Count the editors of the New York Times among those who see the IG’s report as complete exoneration. Here’s a round-up of the NYT’s opinion page this morning:
Editorial, “No, Hillary Clinton’s Emails Will Never Go Away”
David Leonhardt, “The Report’s Real Message: Trump Is Lying”
James Comey, “This Report Says I Was Wrong. But That’s Good for the F.B.I.”
The reaction of the editors of the Washington Post is somewhat more balanced:
The valid, nonpolitical lesson arising from the inspector general’s report is that the FBI needs to be better prepared to handle politically sensitive investigations. The agency must take special care not to affect elections. It should shy from making statements about people not charged with crimes, and major announcements should be vetted carefully through the Justice Department hierarchy. As for FBI officials, they can have personal views, but they should refrain from saying careless things even in private.
While the editors of the Wall Street Journal saw the report quite differently:
The long-awaited Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation makes for depressing reading for anyone who cares about American democracy. Self-government depends on public trust in its institutions, especially law enforcement. The IG’s 568-page report makes clear that the FBI under former director James Comey betrayed that public trust in a way not seen since J. Edgar Hoover.
We use the Hoover analogy advisedly, realizing that the problem in this case was not rampant illegal spying. Though IG Michael Horowitz’s conclusions are measured, his facts are damning. They show that Mr. Comey abused his authority, broke with long-established Justice Department norms, and deceived his superiors and the public.
While the IG says Mr. Comey’s decisions were not the result of “political bias,†he presided over an investigating team that included agents who clearly were biased against Donald Trump. The damage to the bureau’s reputation—and to thousands of honest agents—will take years to repair.
The issue of political bias is almost beside the point. The IG scores Mr. Comey for “ad hoc decisionmaking based on his personal views.†Like Hoover, Mr. Comey believed that he alone could protect the public trust. And like Hoover, this hubris led him to make egregious mistakes of judgment that the IG says “negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.â€
I’ll quote blogospheric reactions as time allows.
” he presided over an investigating team that included agents who clearly were biased against Donald Trump.”
Of course those same agents pushed for more aggressive tactic in the Clinton investigation, and the IG couldn’t find evidence that the agents acted on their bias. And, the FBI took them off the case when they found out. Maybe the texts of all agents should be monitored from now on?
“The issue of political bias is almost beside the point.”
No, that is the reason we had this investigation. No bias was found, so the WSJ changes the subject.
Steve
That’s not true. Plenty of bias was found and more is emerging. They found that the FBI did not act on the bias which is a somewhat different matter. I also conjecture that the IG is differentiating between the FBI and the people who work for the FBI which I find problematic. If they’re not following policy, how do you make the distinction? I think “the FBI” is the policies of the FBI but “the FBI” in that sense was very much attenuated in this instance.
Let me be more precise. The report says it found no political bias in decisions made and not made, in actions taken and not taken.
It did find that some individual agents were biased against Trump and/ or Clinton, but no evidence that bias had influence.
In medicine we find that mistakes are most commonly due to system errors. That said, sometimes the individual really is the one at fault, at least partially, so sometimes you have to differentiate between the individual and the institution. Don’t know enough about the FBI to know if that is true for then also.
Steve
The reason that I’m being so persnickety about this is that I don’t see how actions taken explicitly because of the potential political impact under the specific assumption that Hillary Clinton would win the election, both of which are clearly asserted in the IG’s report, can be anything other than biased. IMO the IG is trying his damnedest to be even-handed and not assert outright bias but implicit bias is bias nonetheless.
In other words I think the IG has been handed a pile of horse hockey and told to make a sandwich. However hard he may try, he’s going to end up with a horse hockey sandwich. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Let’s put it another way. Protecting a future President Clinton from the potential fallout from an investigation is implicitly biased as is protecting the FBI from the response of the assumed President Clinton to such an investigation. It was a no-win situation for the FBI which they actually succeeded in making worse. The only correct course was meticulous adherence to established policy and then let the chips fall where they may.
Let me put it yet another way. The IG’s report explicitly says that the FBI acted without political bias so those saying that the report exonerates the FBI are right. Sort of.
But the report says that the FBI acted politically. That’s explicit, too. Can you act politically without bias? So those saying that the report is, the typical adjective is “scathing” are right too. Sort of.
I think we need more refined definition of bias. Reading the report it looks like what they meant is that the FBI did not try to deliberately affect the outcome of the election and did not personal bias influence decisions about the investigations. Comey’s bias that he thought Clinton would win and did not want to be accused of helping her clearly lead him to a bad decision, but again he did not do that to deliberately help or harm Trump or Clinton. So he acted politically, but without trying to influence anything, at least in his mind.
” Protecting a future President Clinton from the potential fallout from an investigation is implicitly biased as is protecting the FBI from the response of the assumed President Clinton to such an investigation.”
Not how I am reading the report. I think what it says is that he didn’t want to be accused, and maybe he didn’t want Hillary to be accused, of being helped by the FBI. Let’s face it, she would have been much better off if he had just followed policy. Would it have changed the election? Beats me.
Steve
That’s exactly what I think. I think we all would have been better off. I don’t know whether it would have affected the outcome but IMO the FBI should not be about the outcomes of elections one way or the other.
As others have noted the report artfully stated that they found no documentary evidence of bias. In the real world the IG report is of political interest only. My eyes are on the actions of US Attorney John Huber who has been assigned to determine whether to findings in the report merit criminal investigation(s). Huber holds the hammer.
That there was no bias is laughable. As is the notion that somehow it is separable. As for the notion that it did not manifest itself, that dies on the pre-concluded result, the immunity deals for Mills etc, the interview not under oath…… not concluding there was political bias is no doubt a Rosenstein special during the whitewash, er, editing, phase.
I saw that “we’ll stop it†was explained away by apologists as “we the people will stop it at the voting booth.†I wonder why such obvious exculpatory meaning would have been withheld from Congress?
I guess common sense has died as well.
It’s surprising (or perhaps not) that the reporting on this leaves out how government IG reports work. They only issue conclusions when there are hard facts to support them, they do make conclusions based on lessser standards.
That explains the somewhat strange absence of an assessment in several areas while having conclusive assessments in seemingly trivial areas.
So in the case of the Weiner laptop there is no hard evidence that it was purposely put in the back burner but, at the same time the IG specifically stated they can find no reasonable explanation for why it was. This is the closest they could come to a conclusion of bias given the lack of hard evidence (ie. A text or email or testimony), but the implications they hint at are pretty clear.
That second sentence should be they do not make conclusions…
So the evidentiary standard for a conclusion that someone acted with bias is very high – the IG would need to both show that bias exists (which there was hard evidence for) and they need to show that the individual made actions because of that bias. This second part is where the IG could not find hard evidence, like a text, email or phone call or verbal order that something specific be done to implement that bias.
@Andy
You had me a little confused, but that makes more sense.