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The IG’s Report May Be Half-Baked
National Review ^ | 06-15-18 | Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on 06/15/2018 9:22:08 PM PDT by Revel

You’ve got to hand it to Michael-Horowitz: The Justice Department inspector general’s much-anticipated report on the Clinton-emails investigation may be half-baked, but if it is, it is the most comprehensive, meticulously detailed, carefully documented, thoughtfully reasoned epic in the history of half-bakery.

Why say do I say the report “may be half-baked”? Why don’t I just come out and declare, “The report is half-baked”? Well, I figure if I write this column in the IG’s elusive style, we’ll have the Rosetta Stone we need to decipher the report.

See, you probably sense that I believe the report is half-baked. But-if I say it “may be” half-baked . . . well, technically that means it may not be, too. I mean, who really knows, right?

If that annoys you, try wading through 568 pages of this stuff, particularly on the central issue of the investigators’ anti-Trump bias. The report acknowledges that contempt for Trump was pervasive among several of the top FBI and DOJ officials making decisions about the investigation. So this deep-seated bias must have affected the decision-making, right? Well, the report concludes, who really knows?

Not in so many words, of course. The trick here is the premise the IG establishes from the start: It’s not my job to draw firm conclusions about why things happened the way they did. In fact, it’s not even my job to determine whether investigative decisions were right or wrong. The cop-out is that we are dealing here with “discretionary” calls; therefore, the IG rationalizes, the investigators must be given very broad latitude. Consequently, the IG says his job is not to determine whether any particular decision was correct; just whether, on some otherworldly scale of reasonableness, the decision was defensible. And he makes that determination by looking at every decision in isolation.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: andymccarthy; dojigreportanalysis; dojigreportreleased
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"But is that the way we evaluate decisions in the real world?"

Very smart reading

1 posted on 06/15/2018 9:22:08 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Revel

This article really has to be read in its entirety in order to get what he is saying. Excepts are going to lead to incorrect conclusions on what the article is about. Some articles are just written that way. So please read the whole thing if you are interested.


2 posted on 06/15/2018 9:29:01 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Revel

Apparently Horowitz doesn’t want his family killed any more than anybody else does.


3 posted on 06/15/2018 9:52:23 PM PDT by Hoosier-Daddy ("Washington, DC. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious")
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To: Revel

Thanks for the post I see what you mean good article to read completely. This Horowitz seems rather weaselly


4 posted on 06/15/2018 9:54:22 PM PDT by datricker (Cut Taxes Repeal ACA Deport DACA - Americans First, Build the Wall, Lock her up MAGA!)
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To: Revel

All of the Freepers who’ve been saying that NR is hopelessly compromised and hopelessly anti-Trump need to read this. Do those Freepers really think we’d be better off without Fox News and NR? Are they really that challenged, that dumb, that narrow, that focused on the idea that only someone who agrees with their every quirk is a real conservative?


5 posted on 06/15/2018 9:57:18 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: Revel
I would urge folks interested in the nothing/somethingburger aspect of the IG report to listen to the Dan Bongino podcast. (you can always listen at 1.25x, sometimes 1.5x is a little hectic!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgZUP-KEHY

Bongino has absolutely the opposite take on the "meaningfulness" of the IG report, and I think he explains it quite well. I strongly reco a listen.

Remember: The report's job is NOT to recommend prosecutions or actions. Its purpose is to state facts. It has stated some seriously damning facts. Nobody can predict whether anything will happen, and I am as skeptical as most, but the report has unquestionably brought out some seriously damning facts.

This is a 550+ page report. It's not a skim read. Some people have read it. Many, many more have NOT read it. Some of those who have read it have not drawn the proper conclusions. People who have NOT read it (and I have not read it) are ABSOLUTELY coming to bad conclusions. Without question, the media and the Dems are going to spin the report as a N_burger. That should be zero surprise. The report is NOT a nothing burger. It is a *scathing* indictment of the FBI and DOJ. Scathing.

One thing is for sure: The case for obstruction against Trump is absolutely dead. DEAD. Period. Fatal conflict of interest. Comey was fired, for one reason, because of how he handled the HRC private email situation. In this report, Comey admitted that he, too, had a private email account and used it to conduct some gov't business. Did we know that before this report? No, we didn't. Not before this report. So, do ya think someone in government who has a private email account has a blatant self-interest in killing an investigation into whether HRC had a private email account? In an obstruction trial, Comey would be the #1 witness. His credibility is 100% obliterated on the obstruction.

While we're at it, we also discover that Comey has claimed that he & the agency were in no special hurry to examine Weiner's laptop...giving as an excuse, that he HAD NO IDEA that Huma was married to Weiner

That is completely impossible to believe, it was in every newspaper on the planet, and COmey has already claimed that he reads newspapers and keeps up to speed on "the news". There's no way he could not know they were married. No way.

Before this report, Strzok replied to Page's wail "please tell me that Trump will not be president" by saying "No. We will stop that". WE__WILL__STOP__THAT. Expresses a clear willingness to take action.

That text was DELETED FROM all prior renderings of texts that have submitted to Congress. Do we think that is important? You da** well better believe that is important, it means 1: Strzok was willing to act, and 2: The FBI was willing to cover that up.

Ladies & gentlemen, that's the whole case, right there.

That deletion is of utterly critical importance. We did not know of it before this report.

We also find out from the report that HRC was definitively hacked by "others".

And we also find out that there is no question that 0bama knew she was using a private server, when he previously stated that he only found out about it via regular media.

Some of these things, we of course suspected long ago and far away. It is an entirely different story to have them etched into an actual IG report.

6 posted on 06/15/2018 10:00:47 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

I am starting to see that there is a lot of useful information in the report. But I still think that some of its main conclusions are unreasonable. The bias in the FBI and DOJ is obvious. But now there is some hope that this report is not the final say on what criminal charges may be brought. It just may be the source of many new investigations which could lead to the re-opening of older ones.


7 posted on 06/15/2018 10:11:07 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Revel
Very good read.

I think we know what is going on. And the bad guys have families too.

8 posted on 06/15/2018 10:15:10 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Hoosier-Daddy
Apparently Horowitz doesn’t want his family killed any more than anybody else does.<<

Obviously...lol

9 posted on 06/15/2018 10:43:05 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: Revel

That’s exactly what it is. It’s job was not to make recos, it was to report facts. This I believe it did pretty darn well. The disappointment we all probably feel is that it DIDN’T put forth recos. That disappointment is self-generated, that’s my point in posting. Forget not that we are all being spun by the media. We’re not seeing the recos and most of us probably feel like it will be “more of the same” = the usual nothingburger. But: It discovered new things, two of considerable importance, and it developed them up from mere suspicions to facts contained in a supposedly independent report. This gives those facts very serious weight. From here, things can happen. And, they may not.

Probably, nobody on FR thought there was any case for obstruction, for example. Until now, that has never meant that such a trial and the continuing blather about such a trial could not continue “forever”. But with this new fact that Comey himself used a private server, there is no witness to such a trial. That is a big deal, though I admit it may not seem like one. They can not realistically hold that trial. It doesn’t seem that dramatic, I agree, but the threat, the possibility is seriously cut off. In a “case” (it’s not a case, it’s a national miasma) where every day a new layer of possibility, misdirection, and equivocation is revealed, we finally got some solidity, and it’s all in our favor. That’s not nothing.


10 posted on 06/15/2018 10:44:52 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them)
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To: Revel

“And Brutus was an honorable man” -Mark Antony

In his speech to the Roman citizenry, Mark Antony had listed a long litany of injustices and gross offences committed by Brutus against Julius Caesar ending with a facile conclusion that everyone could see right through. He did it on purpose to start a revolt against Brutus and the other conspirators.

The question is why did Horowitz end his own long litany of gross biases and injustices with “No political motive”? Is he really that facile or is he pulling a Mark Antony?


11 posted on 06/15/2018 10:45:58 PM PDT by Gideon7
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To: Revel

It’s a half baked report.


12 posted on 06/15/2018 10:52:24 PM PDT by CJ Wolf (Free)
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To: Revel

I just posted the 21 page .pdf release by the IG.

DOJ OIG RELEASES REPORT ON VARIOUS ACTIONS BY THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IN ADVANCE OF THE 2016 ELECTION

https://oig.justice.gov/press/2018/2018-06-14.pdf

FR Comments: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3663625/posts


13 posted on 06/15/2018 11:01:25 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Steve_Seattle

>> Do those Freepers really think we’d be better off without Fox News and NR?

Well, no one seems to give a damn that Disney and Comcast are driving the MSM narrative...

And don’t hesitate to give your obligatory nod... ;)


14 posted on 06/15/2018 11:25:00 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Hoosier-Daddy; null and void; SkyPilot; Travis McGee; Diogenesis; Bon mots; bitt; GregNH; Liz; ...

[Apparently Horowitz doesn’t want his family killed any more than anybody else does.]

He knows the Clinton Family has a lot of unexplained, very convenient deaths all around them.

I’m sure they were all just amazing accidents and coincidences.


15 posted on 06/16/2018 12:15:24 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Revel

Good find !

What bothers me is that if we had the same number of FBI employees saying the same things about blacks as they did about Trump voters, Horowitz would have no problem deciding if there was “bias”, or if that bias “changed the investigation outcome”.

Under the “Horowitz standard”, if wants to, he will always be able to justify or excuse the most merciless punitive prosecution, or the most outrageous non-investigation investigation.

That also means that the Horowitz “investigation” of the FISA warrants, Trump campaign infiltration, FBI non-recovery of text messages will get the same treatment.

My only comfort is that every time these Swamp creatures pull off some dirty, unfair move, it ends up helping Trump in the end.


16 posted on 06/16/2018 12:22:20 AM PDT by Reverend Wright (I am a Putin bot and I approve this message.)
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To: Revel

Yet there are those who want ANOTHER Special Counsel. Why waste time and money. Just copy this report, change some names and dates and voila done.


17 posted on 06/16/2018 1:15:53 AM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: Revel

The pig report was harsher than I expected but it really was a whitewash in the end


18 posted on 06/16/2018 1:31:45 AM PDT by SPRINK
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To: SPRINK

Pig should be OIG


19 posted on 06/16/2018 1:32:28 AM PDT by SPRINK
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To: Revel

The article is a clear argument why a special counsel was necessary for this, not an IG. No justice, no peace.


20 posted on 06/16/2018 3:55:56 AM PDT by Nicojones
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