IG Report

Mr. Comey reportedly broke several rules for which he will not be prosecuted. He took home memos detailing private meetings he had with the president and then disclosed their contents to a friend who he believed would leak them to The New York Times. His motivation was to make sure a special counsel would be appointed to investigate alleged “collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Justice Department decided not to prosecute Mr. Comey, citing a lack of evidence that he “knew and intended to violate laws on handling classified information.” As FBI director, how could he not know of these things? Of course, he had to know.

Comey did, in fact, leak classified information. It's right there in the report. It wasn't much classified information, and it was perhaps not terribly important, and Justice Department officials concluded it was not worth prosecuting. But Comey leaked classified material. Comey leaked classified information to his lawyers. Comey gave classified information to people who were not authorized to receive it. Surprised, stunned, shocked. Comey's FBI colleagues did not utter those words because they heard Comey had been exonerated. They uttered them when they heard the full extent of what Comey did, and that included leaking classified information.

The new IG report is devastating for Comey. His leak of other materials from his memos — sensitive law enforcement material from an ongoing investigation — violated Justice Department and FBI policies, as well as Comey's own FBI employment agreement, the inspector general wrote. More broadly, Comey set a "dangerous example" for all FBI employees. If other bureau officials acted similarly, the report said, "the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly." So Comey did much more than just the "Hoover-esque" gambit of January 2017. The full story of his actions, even in this small part of the Trump-Russia affair, will cast a long shadow over his reputation.

Our friend Joe diGenova has described former CIA Director John Brennan as “the mastermind of” the “conspiracy to frame Donald Trump.” However, as a “mastermind” Brennan falls far short – he can’t even make-up an original lie to cover his tracks, his story about a high-level source close to Putin follows the “magic source” plotline of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy so closely.

Fired FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI General Counsel James Baker and several others are already in the crosshairs. Given U.S. attorney John Durham’s reputation for uncovering and prosecuting FBI corruption in the Bolger case, which one of the Spygate rats is going to flip first?

Our friend former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova had a pithy assessment of where Attorney General Bill Barr’s investigation into whether the Obama-inspired spying on President Trump and his campaign were properly predicated: "Comey is ultimately screwed,” said DiGenova.

Andrew McCabe would have us all believe that HE believed the Steele “dirty dossier” and other purported contacts between the Trump campaign and various Russians or Russian-affiliated persons, even though he knew almost all those contacts were set-ups orchestrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign, the FBI and various other organs of the Obama administration.

We already know that the Obama administration abused the existing FISA protections and undertook surveillance of Sharyl Attkisson and many of President Trump’s political associates, and maybe even then-candidate Donald Trump as well. How long will it take before the Democrats’ surveillance regime moves beyond the border zone to encompass the entire country?

What research on the Steele dossier has slowly revealed is the scope and logistics of the information operation designed to sabotage an American election. Players include the press, political operatives from both parties, and law enforcement and intelligence officials.

The prosecutorial harassment of Donald Trump, those related to Donald Trump or in Donald Trump’s “circle” is an outrageous perversion of justice. What's more, the opprobrium heaped on the Trump family by the establishment media and popular culture has also claimed entirely innocent victims, such as Josh Trump of Delaware.

It seems that James Comey and Hillary Clinton are infected with the same memory loss virus that affects so many of the elite university graduates who make up DC’s political class, leading one to conclude it is not memories, but ethics and integrity that they are missing.

We agree with the President that there is a “lingering stench” at the Justice Department and FBI, however, it is unclear whether Rod Rosenstein will resign, be fired or stay in his position. The question is, is firing Rosenstein a set-up as Sean Hannity suggests, or something that needs to happen right away, as Judge Jeanne Piro and Laura Ingraham have urged.

Senator Rand Paul was right, President Trump should revoke the security clearances of former CIA Director John Brennan and anyone else involved in the unmasking of Trump associates, the phony FISA warrant applications and the spying on the Trump team.

It is time for Congress and the media to stop chasing the phony charges that Trump “colluded with the Russians” and start asking what changed during the Obama years that allowed this extensive cyberattack on America to go unchallenged, and with such ease, and why were our cybersecurity operators told to “stand down.”

We urge CHQ readers and friends to contact Attorney General Jeff Sessions (202-514-2000) to demand that Peter Strzok be fired for dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the information presented to him by the Intelligence Community Inspector General as documented by Rep. Louie Gohmert at yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Yesterday, Rep. Jim Jordan grilled Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the documents he has been withholding from Congress, as Rosenstein smirked his way through the questioning. But Rosenstein may not be smirking now as the House passed a resolution demanding he comply with its subpeonas by July 6.

Strzok told his mistress that he wanted Hillary to beat Trump “100,000,000-0,” and that he would “stop” his victory. It appears that Strzok deleted the latter text, not realizing that his FBI device had stored it elsewhere, only to be excavated later by Horowitz’s Internet wizards. Hillary’s fiends in high places were hoist by their own petard, thereby revealing the most grotesque irony in the 2016 race: one government did most certainly and corruptly interfere in it — theirs.

This is the problem with unelected, unaccountable, nontransparent bureaucracies: They are subject to ideological perversion that they themselves may not even notice until it is too late. That's why they should be extraordinarily careful in how they wield power. Unfortunately, our law enforcement agencies aren't, and the result is a dramatic loss of trust that they can ill afford.

There is nothing in the statute that inflates “gross negligence” into a requirement that infractions be “so gross as to almost suggest deliberate intention,” be “criminally reckless,” or fall “just a little short of willful.” But even if there were, what could be more gross, reckless, and willful than imposing a non-secure private email system on the communications of the government’s highest-ranking national-security officials? Yet that is the aspect of Mrs. Clinton’s conduct that the Obama Justice Department and FBI decided not to factor into their consideration of intent evidence. And apparently, the IG had no problem with that.

The IG report is a blistering rebuke of James Comey, who has spent recent months on a book tour promoting his brand of “ethical leadership.” Now, Inspector General Michael Horowitz has confirmed that his office is investigating Comey for his handling of classified information.