroy these vital institutions. In point of fact, these agencies are doing yeoman’s work destroying themselves — much to the chagrin of those of us who spent much of our professional lives proudly carrying out their mission.
The problem is not the existence of miscreants; they are an inevitable part of the human condition, from which no institution of any size will ever be immune. The challenge today is the ethos of law-enforcement. You see it in texts expressing disdain for lawmakers; in the above-it-all contempt for legislative oversight; in arrogant flouting of the Gang of Eight disclosure process for sensitive intelligence (because the FBI’s top-tier unilaterally decides when Bureau activities are “too sensitive” to discuss); in rogue threats to turn the government’s law-enforcement powers against Congress; and in the imperious self-perception of a would-be fourth branch of government, insulated from and unaccountable to the others — including its actual executive-branch superiors.
I have been reading some of the OIG Report and here is an interesting section:
FBI case agents and the SSA told us, and contemporaneous emails show,
that they believed that interviewing Mills and Samuelson regarding the culling
process and searching the culling laptops were essential investigative steps.
“Culling” refers to the deleting of Clinton e-mails from her server, which were alleged to be ” personal.”
They stated that they hoped to be able to find the full 62,320 emails that were originally
reviewed by Mills and Samuelson to determine whether any additional emails—
beyond those that Clinton’s attorneys provided to the State Department and those
that the FBI found through other sources—contained classified information. They
further stated that they believed the culling process might have been flawed.
Prosecutor 1 told us that the Midyear team did not have an investigative need to interview
Samuelson concerning her time at State.
Wilkinson also represented two other witnesses, a former senior State Department official
and Jake Sullivan. According to emails we reviewed, Wilkinson agreed to provide the former senior
State Department official for an interview, but at first refused to provide Sullivan, although she
acknowledged that Sullivan never had an attorney-client relationship with Clinton. On January 14,
2016, the prosecutors prepared a memorandum requesting authorization to notify Wilkinson that the
Department was prepared to issue a grand jury subpoena for Sullivan’s testimony, as well as
authorization to issue the grand jury subpoena if Wilkinson continued to object. On January 18, 2016,
Toscas emailed Laufman approving both requests. Wilkinson ultimately agreed to provide Sullivan for
a voluntary interview, which took place on February 27, 2016.
Because their other reconstruction efforts had revealed a significant number of work
related emails to or from Clinton that had not been included in the State
Department production. Strzok told us that the FBI investigators hoped that asking
questions about the culling process and reviewing the culling laptops would help
determine why this was the case and whether there was a nefarious purpose. For
example, several FBI witnesses stated that they believed that asking questions
about the culling process might help them determine why Abedin’s emails were
underrepresented in the State IG production.
FBI witnesses told us that once Wilkinson refused to voluntarily provide her
clients for interviews and the culling laptops, they believed it was appropriate and
in the interest of efficiency to subpoena Mills and Samuelson before the grand jury
and seek a search warrant to seize the culling laptops from Wilkinson’s office. The
FBI witnesses stated that even if a judge ultimately were to quash a subpoena or
decide that there was no probable cause to issue a search warrant, it was the FBI’s
obligation to at least try to obtain what they believed to be critical potential sources
of evidence.
None of this happened.
Careerism may be as major as “bias” – this is an FBI run by a gloryhound and a department of justice run by sycophants who sought to curry favor with the woman (the picture of careerism, who has never shown integrity in any choice) they were sure would become their boss. She was sure to judge them on their willingness to betray any values still left in their hollow, bureaucratic lives. Careerism and a missing sense of a real, humbling, inspiring mission & a real honest sense of humility at the power a free people has granted its government led to a choice of political view that is in itself elitist, with little imagination, policies notable for their lack of success but high level of paternalism and graft. Projection is a pretty big part of their contempt for the hoi polloi.
Your example gives fuel to the many responses today:”and she’s going to get away with it, again”.
I forgot to say thanks for reading through and finding such charming excerpts.
Do they have a course at Quantico on how to turn evidence that is as clear as the nose on your face into a pretzel? This clown Horowitz is just Comey without the blatant self-righteousness. No evidence of bias? I hope he’s prepared for an unpleasant week, because I doubt he gets a pass from the POS’s in the Congress who represent the POS’s in flyover country.
“hoped that asking questions about the culling process and reviewing the culling laptops would help determine why this was the case and whether there was a nefarious purpose.”
Those of us who have ever had to handle classified material know the purpose doesn’t matter. If you become aware there is classified material on your unclassified system, you notify your security officer and then you do nothing else. You step away from the keyboard and hope they confirm it was an unforeseeable accident and that your career isn’t over. You don’t try to “fix it” by deleting the material. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in prison, that is. But then, we also know you’re not supposed to stuff papers in your socks and walk out of a SCIF, either.
That being said, we also know that the big chiefs don’t go down for this sort of thing. There are programs that tens, even hundreds, of thousands of little people have worked on for decades that have never been leaked, because no Capitol Hill trash have found out and thought there was political advantage to be gained by doing so.
PS. I’m reminded of when Petraeus went down. It seemed he got off too lightly also. But of course now it is obvious that those who whispered that the story of how it was discovered didn’t make sense were right, and that the jackals in the IC in the Obama administration were even then spying on their political opponents.
” I’m reminded of when Petraeus went down.”
That was so minor as to lead one to think this is a nightmare and we will awaken soon.
Mike K: Trust me, to those of us who have ever had TS/SCI clearances, what he did wasn’t “minor”. But yes compared to what she did, it was utterly trivial. I do think that the only explanation for how he was found out is that he was being spied on, my guess is by the same “contractors” who were doing NSA searches on Team Trump until Mike Rogers cut them off, leading to the FISA spying.
IG Horowitz did not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations. His report is strictly “just the facts ma’am”. US Attorney John Huber is assigned to examine the IG report for criminal violations. Huber has the hammer.
Brian wrote: “… we also know that the big chiefs don’t go down for this sort of thing.”
Sad, but true. I have come to the conclusion that the Rule of Law is the most important element in a society. Equality of application of the law is much more important than democracy. In the long run, Hillary free to walk the streets and Strozak still on the taxpayers’ teat is much more corrosive of society than even an opioid epidemic. (After all, thanks to the English and their Opium Wars, China in the later 1800s had a massive opioid problem ”¦ and look at where England & China are today).
How do we get back to a society with equal application of the law? Is that a challenge which is too great for democracy to handle?
. I do think that the only explanation for how he was found out is that he was being spied on,
Yes, good point. His disclosure was to his mistress who also had a TS clearance but no need to know.
I had TS long ago.
We know that the FBI has been infiltrated in the past by foreign intelligence agencies. Christopher Steele was a foreign spy after all. We can’t rule out that the FBI had been protecting Hillary and attacking Trump on orders from foreign governments.
How good is Huber?
re: Huber:
1. Picked by Sessions to investigate the FISA abuse and related issues.
2. Not located in DC or NY.
3. NO LEAKS.
So there is at least a chance he’s a good guy.
We can’t rule out that the FBI had been protecting Hillary and attacking Trump on orders from foreign governments.
Robert Hanssen was a long term Russian spy in the FBI.
It’s not impossible. I think it more likely that we have a Kim Philby-like situation, where CIA and MI6 minds think alike.
They are dismissive of us plebes who are not in on the secrets.
I would not be surprised to learn that the FSB concocted the “Steele Dossier.”
The Russians were having fun messing with American society, stirring up Black Lives Matter, for example.
I think there is no chance they wanted Trump to win but nobody thought he could. Including me.
They were just messing with the American left, which they have done successfully for decades.
The Steele “dossier” was made up crap to justify the FISA spying, after Admiral Rogers cut off their NSA access. The conspirators also appear to have had MI6 help. International lefties have way more in common with each other than they do with their nominal countrymen who think differently.
Is there a chance that Comey showed the material to Trump for the same reason Hoover kept such secrets – hoping Trump would resign or be in his thrall? Blackmail has to be closer to the truth to work, but given these jerks’ projections, etc., they might have thought it was. Or figured the Brit/Russian connections were honest? And I still don’t understand why McCabe didn’t recuse himself (or be recused by a superior) of anything to do with Flynn.
And Brian’s right about international lefties = and that goes back a century.
Ginny,
I think it’s pretty well established that none of the news outlets would run the Steele dossier story because there was no corroboration. Clapper then got Comey to tell Trump about it, probably conning him by telling him Trump should know what was being passed around DC. After that, Clapper called CNN and let them know they could run the dossier story because Comey had provided the “hook” by briefing Trump. Clapper now works for CNN.
I’d heard that, it just seemed in the tradition of having something over another and Comey seemed just the man to tell someone he could kill the story.
I think they honestly thought they could force Trump to quit or be impeached in the first few months. They took out Flynn, got Sessions to recuse and got Mueller appointed, and then tried to force Sessions out. There is no doubt that McCain, Corker, etc. would have gladly helped pressure him out.
I’m curious if the Russia IG report will talk about the DNC “hacking” and the BS job the FBI did to “verify” it. That’s really the peg that the whole stupid story has always hung on.
I’m curious if the Russia IG report will talk about the DNC “hacking” and the BS job the FBI did to “verify” it.
That would get too close to the Seth Rich murder and that could open a big can of worms.
The DNC “hack” was done the same way Bradley/Chelsea Manning did it
A thumb drive.
I’m still hoping some day we find out why the GW medical resident was barred from ICU when Rich, still alive, was admitted.
Maybe it was a bit like the Jim Treacher hit and run, where the State Dept security service lied and tried to blame Treacher, accusing him of jay walking by falsifying the location where he was hit.
One last thing: I’m told by multiple people that the SUV that hit me was Secret Service. If this is true, I want to know why that happened. I was crossing legally, and they just left me there. At the very least, I want an apology. What happened to me was wrong.
UPDATE 2:05pm:
The Daily Caller has been told by federal law enforcement sources that the Secret Service was not involved, and is working to confirm that driver of the vehicle which struck Jim Treacher was a State Department security employee.
The Spectator started an American version, with comments. After the Skripal poisoning they had an article about the incident and I, only half joking, commented ‘that it was the DNC cleaning up’. There’s a Steele connection eh’.
I was kinda freaked out when they shut down that comment section immediately, and have since shut them all down. ;)
“The Russians were having fun messing with American society”….there does seem to be a Trickster spirit in some Russian operations. Khrushchev, when discussing the plan to put Soviet missiles in Cuba with his associates, said “Let’s throw a hedgehog down Uncle Sam’s pants”
Ginny and Mrs. Davis
I’ve read some speculation that I find credible that Comey may have been going for a two-fer when briefing Trump on the Steele Dossier. Obviously the blackmail implications are there but I’ve also heard that Trump was very interested in having the ‘pee-pee party’ allegation discredited because he thought it would upset Melina greatly. So I can see where Comey might have used the briefing to also bootstrap Trump’s approval of the Russian collusion investigation already ongoing by claiming to be able to discredit that rumor. This also ties in to his firing because his inability to perform that was another thing Trump was mad about.
The golden shower didn’t come out till after the Comey briefing.
The Strzok offer to testify before Congress is interesting. I suspect he thinks he is smarter than he is.
Trey Gowdy was more alert than he has been in a while this morning.
Long ago when the world was new, before I became a Peace Officer, I worked for a while for a private security firm that had a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency. My job required a Secret clearance. Not much but I had the training on handling classified material and signed a metric butt-load [476.96 liters] of documents explaining the various violations that would have me either imitating the Spook in the old Wizard of Id cartoon, or left forever in an oubliette. There was no wiggle room. Apparently, unless you are politically connected.
My assignment allowed me to know the general field that the client company was working on, and yes it deserved classification at the highest level. All my clearance and assignment involved was a couple of external building checks a night, a report of when I made them [assuming I found nothing], and dropping off that report in a sealed envelope on the empty secretary’s desk in the outermost lobby [which is as far as I had access to]. One night, there was something else on the desk. A “to: from:” label paperclipped to a computer flow chart. It had been a long time since I studied programming, but it looked like a fire-control program. I reported it. The “from” person it turns out had made a poor career path decision. The paperwork wasn’t stamped with a classification stamp, but it should have been and should not have been left there. The “from:”, despite a much higher rank, paid a price. And such was the determination of the Security folk at DLA.
It is obvious that the FBI at all levels [remember, no one at lower levels has objected to what has been happening] and probably all levels of Federal Intel and LEA’s are totally politicized and not bound by law, the Constitution, or anything but political power. They ensure that our nation’s secrets are given to our enemies if it serves their short term political advantage. There is no rule of law operating that citizens can count on to protect them or to restrain those in power.
It is clear that not only are the Federal agencies corrupt, they are openly in the pay of the media as a matter of course by their own admission and Federal judges charged with oversight of the most sensitive intelligence matters are in the pay of the Federal agencies.
With a Congress that postures but refuses to act, those of us not in the self-defined Elites are victims of what appears to be part of “a long train of abuses and usurpations”.
If the Federales are not somehow brought under the law and punished as harshly as a mere citizen would be for the same crimes, this is going to get very unpleasant and out of anyone’s control.
I’m unsure about the Strzok story as well. It has seemed that the only explanation for why he’s still at the FBI is that he is cooperating with the IG, and still has use to them. McCabe was fired because he is a target. Page was kept around for a while, then dismissed presumably because her usefulness was over. But he’s Strzok is still being kept close, because he was obviously at the center of things. So the fact that he’s now saying he wants to testify means what? I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see…
So the fact that he’s now saying he wants to testify means what? I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see”¦
Maybe he is going to flip on McCabe. He could use the old Nuremberg defense. “It was orders.”
I think he is going to have a hard time trying to wriggle out from the hole he has dug,
So it seems like Strzok has been fired, hence breaking his silence. Hmmm….
Gavin:
P.J. O’Roarke came to much the same conclusion in Eat The Rich, in which he examines 5 basket cases and 5 relative success stories, and attempts to define what made them what they are. Rule of Law was one of his two criteria for success.
It’s not his best work (which is still Parliament of Whores) but it’s his second or third best and well worth the read (the challenger for 2nd is Give War A Chance).