Inspector General's Report: Let There Be Bias - Granite Grok

Inspector General’s Report: Let There Be Bias

FBII doubt we will ever get around to plumbing the minutia inside IG Horowitz 568 page report on how the FBI handled the Clinton Email Investigation or their pivot to Trump. But we can pull and explore some of the bits the media is more likely to ignore, gloss over, or spin.

Like this.

“The second category we identified were text messages that combined expressions of political sentiments with a discussion of the Midyear investigation, potentially indicating or creating the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.”

There is a good deal of posturing on how this report makes little or inadequate (meaningful) mention of political bias when in fact it offers ample proof. The quote above (pulled from page 398 of the report) prefaces evidence of obvious political bias on the part of those involved.

Given that the FBI is a law enforcement investigative agency any bias is inappropriate so when it shows its face in the context of elections with favoritism from law enforcement toward who will assume any office with political power (in the course of their duties) well, Houston, we have a problem.

In this section, we highlight examples of text messages of a political nature commenting on Trump and Clinton. We include explanations provided by Page and Strzok about their use of FBI-issued phones in general and their use of FBI-issued phones for political discussions. The sender of each text message is identified after the date.

August 16, 2015, Strzok: “[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump.
Figure they cancel each other out.”201

February 12, 2016, Page: “I’m no prude, but I’m really appalled by
this. So you don’t have to go looking (in case you hadn’t heard),
Trump called him the p-word. The man has no dignity or class. He
simply cannot be president. With a Slur for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump
Further Splits Voters http://nyti.ms/1XoICkO.”

February 12, 2016, Strzok: “Oh, [Trump’s] abysmal. I keep hoping
the charade will end and people will just dump him. The problem,
then, is Rubio will likely lose to Cruz. The Republican party is in utter
shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered?”

March 3, 2016, Page: “God trump is a loathsome human.”

March 3, 2016, Strzok: “Omg [Trump’s] an idiot.

March 3, 2016, Page: “He’s awful.”

March 3, 2016, Strzok: “God Hillary should win 100,000,000-0.”

March 3, 2016, Page: “Also did you hear [Trump] make a comment
about the size of his d*ck earlier? This man cannot be president.”

March 12, 2016: Page forwarded an article about a “far right”
candidate in Texas, stating, “[W]hat the f is wrong with people?”
Strzok replied, “That Texas article is depressing as hell. But answers
how we could end up with President trump.”

March 16, 2016, Page: “I cannot believe Donald Trump is likely to be
an actual, serious candidate for president.”

June 11, 2016, Strzok: “They fully deserve to go, and demonstrate
the absolute bigoted nonsense of Trump.”

July 18, 2016, Page: “…Donald Trump is an enormous d*uche.”

July 19, 2016, Page: “Trump barely spoke, but the first thing out of
his mouth was ‘we’re going to win soooo big.’ The whole thing is like
living in a bad dream.”

July 21, 2016, Strzok: “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how
destabilizing his Presidency would be.”

August 26, 2016, Strzok: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I
could SMELL the Trump support….”

September 26, 2016, Page: Page sent an article to Strzok entitled,
“Why Donald Trump Should Not Be President,” stating, “Did you read
this? It’s scathing. And I’m scared.”

October 19, 2016, Strzok: “I am riled up. Trump is a fucking idiot, is
unable to provide a coherent answer.”

November 3, 2016, Page: “The nyt probability numbers are dropping
every day. I’m scared for our organization.”

November 3, 2016, Strzok: “[Jill] Stein and moron [Gary] Johnson are
F’ing everything up, too.”

November 7, 2016, Strzok: Referencing an article entitled “A victory
by Mr. Trump remains possible,” Strzok stated, “OMG THIS IS
F*CKING TERRIFYING.”

November 13, 2016, Page: “I bought all the president’s men. Figure I
needed to brush up on watergate.”202

Strzok insists that while it was dumb to use a government device for such exchanges it did not color his professional actions. But people have recused themselves for much less.

Then there is the more famous text of many, one you’ve probably seen or read from page 404.

August 8, 2016: In a text message on August 8, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”203

This is in the context of the Russia Investigation.

Strzok stated that had he—or the FBI in general—actually wanted to prevent Trump from being elected, they would not have maintained the confidentiality of the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign in the months before the election. Page similarly stated that, although she could not speak to what Strzok meant by that text message, the FBI’s decision to keep the Russia investigation confidential before the election shows that they did not take steps to impact the outcome of the election.

I guess that’s not why there is an ongoing investigation into leaks to the press from within the FBI which revealed details of the investigation prior to the election. Details Hillary Clinton and her campaign tweeted or linked to in the press prior to election day.

Feel free to ignore all of that too.

The full report is here.

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