IG Report: FBI Agents Bribed by Journalists to Leak Information
Well, the report from the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is here. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and ex-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were placed under the microscope for their activities during the 2016 election, namely the Hillary Clinton email probe and the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Katie and Guy broke down the major nuggets of the report, notably how Mr. Comey went way outside the protocol during the Clinton email probe. The IG report also noted that the arguments for why the ex-FBI chief informed Congress on October 28, 2016, that the FBI would be essentially rebooting the email probe after new emails were found on Huma Abedin’s laptop, Abedin is a top Clinton aide, were unpersuasive.
In that final chapter of the email saga, it was later determined that Abedin and Anthony Weiner, her convicted sexual predator husband, shared the device. Weiner was being investigated on a separate matter concerning inappropriate communications with a minor.
So, Democrats have yet another reason to hate James Comey. Mr. McCabe’s recusal from the Clinton probes on November 1, 2016 was seen as not an absolute requirement, but something that was the right course of action. He did not honor the recusal at times, but we already know he lied to investigators three times during a leak investigation. A leak that McCabe instigated, telling The Wall Street Journal that there were tensions between the DOJ and FBI over the Clinton Foundation probe. The infamous tarmac meeting that occurred days before James Comey’s July 5 presser between Lynch and former President Bill Clinton that tainted the email probe yielded nothing new in this report. There’s no evidence to suggest that anything else, besides golf and grandkids, was discussed.
Yet, the texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page did not go unnoticed. The two were having an extramarital affair, sending each other tens of thousands of texts. They were anti-Trump in nature of course. The latest nugget from these texts is that Strzok explicitly told Page that they would stop Trump from becoming president. In all, the report found that five agents of the FBI, including Strzok and Page, should be referred for disciplinary action for careless use of government property to communicate their personal opinions:
The conduct of the five FBI employees described in sections A, B, and C of this Chapter has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI. As described in Chapter Five, our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed in Chapter Five. Nonetheless, the conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the FBI Midyear investigation and sowed doubt the FBI’s work on, and its handling of, the Midyear investigation. Moreover, the damage caused by their actions extends far beyond the scope of the Midyear investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence.
(Read more from “IG Report: FBI Agents Bribed by Journalists to Leak Information” HERE)
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