The lawyerly conclusions of the IG report
Commenter Richard Saunders puts it succinctly:
…[T]he IG report…didn’t say there was no political bias; it said there was no documentary or testimonial evidence of political bias. I hate to be lawyerly, but that’s not the same thing as there was no political bias.
Well, I don’t hate to be lawyerly as much as Richard Saunders does, and so I will say that the distinction is an important one, and one with which many people have trouble being sympathetic to because it is so lawyerly and seemingly nitpicky. And at the risk of being even more lawyerly and nitpicky, I’ll add that it’s my understanding that what the report really concluded was that, despite evidence that actually does indicate political bias galore, there really was no evidence that the existent bias dictated the actions taken by the investigators regarding the Clinton emails.
I’m emphasizing this because I believe it’s important if a person is trying to understand the seemingly insane conclusions of the IG report. The report actually discloses reams of detailed evidence that there was tremendous bias among the investigators, and also many indicators of the appearance of bias, both in email communications and in certain departures from usual FBI protocol. However—as I pointed out yesterday—there is no smoking gun, no direct link (which would be highly unusual anyway) in which someone writes something like “I am biased against so-and-so and therefore I am doing such-and-such, which is a different approach than I would take if I weren’t so biased against this person…”
We can certainly infer, however, that the rampant anti-Trump bias that was shot through the department and the investigators led to some of their pro-Clinton actions that didn’t follow ordinary procedure. Comey himself, however, as the report points out, took a few actions that hurt Clinton as well as ones that favored her. Unlike some of the other investigators, I don’t think that we have any evidence of Comey’s bias in the form of emails, but it does seem reasonable to conclude that one of the things motivating Comey was the strong suspicion that Hillary would be the next president and also his next boss. That’s a different kind of bias—self-interest bias? But it definitely appears to have affected many of his own actions and was at least part of his reluctance to charge her. She was just too big to be charged, certainly not by Comey (who also probably wanted her to defeat Trump).
When you read the emails of so many of the people who worked on the Hillary email case, their anti-Trump bias is so obvious and so extreme that it’s almost impossible to believe it didn’t affect their actions. But the IG stopped short of saying that’s what in fact happened in the legal sense.
What does an IG do, and what was IG Horowitz charged with doing, after all? He is the IG of the DOJ, charged with investigating that department and appointed by President Obama and confirmed in 2012. So he is an Obama appointee, not a Trump appointee, although of course he is supposed to be completely objective.
Here’s what the IG of the DOJ does:
[The] Justice Department inspector general position was created by statute in 1989, providing an internal watchdog for the department.
Its mission, as its website states, is to “detect and deter waste, fraud, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel, and to promote economy and efficiency in those programs.” The office Horowitz heads has 450 employees nation-wide, many of them special agents who carry a badge and a gun…
The office is designed to be independent and accountable by having the IG serve an indefinite term and requiring that it report to Congress and the Attorney General…
While the inspector general lacks prosecutorial powers, he can identify possible criminal behavior and refer it for prosecution.
So the IG cannot prosecute, an IG can only describe. He/she also can identify possible criminal behaviors and make recommendations about that. But none of the allegations about the FBI’s behavior (we’re not talking about Hillary’s behavior; we’re talking about the FBI’s behavior in their investigation of Hillary’s behavior) involve possible criminal matters at all. So the IG’s role appears to be limited here (if I understand this correctly) to writing up the report and describing the situation.
It has indeed done that, citing many instances of irregularity, and of expressed personal animus and bias that could easily lead a person to conclude that the irregularities were the result of the bias. But it cannot conclude as a matter of law that bias was the causative factor, without a smoking gun.
So, what is the remedy for this sort of egregious bias within an agency—and I have no trouble believing it’s rampant, and not just in the FBI and DOJ? The situation seems overwhelming, and short of each new president firing everyone and replacing them with new appointees—impractical, just about impossible really, and with a result every bit as bad (or maybe worse) as the situation we have now—what can be done?
Substitute “the establishment swamp” for “the party” . . .
BEGIN PASTE
O’Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘Four.’
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five — then how many?’
END PASTE
Cross posted from an earlier thread–my comment is much more appropriate here-
The IGs Report is even worse than it appears to be, because it betrays not only a Department of Justice, and FBI, but also an IG that have lost their ethical moorings; organizations and high officials that have been so immersed in and marinated by the corrosive/subversive inside the Beltway mentality, become so used to the lawyerly pettifoggery and slight of hand, the deliberate distraction, and the sly and cynical manipulation of words and meanings, so used to form and not substance, appearance vs.reality–that they cannot see that what went on here was a betrayal of our Constitution, and the moral and Legal order and structure of laws, due process, and procedures it created here in the U.S. to protect each and every on of us.
They are the morally color blind, and that is a huge and very dangerous problem for all of us, and the country.
For, if they think that nothing really untoward–certainly nothing prosecutable–was done by a cabal of high officials, what else will they look at and say, “there’s no violation here?”
What violations of rights–1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, etc.–guaranteed by the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights will they also see as no violation at all?
Yet just about all the headlines read “IG report finds no bias”. Thus disposing of all those nitpicky qualifiers.
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck….. its a duck, or in this case an attempted coup. I don’t need to infer, I know because common sense.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird”
The criminality here is of no ordinary category, it is literally a threat to Constitutional governance. A failure to hold accountable the perpetrators, while also leaving them in their offices, ensures further deterioration of the rule of law. And makes probable the dissolution of America into “politics by ‘other’ means. Once again, “the writing is on the wall” and as always, denial of an obvious future reality is the norm.
“one with which many people have trouble being sympathetic to because it is so lawyerly and seemingly nitpicky. …So, what is the remedy for this sort of egregious bias within an agency–and I have no trouble believing it’s rampant, and not just in the FBI and DOJ? ”
* * *
The most immediate reply to the nitpicky charge is from Dickens
“The law is a ass – a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience – by experience.” (Oliver Twist, Chapter 51).
It is often attributed to Shakespeare — most often to Dogberry I think, as it seems appropriate to a scene that comes right out of the current news.
http://www.bartleby.com/70/1642.html
Sexton. Master constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.
Dogb. Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you, in the prince’s name, accuse these men.
First Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince’s brother, was a villain.
Dogb. Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.
…
Con. Off, coxcomb!
Dogb. God’s my life! where’s the sexton? let him write down the prince’s officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou naughty varlet!
Con. Away! you are an ass; you are an ass.
* * *
And it may yet come to this, if no remedy of any kind is even attempted:
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
(2 Henry VI, 4.2.59), Dick the Butcher to Jack Cade
* * *
The Bard often references both lawlessness and irrational lawfulness, and thus we see that history does indeed rhyme with its prior stanzas.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/shakespearelawyers.html
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
Between two blades, which bears the better temper:
Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye;
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
(2 Henry VI, 2.4.17), Warwick to Lords
When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong:
Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,
For he that holds his kingdom holds the law.
(King John, 3.1.189), Constance to Cardinal Pandulph
We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
Which for this nineteen years we have let slip;
Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey.
(Measure for Measure, 1.3.21), Duke Vincentio
The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,
That justice seizes: what know the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? ‘
(Measure for Measure, 2.1.19), Angelo to Escalus
I will make a Star Chamber matter of it.
(The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1.1.1), Shallow to Slender
A friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stepp’d into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into ‘t.
(Timon of Athens, 3.5.12), Alcibiades
(seems apposite for many of Trump’s supporters caught in the net spread for him)
* * *
There WAS plenty of documentary evidence. What do you think all those texts and emails are. They are USG records/documents and they copiously and clearly show the bias.
And the bias clearly influenced their (illegal) actions, such as drating the exoneration memo before concluding the investigation, the farce of Hillary’s questioning — they even talk about it.
It is making me furious.
Delilah,
Don’t get furious, learn to reload.
GB,
“Constitutional goverance” is dead in the water. This was the last straw to break the back.. Act accordingly. First we take DC, then we take Berlin.
He could have at least pulled a Comey and said there was nothing prosecutable, but the FBI engaged in really, really bad and very dangerous behavior.
Don’t know if Jake Tapper has said this on TV, but this is maybe a sign that the “no bias found” meme won’t completely take hold:
Jarrett is also at CNN.
I think Geoffrey Britain’s comment above hits the nail on the head.
If the inspector general won’t connect the dots, who will? Government officials abused their positions. If they are not punished because no one in the swamp wants to admit the truth (or stop abusing power), then at least the abuse needs to abate. Cock roaches have enough decorum to scatter when the light comes on. Why can’t the swamp dwellers in Washington give a new president his honeymoon period and go back to dragging their feet after a decent interval?
The self-appointed aristocrats’ gravy train is not going to be sustainable with the amount of cynicism they are causing among the people. We really are seeing democracy being disrespected by the people who are supposed to be defending it. It will be disastrous if confidence in the rule of law is eroded.
Re: “seemingly insane conclusions of the IG report.”
Search “extraordinary” within the IG report. You will see that irregularities indicating Right-wing bias are the only ones described as such. They are much more serious than the others. I think this will square things for you.
These instances are:
1. Comey’s Decision Not to Tell DOJ about his plans to make announce the conclusion of the investigation. Page 241:
2. Comey’s decision to send a letter announcing the re-opeing of the Clinton investigation during an election year. Page 372:
3. Comey’s decision not to inform DOJ about above action. Page 377:
These 3 instances are by far the most serious, with #2 arguably swinging a close election in a direction that hurt Clinton. All 3 indicate a Right-wing bias in an agency known for being such.
You might disagree. But the point is not that the IG is right in his assessment of which irregularity is extraordinary and which is not. It’s jsut that once you accept his assessment, his conclusions make perfect sense.
Manju:
You’re not succeeding, but for some reason you keep trying.
Waste of time, as I said.
But if anyone wants to read things that aren’t a waste of time, I suggest this, this, this, and especially this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BplUD6kQYuU
To Aesop and others interested in the Deep State:
I think it is time, as people are ready for it.
Be prepared to see things outside this “box”.