DOJ watchdog - James Comey defied authority as FBI director

[One Bad Pig]

People seem to be still processing the 500-page report, but the primary takeaways seem to be:

1. James Comey was too mean and unfair to Hillary Clinton.
2. James Comey shouldn't have announced he was reopening the email investigation just before the election.
3. James Comey should have consulted much more with the Obama administration about the Clinton investigation.
4. James Comey was not, however, motivated by political motives.
5. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's texts (against Trump, Hillary, and Sanders) were inappropriate but the Mueller investigation wasn't corrupted by those agents.

From the Executive Summary, page vi:

While we found no evidence that Comey’s statement was the result of bias or an effort to influence the election, we did not find his justifications for issuing the statement to be reasonable or persuasive. We concluded that Comey’s unilateral announcement was inconsistent with Department policy and violated long-standing Department practice and protocol by, among other things, criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct. We also found that Comey usurped the authority of the Attorney General, and inadequately and incompletely described the legal position of Department prosecutors.

ES at x:

Much like with his July 5 announcement, we found that in making this decision, Comey engaged in ad hoc decisionmaking based on his personal views even if it meant rejecting longstanding Department policy or practice. We found unpersuasive Comey’s explanation as to why transparency was more important than Department policy and practice with regard to the reactivated Midyear investigation while, by contrast, Department policy and practice were more important to follow with regard to the Clinton Foundation and Russia investigations.

Comey’s description of his choice as being between “two doors,” one labeled “speak” and one labeled “conceal,” was a false dichotomy. The two doors were actually labeled “follow policy/practice” and “depart from policy/practice.” Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment.

He was also roundly castigated for knowing about the Wiener emails a month before acting on them.

I have no idea where you (or your sources) are getting your first "takeaway".

[One Bad Pig]

That seems to be the narrative being promoted by the left; however...

"Those reading the report will note the executive summary and conclusions were not written by the same IG officials who wrote the body of the investigative findings. The investigation doesn’t match the summary. The media is using the summary for their narrative; however the content within the IG report is entirely devastating."

Even the summary is rather damning in areas.

[Cow Poke]

People seem to be still processing the 500-page report, but the primary takeaways seem to be:

1. James Comey was too mean and unfair to Hillary Clinton.
2. James Comey shouldn't have announced he was reopening the email investigation just before the election.
3. James Comey should have consulted much more with the Obama administration about the Clinton investigation.
4. James Comey was not, however, motivated by political motives.
5. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's texts (against Trump, Hillary, and Sanders) were inappropriate but the Mueller investigation wasn't corrupted by those agents.

Bless your heart.

[One Bad Pig]

That seems to be the narrative being promoted by the left; however...

"Those reading the report will note the executive summary and conclusions were not written by the same IG officials who wrote the body of the investigative findings. The investigation doesn’t match the summary. The media is using the summary for their narrative; however the content within the IG report is entirely devastating."

A quick peek appears to confirm this. It's curious that the IG found no issue with destroying the senior aides' laptops sans review in the summary (because Comey had already decided there was no "there" there), but the body of the report characterizes the laptop data a vitally important check because the aides had copied Clinton's .pst file to them to review the emails and classified material had passed through them. I'll nail this down better with cites once I've finished reviewing the whole thing.

[Cow Poke]

A quick peek appears to confirm this. It's curious that the IG found no issue with destroying the senior aides' laptops sans review in the summary (because Comey had already decided there was no "there" there), but the body of the report characterizes the laptop data a vitally important check because the aides had copied Clinton's .pst file to them to review the emails and classified material had passed through them. I'll nail this down better with cites once I've finished reviewing the whole thing.

Looking forward to that.

[Starlight]

Those reading the report will note the executive summary and conclusions were not written by the same IG officials who wrote the body of the investigative findings. The investigation doesn’t match the summary. The media is using the summary for their narrative; however the content within the IG report is entirely devastating.

If at first your conspiracy gets disproven... then add another conspiracy about the disproving evidence itself... genius. Conspiracies all the way down.

It's amusing to see the crazies here and elsewhere writhing in distress that their much-hoped-for IG report backfired on their conspiracies so spectacularly. I bet if OBP just reads those 500 pages carefully enough he can somewhere find the key footnote that proves Clinton murdered everyone.

[Mountain Man]

If at first your conspiracy gets disproven... then add another conspiracy about the disproving evidence itself... genius. Conspiracies all the way down.

Liberalism: where facts that undermine your narrative are dismissed as "conspiracy theories".

Naturally, this report is far more complex, and far more devastating to Obama's FBI than liberals want to admit. But, no, go ahead and pretend that it's a 500-page nothing-burger. it seems outright denial is your only recourse.

One interesting issue that seems to keep popping up throughout the report is that members of the FBI, including James Comey himself, used personal email to conduct official and in some cases classified business. Hmmm... so the agents who were tasked with investigating Hillary's illegal use of a personal email server were guilty of that exact same crime themselves. Gee, I wonder if that created a conflict of interest?

For example, Peter Stzork appears to have stepped in it when he used a personal email account to download and send a sealed indictment to an unsecured account. This action is a felony under federal law.

The IG also said that many of the excuses for why the Hillary email investigation was botched were "unconvincing", which is another way of saying that FBI officials lied to investigators. What was Michael Flynn indicted for again?

Sorry, no more nothing-burger for me... I'm stuffed.

[Mountain Man]

Also worth noting is that IG reports, by their nature, are supposed to be an unbiased "just the facts" accounting, which explains why you don't see a lot of hard-and-fast conclusions in the report. What happens now is a prosecutor can take those facts and build a criminal case. That's the next step in all of this. And there are more IG reports to come. This was just the first, and it's focus was on the Hillary email investigation.

[One Bad Pig]

Looking forward to that.

Still slowly reading my way through this. Initial thoughts:

1) Comey didn't so much violate procedures as do a flamenco on them.
2) If this were proceeding the way the Trump investigation is proceeding, several people would have been indicted for making false statements.
3) Despite appearances, it seems that Strzok and Page were doing a conscientious job of investigating.
4) I'm not sure that Hillary could be successfully prosecuted for gross negligence, though a case could be made; IMO there's sufficient sorta-plausible deniability that a supporter of Hillary could reason their way to vote for acquittal, and it would be extremely difficult to find an impartial jury for such a high-profile personality who inspires strong feelings.