Comey FBI Willfully Ignored “Highly Classified” Hillary Clinton Emails; Barr Radio Silent
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 08/23/2019
President Obama’s FBI, ran by disgraced former director James Comey, knew about – but purposefully ignored – “highly classified” evidence in the Hillary Clinton email investigation before they downgraded their initial assessment of her crime from a felony to a “grossly negligent” mistake.
As The Hill’s John Solomon reports, a Senate staff memo updating an ongoing inquiry by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) reveals that the FBI decided to back off their pursuit of this damning evidence “even though the agents believed access to the sensitive evidence was “necessary” to complete the investigation,” writes Solomon.
What’s worse, Trump’s DOJ has known about this egregious failure of justice since at least 2018 thanks to a classified report by the agency’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who explained what happened in a briefing.
But Johnson and Grassley have been unable to get answers for a year, even from Attorney General William Barr, about whether the FBI intends to look at the critical evidence it skipped back in 2016.
The Senate staff memo succinctly lays out just how egregious the FBI’s decision was in 2016.
The inspector general’s “appendix raised a number of serious questions because, as explained on page 154 of the unclassified DOJ IG report, the FBI decided not to seek access to certain highly classified information potentially relevant to the investigation despite members of the FBI case team referring to the review as a ‘necessary’ part of the investigation,” the Senate staff wrote. -The Hill
“As a result of the findings in that appendix, Senator Grassley wrote a classified letter to DOJ on October 17, 2018, which remains unanswered. On January 15, 2019, at Mr. Barr’s nomination hearing, Senator Grassley asked Mr. Barr if he would answer the letter, if confirmed, to which he attested, ‘Yes, Senator.’ On April 16, 2019, Senators Grassley, Johnson, and Graham sent a letter to Attorney General Barr reiterating the need for a written response to that letter,” reads the note.
Now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok (who is now suing the DOJ over his ouster) was responsible for downgrading the language regarding Clinton’s conduct from the criminal charge of “gross negligence” to “extremely careless.”
“Gross negligence” is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with recklessness. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, gross negligence is “A severe degree of negligence taken as reckless disregard,” and “Blatant indifference to one’s legal duty, other’s safety, or their rights.” “Extremely careless,” on the other hand, is not a legal term of art – and is why Clinton got off scot-free.
18 U.S. Code § 793 “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” specifically uses the phrase “gross negligence.” Had Obama’s FBI used the phrase, they would have essentially declared that Hillary had broken the law.
The Rest…HERE
