I voted for Trump and am thankful he won. But the whole FBI situation was a disaster and I still cannot reconcile what happened. I disagreed with, and found highly suspect, the 11 month investigation and the outcome and bewildering decision in July. But the re-opening before the election which was for apparently no good reason was equally bizarre. Anyone have any idea why and what happened?
As a refresher:
* ~Aug 2015, FBI initiates investigation into Hillary's private server and emails. At some point a Congressional subpoena initiated. Hillary clearly lied under oath about material facts surrounding the server and possession/sent/received classified emails.
* July 2015, Lynch and Bill Clinton meet in secret on an airplane on the tarmac. We only learn of this not through official records, but instead an alert reporter who happened to observe this oddity and report it. Otherwise it would never have been discovered. Clearly it was purposefully surreptitious. Lynch later lies and claims it was a discussion about "grand kids." She "recuses" herself from any decisions due to the appearance of impropriety, and says she will not interfere with Comey's decision and just accept his recommendation.
* Days later, in July 2015, the FBI finally interviews Hillary. Days later FBI director Comey oddly gives a press conference with all the hallmarks of an indictment. He goes through and lists her crimes - possessing the classified documents (illegally), destroying the evidence (illegally), and this implies she lied under oath. Then gives a decision not to recommend indictment!
* Note that it took the FBI some 11 months to catalog and review some 30,000 emails, or whatever the accepted figure in that range. And 11 months to get around to interviewing Hillary.
* Of course, true to her word, Lynch accepts *Comey's decision.*
* Note that Comey must have known there is an entirely separate Clinton campaign investigation, so clearing her in the email investigation would have been absolutely both odd and premature.
* Note also as an attorney, I carefully reviewed her statements under oath against relevant laws for which Comey "cleared" her of. He used the wrong standard of "intent" which is irrelevant. She clearly broke several or perhaps hundreds of laws. All a prosecutor needs is probable cause to pursue charges or impanel a grand jury, and clearly there is some evidence that she did something illegal - whether it's lying under oath, using the unsecured network for classified emails, or destroying evidence - these would be simple to prove with open source information.
* This of course angered law-and-order types and gave Clinton a paved path to presumed victory with that monkey off her back.
* Then 11 days before the election, he received a briefing and apparently 650,000 new emails related to Clinton. Enough information to make the decision to re-open the investigation. Now that's not a step to take casually, in light of the pending POTUS election with votes being cast daily. Some, like me, felt that there was a smoking gun in those and they could not ignore it. Speculation of child sex trafficking, or perhaps spying, or who knows ... Something "big" was in those emails.
* It's also noteworthy that the FBI's ineptitude was on full display having recovered a computer they previous didn't have. Not a vote of confidence when the computer was found in Huma's and Weiner's apartment right under their noses, after Huma promised she gave everything over.
* Note that for them to search and catalogue 650,000 emails in 8 days it worked out to be a nearly impossible or at least highly unlikely turn around to then again clear Hillary, adding even more suspicion to the agency.
* In spite of Lynch promising to "not intervene" we learned she did try to stop Comey, but he ignored her. The Obama administration publically said it supported Comey, but who knows what was happening behind the scenes.
* I speculated he must have been presented with such condemning evidence that maybe 3rd parties were aware of that he could not ignore it and therefore forced to reopen it. I recall saying on this forum that there's no way it would be closed before the election given the presumed size and scope and nature of such evidence to reopen it. I was wrong.
* A few days later, the investigation was closed again! Nothing to see here... as they say. Now, was he leaned on, bribed, threatened? Who knows.
In my opinion, the whole thing was unprofessional from start to finish. I believe she should have been indicted many months ago. This would have been best for the nation and the Dem party, frankly, by giving them an opportunity to replace her.
The bungling of it put the nation at risk of electing someone who is at least probably a criminal, and who significant % of people don't trust and who feel is probably a criminal. The whole thing gave the appearance of such corruption. The FBI should have just pressed her investigation to the front, issued recommendation to indict, and washed their hands of her.
Anyone have any real theories?
Re-visiting Comey's decisions post election
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