“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute — it was a top-down decision”
The Senate Judiciary Committee leaders have decided to expand their investigations and take a look at the suspected improper actions taken by then Attorney General Lynch as to the Clinton email server investigations that were being conducted by the FBI under then Director Comey. Yes, he seems to be involved in this one as well with the very unusual ethical choices he made.
The inquiry by the bipartisan committee is an outgrowth of the circumstances surrounding President Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey. Comey was in charge of both the Clinton investigation as well as the probe into the possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the panel’s senior Democrat, as well as Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), the subcommittee’s senior Democrat, all sent a letter to Lynch this week requesting information. This move indicates both parties are interested in getting to the bottom of the matter
The committee, in a statement released Friday by Grassley and Graham, cited an April story by The New York Times reporting that the FBI came into possession of a batch of hacked documents. One was authored by a “Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far.” After reading that story, Grassley requested a copy of the document from the Justice Department, which he said never responded.
A month later, a major news outlet reported that an email had been sent by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), while she was chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. That email went to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundation, an international grantmaking network founded by Democratic mega-donor and businessman George Soros. In the email, it was stated that Lynch had privately assured Clinton campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI’s investigation wouldn’t “go too far.”
Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month that he had a troubling exchange with then-attorney general Lynch about the Clinton email investigation. He claimed Lynch said, “Don’t call it an investigation. Call it a matter. Just call it a matter.’’ He said the directions gave the “impression’’ that the government was aligning its work with the Clinton campaign. “It gave me a queasy feeling,’’ Comey stated.
Former FBI Director Comey said he was concerned that the communication would raise doubts about the investigation’s independence and began discussing plans to announce the end of the Clinton email investigation rather than simply referring it to the Department of Justice for a prosecutorial decision. (The Justice Department is the correct agency to determine if prosecution should go forward, not the FBI.)
A statement released by the Judicial Committee on Friday, June 23rd said, “Comey’s extraordinary action to announce the end of the investigation was a break from Justice Department protocol, and was later cited as justification (by the White House) for his removal from the FBI.”
Comey was widely criticized last year for publicly announcing in July that, although Clinton was “extremely careless” in how she handled classified information, there was no evidence that she intended to break the law and he would not seek any charges against her.
Here is the law that Director Comey did not follow:
- f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer. Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Almost everyone that heard the news conference, listening to Comey lay out what the FBI had found, came to a very different opinion than he did. He was basically saying the laws had been broken but nothing was going to be done.
Not all those at the FBI went along with Comey
“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute — it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com. A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, “It was unanimous that we all wanted Clinton’s security clearance yanked.”
“It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,” the senior FBI official told Fox News. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us.”
Besides seeking information from Lynch, the Judiciary Committee leaders wrote letters to Benardo, Renteria and Gail Scovell, the general counsel for the Open Society Foundation, seeking details about the reported emails and copies of any related documents. It also asks them whether FBI officials contacted them to investigate the alleged communications.
We will see how this shakes out, but in my mind, it seems that former Director Comey has been outside the lines for quite a while. It also appears clear that not everyone at the FBI respected his decision as much as some claim. His handling of the Clinton investigation was ham-handed and incompetent at best, or biased and corrupted at worse.
In the statement from the Judicial Committee, it reiterated that, “The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the FBI and Justice Department and is obliged to oversee any potential misconduct or inappropriate political influence at these agencies.”
