{"id":12840,"date":"2018-12-10T13:26:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T18:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=12840"},"modified":"2018-12-10T13:44:13","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T18:44:13","slug":"latest-debacles-prove-need-for-sweeping-fbi-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/10\/latest-debacles-prove-need-for-sweeping-fbi-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Debacles Prove Need for Sweeping FBI Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Former FBI chief James Comey told a congressional committee last Friday:\u00a0 “Anybody that thinks we were on team Clinton trying to cut her a break is smoking something.” But the Justice Department Inspector General report proved that Comey and his FBI colleagues kowtowed shamelessly to the Clinton machine. The FBI’s perversion of justice in the Clinton case is further proof that a sweeping investigation of the FBI is long overdue.<\/p>\n

Future of Freedom Foundation<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

The Latest Debacle Proves the Need for a Sweeping FBI Investigation<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>

The reputation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took another pummeling in June, when the Department of Justice Inspector General released a damning report on the FBI\u2019s investigation of Hillary Clinton\u2019s squirrely email server. Americans learned that the FBI had done backflips to exonerate Clinton and that a top FBI official had openly promised to \u201cstop\u201d Donald Trump from becoming president. The IG report proves that it is time for a sweeping independent investigation of the FBI\u2019s abuses of Americans\u2019 rights and liberties.<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s investigation of Clinton was spurred by her decision to set up a private server to handle her email during her four years as Secretary of State. The server in a bathroom of her Chappaqua, New York, mansion was insecure and exposed emails with classified information to detection by foreign sources and others.<\/p>\n

Clinton effectively exempted herself from the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The State Department simply ignored 17 pre-2014 FOIA requests for Clinton\u2019s emails. State delayed for more than five years answering a simple request from the Associated Press for Clinton\u2019s schedules and meetings. The agency insisted that it would require 75 years to disclose emails of Hillary\u2019s top aides. A federal judge and the agency\u2019s Inspector General slammed the FOIA stonewalling and foot-dragging.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s private email server was not publicly disclosed until she received a congressional subpoena in 2015. A few months later, the FBI Counterintelligence Division opened a criminal investigation examining the \u201cpotential unauthorized storage of classified information on an unauthorized system,\u201d as one agent declared. The IG report recaps how Attorney General Loretta Lynch swayed FBI Director James Comey to mislead the public by denying that a criminal investigation involving Hillary Clinton had commenced; instead, it was referred to simply as a \u201cmatter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

The \u201cinvestigation\u201d (1)<\/b><\/section>\n
 <\/p>\n

The IG report gives the impression that the FBI treated Hillary Clinton and her coterie like royalty \u2014 or at least like personages deserving endless deference. When Bleachbit software or hammers were used to destroy email evidence under congressional subpoena, the FBI treated it as a harmless error. The IG report \u201cquestioned whether the use of a subpoena or search warrant might have encouraged Clinton, her lawyers \u2026 or others to search harder for the missing devices [containing email], or ensured that they were being honest that they could not find them.\u201d Instead, FBI agents worked on \u201crapport building\u201d with Clinton aides.<\/p>\n

The report noted, \u201cWe found [Paul Combetta\u2019s] actions in deleting Clinton\u2019s emails in violation of a Congressional subpoena and preservation order and then lying about it to the FBI to be particularly serious. We asked the prosecutors why they chose to grant him immunity instead of charging him with obstruction of justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1505, or making false statements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1001\u2026. [They] believed prosecuting Combetta would not \u2018serve a federal interest.\u2019\u201d This was one of many twists in the investigation vivifying that truth was not a \u201cfederal interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

FBI investigators even shrugged off brazen deceit. An unnamed FBI agent on the case (identified in the report as \u201cAgent 1\u201d) responded to a fellow FBI agent who asked how an interview went with a witness who worked with the Clintons at their Chappaqua residence: \u201cAwesome. Lied his ass off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility] at res [residence], to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic.\u201d When his colleague replied that it \u201cwould be funny if he was the only guy charged n this deal,\u201d Agent 1 replied, \u201caint no one gonna do sh\u2013\u201d with respect to filing charges.<\/p>\n

A top FBI agent groused that, from the beginning, the Clinton investigation showed \u201cno control and horrible decisions and chaos on the most meaningless thing I\u2019ve ever done with people acting like f*** 9\/11.\u201d Four months later, he groused about \u201calot of work and bullsh\u2013 for a political exercise.\u201d He later messaged colleagues about \u201ca sh\u2013ty task, in a sh\u2013ty environment. To look for something conjured in a place where you cant find it, for a case that doesnt matter and is predestined\u2026. DOJ comes in there every once in awhile and takes a wishy-washy, political, cowardice stance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) complained that FBI investigators treated Clinton and her associates far more leniently than they have Trump campaign officials: \u201cVoluntariness and consent in the former were replaced with search warrants, subpoenas, and other compulsory processes in the latter. Many of the investigators and supervisors were the same in both investigations but the investigatory tactics were not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI apparently failed to make any audio or video recordings of its interviews with Clinton aides and staffers. Perhaps the most frequent phrase in the IG report is \u201cAccording to the FD-302 \u2026\u201d This refers to the memo an FBI agent writes after interviewing targets or witnesses in an investigation. Relying on Form 302s (instead of recording interviews) maximizes the discretion of FBI officials, allowing them to frame issues or create a narrative or buttress charges of lying to a federal agent. FBI officials have been accused of using 302s to fabricate evidence of criminal wrongdoing. (The FBI\u2019s refusal to tape-record interviews or confessions is increasingly harming its credibility with juries, partly explaining the sharp fall in the number of FBI referrals that produce convictions.)<\/p>\n

The \u201cinvestigation\u201d (2)<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The FBI waited until the end of the investigation to interview Clinton and had decided to absolve her \u201cabsent a confession from Clinton,\u201d the IG report noted. There was no recording and no transcript; instead, a 302 report allowed FBI Director James Comey to proceed with the pre-ordained \u201cnot guilty\u201d finding. Clinton had received numerous classified emails (some of which were marked with a \u201cC\u201d) on her private email server. The IG report notes, \u201cAccording to the FD-302 from Clinton\u2019s interview, Clinton told the FBI that she did not know what the \u2018(C)\u2019 meant and \u2018speculated it was a reference to paragraphs ranked in alphabetical order.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The IG noted, \u201cWitnesses told us, and contemporaneous emails show, that the FBI and Department officials who attended Clinton\u2019s interview found that her claim that she did not understand the significance of the \u2018(C)\u2019 marking strained credulity. [FBI] Agent 1 stated, \u2018I filed that in the bucket of hard to impossible to believe.\u2019\u201d Comey told IG investigators that \u201cby her demeanor, she was credible and open and all that kind of stuff.\u201d But a video recording of the showdown would have been invaluable to Americans who doubted Clinton and the FBI. One of the FBI agents who interviewed Clinton texted to a colleague afterwards that he was \u201cdone interviewing the President,\u201d as if the FBI assumed her election was a foregone conclusion. Prior to the interview, Lisa Page, a top FBI attorney texted her colleagues, \u201cShe might be our next president. The last thing you need [is] us going in there loaded for bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IG report deals briefly with a kerfuffle over the FOIA release of Clinton Foundation documents a week before the 2016 election. Regrettably, the IG overlooked the FBI\u2019s horrendous record on FOIA compliance; even former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe now bewails that the FBI is a perpetual FOIA violator. A federal judge slammed the agency for claiming it would require 17 years to fulfill a FOIA request on surveillance of anti-war activists in the 1960s. The FBI also makes ludicrous redactions to FOIA releases \u2014 such as deleting the names of Clark Kent and Lois Lane from a theatrical adaptation of Superman<\/i> because disclosing them would \u201cconstitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-Trump texts spurred the IG to refer five FBI employees to the FBI for possible disciplinary penalties. \u201cWe\u2019ll stop\u201d Donald Trump from becoming president, lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok texted his mistress\/girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in August 2016. One FBI agent labeled Trump supporters as \u201cretarded\u201d and declared \u201cI\u2019m with her\u201d [Hillary Clinton]. Another FBI employee texted that \u201cTrump\u2019s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.\u201d One FBI lawyer texted that he was \u201cdevastated\u201d by Trump\u2019s election and declared \u201cViva la Resistance!\u201d and \u201cI never really liked the Republic anyway.\u201d The same person was the \u201cprimary FBI attorney assigned to [the Russian election-interference] investigation beginning in early 2017,\u201d the IG noted.<\/p>\n

A real investigation<\/b><\/p>\n

The IG report shows how unjustified secrecy and arbitrary power helped ravage the credibility of Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign and the FBI, and it spurred predictable demands that the FBI must behave in a strictly nonpartisan manner. That is an ideal that is likely to be realized nowhere except in newspaper editorials. The sweeping discretionary power the FBI captures from enforcing thousands of federal criminal laws is destined to be abused.<\/p>\n

The first step to reining in the FBI is to open the agency\u2019s files. Oversight is often a mirage, thanks to FBI spurning of congressional subpoenas and other information demands. Federal judges have been riled by FBI false testimony and withholding of evidence in major court cases ranging from Ruby Ridge and Waco, to the Orlando Pulse massacre and the Bundy Ranch showdown. The FBI has perennially exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

It has been more than 40 years since a Senate committee (headed by Frank Church) had the gumption and the sway to reveal the stunning details and breadth of FBI misconduct. It is time for another independent investigation with the courage and the clout to compel full disclosure from the most powerful domestic government agency. Investigators should receive all the crowbars they need to pry open FBI records.<\/p>\n

Democracy is a mirage when governments blindfold citizens. Fifty-four years ago, the Supreme Court declared that \u201cone person, one vote\u201d is the law of the land. But, as the IG report is likely to show, the new de facto standard for American elections is \u201cone agency, one veto\u201d \u2014 at least regarding bureaucrats\u2019 right to pull strings to favor a candidate.<\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers never intended a secret police force to be an independent fourth branch of the federal government. As James Madison warned in 1788, \u201cWherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.\u201d And as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wisely warned in 2012, \u201cLack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the September 2018 edition of<\/em> Future of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Twitter @jimbovard<\/p>\n