The much-anticipated report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation was publicly released on Thursday.
The report — which was begun based on demands from congressional Democrats — delved into the details of the lengthy investigation into Clinton’s use of a private and unsecured email server to conduct official — and classified — government business while serving as secretary of state.
Fired FBI Director James Comey ultimately cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing in the “matter,” but, rather ironically, the IG report has revealed that Comey himself utilized a private email account to conduct official FBI business at the same time he was investigating and clearing Clinton for the same thing.
Politico reporter Kyle Cheney tweeted, “IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.”
IG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 14, 2018
Cheney also included a screenshot of a snippet of the report that read, “We identified numerous instances in which Comey used a personal email account (a Gmail account) to conduct FBI business.”
“We cite five examples of such use in this section and include information provided by Comey and (former chief of staff James) Rybicki about Comey’s use of a personal email account,” the IG report added.
According to The Hill, the breach of protocol was not isolated to just Comey though, but was found to have occurred with other individuals directly involved in the Clinton investigation.
Indeed, in addition to Comey, the IG report also revealed that FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page also used personal email accounts to conduct official bureau business.
As for Comey, the IG report noted as one example that in November 2016 he had forwarded an email from his government account to his personal account that bore the subject line “Midyear thoughts,” which was obviously in reference to the Clinton investigation, which had been code-named Midyear Exam.
Just one month later, Comey forwarded another email to his personal account that contained potential responses to questions posed by the Justice Department’s office of special counsel.
It is worth noting that Comey assured Inspector General Michael Horowitz that he never used his personal account for classified or sensitive information. Likewise, he also insisted that all emails had originated or been forwarded to official government accounts, meaning he wasn’t attempting to sidestep archiving and record-keeping procedures.
But it wasn’t just Comey who was using a personal email account to conduct official government business, as both Strzok and Page appear in the IG report as having done the same thing on multiple occasions.
The IG report stated, “Most troubling, on October 29, 2016, Strzok forwarded from his FBI account to his personal email account an email about the proposed search warrant the Midyear team was seeking on the (Anthony) Weiner laptop.”
“The email included a draft of the search warrant affidavit, which contained information from the Weiner investigation that appears to have been under seal at the time,” the IG report added.
This report that Comey and others at the FBI were doing the exact same thing that they were investigating, and ultimately exonerated, Hillary Clinton for should serve to shred any remaining bit of credibility those individuals may once have retained.
And this report is only the tip of the iceberg.
Via WesternJournal
