Comey back in 2016:
That’s what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information...
There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails)...
None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.
Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
There was a guy in Connecticut who put his Model 3 on "auto-pilot". He then proceeded to "check on his dog" in the back seat. During this maneuver the car ran into a police vehicle that was assisting a broken down motorist in one of the center lanes. He's being charged with reckless driving. Do you think he can use the "well I was extremely careless and didn't "intend" to crash into the police car so you should drop these charges" defense?
I seriously doubt that. Yet here's Comey making that exact argument.
Which brings us to the IG report. Although it's important to note that the IG has no prosecutorial powers,
his report does the same thing as Comey
Conclusions Concerning All Four FISA
Applications
We concluded that the failures descr ibed above
and in this repo rt represent serious performance
failures by the supervisory and non-supervisory agents
with responsibility over the FISA applications. These
failures prevented OI from fully performing its
gatekeeper function and dep rived the decision makers
the opportunity to make fully informed decisions.
Although some of t he factual misstatements and
omissions we fou nd in t his review were arguably more
significant tha n others, we believe t hat all of them
taken together resulted in FISA applica t ions that made
it appear that the information supporting probable
cause was stronger than was actually the case.
We identified at least 17 significant errors or
omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and
many add it ional errors in the Woods Procedures. These
errors and omissions resulted from case agents
providing wrong or incomplete infor mation to OI and
failing to flag im portant issues for discussion . While we
did not f ind documentary or testimonial evidence of
intent ional m isconduct on the part of the case agents
who assist ed OI in preparing the applications, or the
agents and supervisors who performed the Woods
Procedures, we also did not receive satisfactory
explanations for the errors or problems we identified.
I n most instances, t he agent s and supervisors told us
t hat they either did not know or recall why the
information was not shared with OI, that the fa ilure to
do so may have been an oversight, t hat they did not
recognize at t he time the releva nce of t he information
to t he FI SA applica tion, or t hat t hey did not believe th e
missing information to be significant . On this last point,
we believe that case agents may have improperly
substituted their own j udgments in place of the
j udgment of OI, or in place of the court, to weigh t_he
probative va lue of t he information.
Substituted their own judgement for the court? What pray tell, was the judgement involved? Maybe "Orange Man Bad"?
Further, the failu re
to update OI on all significant case dev elopments
relevant to t he FISA applications led us to conclude that
t he agents and supervisors did not g ive appropriate
at tention or t reatm ent to t he facts t hat cut aga inst
probable cause, or reassess t he infor mation supporting
probable cause as the investigation progressed. T he
agents and SSAs also did not fo llow, or appear to even
know, t he requirements in t he Woods Proced ures to reverify the factual assertions from previous applications
Agents didn't "know" the rules that govern their investigations? Sure. OK.
None of the inaccuracies and omissions that we
identified in t he renewal application s were brought to
the attention of OI before the applica tions were filed .
As a resu lt, similar to t he fi rst application, the
Department officials who reviewed one or more of the
renewa l applicati ons, including Yates, Boente, and
Rosenstein, did not have accurate and complete
information at t he t ime t hey app roved them .
We do not speculate whether or how having
accurate and complete information might have
influenced the decisions of senior Departm ent leaders
who supported th e four FISA applications, or t he court,
if they had known all of t he relevant information.
Well I'll speculate: If you give me more and accurate information I'll make a better decision than if I have wrong information. The only way I make a bad decision after getting "better" or "more accurate" information is if I have already decided on the action and facts be damned.
We did not identify a specific Department policy
prohibiting Ohr from meeting with Steele, Simpson, or
the State Department and providing the information he
learned from those meetings to the FBI. However, Ohr
was clearly cognizant of his responsibility to inform his
supervisors of these interactions, and acknowledged to
the OIG that the possibility that he would have been
told by his supervisors to stop having such contact may
have factored into his decision not to tell them about it.
We concluded that Ohr committed
consequential errors in judgment by ( 1) failing to advise
his direct supervisors or the DAG that he was
communicating with Steele and Simpson and then
requesting meetings with the FBI's Deputy Director and
Crossfire Hurricane team on matters that were outside
of his areas of responsibility, and (2) making _h imself a
witness in the investigation by meeting with Steele and
providing Steele's information to the FBI. As we
describe in Chapter Eight, the late discovery of Ohr's
meetings with the FBI prompted NSD to notify the FISC
in July 2018, over a year after the final FISA re newal
order was issued, of information that Ohr had provided
to the FBI but that the FBI had failed to inform NSD and
01 about (and therefore was not included in the FISA
applications), including that Steele was "desperate that
Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about
him not being the U.S. President."
Oh I see. Ohr doesn't tell his supervisors about meetings he's having because they would have told him to stop even though there's no policy saying he can't have these meetings. Really? Oh and if I don't tell then the supervisors have plausible deniability of knowing of Ohr's activities. Nothing to see here. Move along.
FBI Compliance with Policies ·
In addition, for reasons we explain in Chapter
Eleven, we concluded that the federal ethics rules did
not require Ohr to obtain Department ethics counsel
approval before engaging with the FBI in connection
with the Crossfire Hurricane matter because of Nellie
Ohr's prior work for Fusion GPS. However, we found
that, given the factual circumstances that existed, and
the appearance that they created, Ohr displayed a lapse
in judgment by not availing himself of the process
described in the ethics rules to consult with the
Department ethics official about his involvement in the
investigation .
Again, there's no rule prohibiting this but we have "lapses of judgment". So many "lapses in judgement"
We did not find any documentary or
testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's
decision to conduct these operations. Additionally, we found no evidence that the
FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of
the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign.
However, we are concerned that, under applicable Department and FBI
policy, it would have been sufficient for a first-level FBI supervisor to authorize the
sensitive domestic CHS operations undertaken in Crossfire Hurricane, and that
there is no applicable Department or FBI policy requiring the FBI to notify
Department officials of a decision to task CHSs to consensually monitor
conversations with members of a presidential campaign. Specifically, in Crossfire
Hurricane, where one of the CHS operations involved consensually monitoring a
high-level official on the Trump campaign who was not a subject of the
investigation, and all of the operations had the potential to gather sensitive
information of the campaign about protected First Amendment activity, we found no
evidence that the FBI consulted with any Department officials before conducting the
CHS operations-and no policy requiring the FBI to do so. We therefore believe
that current Department and FBI policies are not sufficient to ensure appropriate
oversight and accountability when such operations potentially implicate sensitive,
constitutionally protected activity, and that requiring Department consultation, at a
minimum, would be appropriate.
See how the "bad" activity is hidden behind "no specific FBI policy" and other jargon. Agents and supervisors "should have known" and "should have done" whatever, but since there was no "policy" then there is no bias. That numerous people did "non-rule breaking" things that were "lapses of government" all directed at unseating Trump is just a co-inky-dink.
just like it was a co-inky-dink that Clinton's e-mails were deleted by her lawyers and technicians and weren't turned over to the FBI for analysis and she didn't break any particular rule on purpose. It was just a "lapse of judgment".
Anyway, that document is 400+ pages and contains a lot more "lapses in judgment" than I've quoted here.
