Controversial FBI agent co-wrote initial draft of explosive Comey letter reopening Clinton email pro

[MelissaB]

Source: CNN

Controversial FBI agent co-wrote initial draft of explosive Comey letter reopening Clinton email probe

Washington (CNN)Emails obtained by CNN show the FBI agent at the center of a Capitol Hill storm played a key role in a controversial FBI decision that upended Hillary Clinton's campaign just days before the 2016 election: the letter to Congress by then-FBI Director James Comey announcing the bureau was investigating newly discovered Clinton emails.

The new revelation about FBI agent Peter Strzok comes as Republicans accuse him of being sympathetic to Clinton while seeking to undermine Donald Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign season.

Strzok, who co-wrote what appears to be the first draft that formed the basis of the letter Comey sent to Congress, also supported reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails were discovered on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner's laptop, according to a source familiar with Strzok's thinking. The day after Strzok sent his draft to his colleagues, Comey released the letter to Congress, reigniting the email controversy in the final days of the campaign.

... snip

This new information reveals a more complicated portrait of Strzok than many of his critics have painted in public. Republicans have seized on text messages between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who were often critical of Trump, to characterize the two -- who were having an extramarital affair -- as part of an effort to go easy on Clinton and get tough with Trump.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/31/politics/strzok-fbi-comey-clinton-letter/index.html

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. So he actually worked AGAINST HRC, no news there.

[Hortensis]

33. Yes, it is. News of EXTREMELY UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR

on the part of this schmuck. No one has to tell you, of course, that Comey's colleagues around the nation were shocked and even horrified at the FBI's blatant interference in the election.

THIS as a reason for exiling this schmuck to career death in HR makes a lot of sense, far more than exchanging private emails with a friend.

[Eliot Rosewater]

34. I heart that answer!

[Hortensis]

36. Something else: We don't know if Comey conspired

with special interests to transfer national power to the Republican Party. But if he did, Strzok could have been passing them information from inside the Mueller investigation.

Also, it's also all too possible that a highly unethical person, as this news indicates Strzok to be, could also have been acting as an agent directly for Republican interests. We do know Rudy Giuliani admitted to receiving secrets from inside the FBI during this period.

[asiliveandbreathe]

2. Bazinga - hey Nunes....whatcha gonna do now cupcake!!eom

[Eliot Rosewater]

35. Sheldon would be proud of your use of his word

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Sounds like little Peter burned botth ends of the candle

and it cost him his Job. Now,my question is,why did the so called investigative Media types miss this until today.

Talk about being complicit. Someone had a Ah-Ha moment and they want to save their sorry asses.

[TrollBuster9090]

20. I'm only guessing, but...

...I'm guessing that McCabe probably LEAKED it YESTERDAY, and that's why he got 'benched.'

[Wellstone ruled]

22. Wonder if Comey gave this info to Mueller or

was it general inside info at the FBI. McCabe could be the source,or someone on one of the Intel Committee's. There is the Safety and the rule of Law of our Nation at stake.

Have said in the past,it would be the Agencies that blow up the Trump Crime Family. You do not falsely mess with the FBI or CIA people. History is replete with stories of those who did.

[Freethinker65]

4. Memo that, Nunes

[ffr]

5. And Strzok swayed enough uninformed voters to either sit out the election or not enthusiastically

support HRC. In a way, that makes him and Comey co-most-powerful-despicables to change American history for the worse.

Tearing my hair out! Unbelievable the Hatch Act violations in pairs.

[TrollBuster9090]

21. However, the silver lining is...

1. If HRC had WON, she would have just barely limped across the finish line, and then spent the next four years being thwarted, humiliated, and chopped up by a hostile Republican House and Senate. Meanwhile, the GOP base is still thinking "we'd get everything we want IF ONLY we'd elected a Republican President TOO!"

2. This way, Republicans elected a complete idiot as President, and a bunch of crooks to COngress, and, try as they may, they can't blame all these disasters on Democrats. They control all three branches of government (Congress, White House, and Supreme Court). Whatever happens is COMPLETELY ON THEM. Trump is going down the toilet, and taking the entire GOP WITH him. Meanwhile, the Democratic base has never been more energized. And there will be a blue wave in 2018 and 2020, JUST IN TIME FOR THE CENSUS, so that they can GET RID OF THE F--ING GERRYMANDERED Congressional districts.

Definitely a big silver lining.

[Woodycall]

24. I agree

It needed to happen this way to rip the mask off of the Gangster Oligarch Party.

[ffr]

27. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. n/t

[Eliot Rosewater]

31. What an absolutely ABSURD comment. It had to happen that Hillary had to lose?

Am I allowed to say it is ABSURD to say that Hillary had to LOSE so we could do what again?

Jesus christ.

[ehrnst]

38. Hillary "had" to lose? Really?

And you sleep better at night now that's happened?

The "burn it all down" philosophy is going to get a big test, and I think you're not going to like the outcome.

Unless you're a white straight man. The privilege usually allows them to do better than anyone else when civilization goes south...

[lunamagica]

40. Tell that to the people who will not survive this and to the families being torn

apart by deportation.

[ffr]

26. No and never. I'd rather have HRC and be able to sleep at night.

The poisoning of our air and water. The tearing down of our institutions. My ACA premium going through the roof because of tRump's defunding. The isolation we're showing to our allies and the world. The stain to our moral fabric. I want nothing to do with any of it. Hillary Clinton would be kicking ass right now. She'd be kicking Putin's ass right now.

And you think for a minute that conservatives are going to own any of this chaos? It's only been 8 years since the second biggest financial meltdown in American history, created solely by conservatives (R), after 8 years of recovery on the backs of Democrats, and you think for one second 63 million republican voters gave a shit? Apparently they didn't learn anything about what republicans do to good economies, because they mopped the floors with us last election. It should have been 180° directly the opposite.



NO, GIVE ME A DEMOCRAT in the WH, congress, judicial branch, any fucking day of the week!!!

[ehrnst]

37. Thank you. (nt)

[delisen]

28. No she would have an army of women with her and we would

be freeing ourselves of the patriarchal that has been chewing up women and a lot of good men.

You think that tax bill will have passed? You think our national parks would be being destroyed, you think the female president would be denying climate change, or not enforcing sanctions on Russia.

Do you think H Clinton, who had the guts to go against Putin, and was hated by Putin, and who warned us about the Russians and Trump, and who wanted the Russian interference information to be released to the public in 2016 would not immediately move to protect the country?

We have had year of our media, and officials waste time trying to work with Trump, to normalize him.

With Clinton as president no time would have been wasted and the CIA and FBI would have gone to work .
She know what we were up against anti would have been full steam ahead once she had the power.

She had 3 million more votes as it is, the other 188,000 sure would not have been limping across a finish line.

[Eliot Rosewater]

30. Ridiculous and absurd to say there is any silver lining AT ALL

Your characterization of Hillary is demeaning, insulting and disgusting.

[Cary]

32. Susan Sarandon, is that you?

[mcar]

39. Yeah, I always look at the prospect of nuclear war as a silver lining

But hey, at least the woman didn't get in.

[lunamagica]

41. Tell that to the DACA recipients.

It must be nice to be in a place where trump won't hurt you and you can be so cold to the suffering of others

[still_one]

42. Wrong. If those self-identified progressives who had refused to vote for the Democratic nominee had

instead voted for the Democratic nominee, the odds are very good that those Democrats running for Senate in those critical swing states would have won against the respective incumbent, establishment, republicans they were running against, and we would have control of the Senate, and Gorsuch would not be seated in the SC right now, the voting rights act and the civil rights act would not be whittled down, we would not be leaving the Paris Accords, the EPA, and every other government department would not have people appointed to those areas that want to destroy those very departments they are in charge of.

DACA would have been renewed. We wouldn't have an administration that would be despised by the rest of the world, workers rights, civil rights, women's rights, environmental rights, gay rights, social security, medicare, medicaid, healthcare, science, and education would not be at risk right now.

I remember the false equivalency and outright LIEs that was being thrown about by those self-identified progressives that refused to vote for the Democratic nominee that there was no difference between the republicans and Democrats, even going so far in some cases to say that "trump would not be as bad as the Democratic nominee", and no doubt their bullshit influenced some of the 47% that didn't even bother to vote.

[JI7]

43. There is no fucking silver lining

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. Not sure about this. Strzok was in DC, right? From what I remember

the former FBI director in NYC initmated with Gulliani on a TV interview - that NY FBI was supposedly going to break the story that they were still looking at Hillary. That was the reason Comey HAD to say something - before NY did (an agency political type move).

So, if Strzok in DC - and sympathized with HRC (not sure about releasing this) - he still might have had to begrudgingly help Comey draft.

[wiggs]

10. You are correct, probably. Seth Abramson discusses it in length on Twitter. It's

a huge story, and even when an outlet like cnn mentions the Comey letter, they omit the possible reasons.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. I was into it for a while...because I had read

That Steele had contacted NY FBI about what he was learning about trump and they never called him back. Supposedly they hate Hillary there.

[MelissaB]

7. From Chris Hayes

This is a narratively perfect denoument. The man supposed to be behind the FBI's anti-Trump conspiracy was behind the letter that did more to get Trump elected than any single event. LOL

Link to tweet

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. sing it loud

That needs to be yelled in the face of Nunes, Grassley, and the whole damned cabal of co-conspirators.

[CousinIT]

9. This proves the OPPOSITE of what Trumpanzee/GOP are alleging...

...that Strzok wanted to "go easy" on Clinton. Obviously he/they had no such intentions.

[JI7]

11. He wanted to reopen it but didn't like how comey was public about it

Either way none of these people were doing anything to help Clinton and hurt trump.

But their actions hurt clinton.

[bronxiteforever]

12. Holy crap! Rudy Giuliani and the RNC were behind this.

[canetoad]

13. I keep coming back to this year old article by Seth Abramson

The Domestic Conspiracy That Gave Trump The Election Is In Plain Sight
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-domestic-conspiracy-that-gave-trump-the-election_us_587ed24fe4b0b110fe11dbf9

/snip
As reported by the New York Times, FBI Director James Comey released his now-infamous October 27th letter in substantial part because he had determined that “word of the new emails [found on Anthony Weiner’s computer]...was sure to leak out.” Comey worried that if the leak occurred at a time when the nature and evidentiary value of the “new” emails was unknown, he “risked being accused of misleading Congress and the public ahead of an election.” By October 27th, the FBI had had access to Weiner’s computer—which it originally received from NYPD—since October 3rd, during which interval the Bureau had both the time and IT know-how to determine that the “new” emails in its possession were in fact duplicate emails from accounts already revealed to the Bureau by Clinton, her aide Huma Abedin, and the State Department. However, when Comey was briefed on the case by agents from the New York field office on October 26th, he discovered that not only had this IT work not been done, but in fact no warrant to seize the full emails had been sought, no permission to read the emails had been requested from cooperating witnesses Weiner and Abedin, and indeed nothing but a summary of the emails’ “meta-data” (non-content header information) had been prepared by his agents. The result of this investigative nonfeasance was that Comey feared he would not be able to get a warrant for the emails and confirm them as duplicates prior to Election Day—a fact that would allow anti-Clinton elements within NYPD and the FBI, and Trump surrogates and advisers with sources in these organizations, to mischaracterize the “new” emails in a way that would swing the election to Trump. As long as the Clinton investigation remained open, Comey would not be able to respond to such misinformation; his only hope of keeping public discussion of the “new” emails within the sphere of reality was to use the cover of a prior promise to Congress to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation—and then close that investigation in short order.

[DallasNE]

25. The Only Possible "New" Email They Could Have

On this BACKUP file was email Clinton would have deleted after the backup was taken and before she delivered her computer to the FBI. One such email the two women discussed what they were wearing to an event that both were attending that evening. When they got wind that Rudy G. Knew they assumed Rudy was waiting to go public with this news. Comey's letter was not sufficiently detailed to properly set the table for the American people.

[madville]

14. That really means nothing

Anyone who has worked in government knows that policy, memos, letters, etc get drafted everyday that may be contrary to the author's personal beliefs.

Comey could have simply ordered him or his division to draft the initial letter. I used to draft memos for my director all the time and then he would send it back with edits for the final version, some stuff I was personally against but that had nothing to do with creating the drafts.

[OilemFirchen]

16. Wrong.

It proves that, if true, Strzok - who is alleged to have been a Clinton supporter - was able to do his job without bias. That completely undermines the Republicans' allegations that a, or some, investigations were compromised.

[Fred Sanders]

17. RW media will spin it the same. Problem is Storzyk is already villified. No chance to restore

his credibility with a "just following orders" excuse.

Drafting a public letter for the Director of the FBI given the context would be serious work. It is not everyday corporate or office work. If Storyk was biased against Trump and was on the Russia investigation and then thus removed from that, who better to help draft the letter?

[Fred Sanders]

15. So the FBI conspired against Clinton, so Russia investigation full steam ahead plus look into this.

[Hassler]

19. Meanwhile at FOX...

The talent with Mussolini's jowls is screaming at his reflection in a toilet bowl.

[TrollBuster9090]

23. "According to a source familiar with Strzok's THINKING?"

A source familiar with Strok's thinking? What the f---k does THAT mean?

(In any case, these new leaks appear to have taken the piss out of both Devin's half-assed MEMO, as well as Trump's State of the Union public reading test.)

[delisen]

29. Sometimes people "in love" lie about their politics

to please the the lover.