September, 2016, House Judiciary Committee hearing:
*Mr. RATCLIFFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, did you make the decision not to recommend criminal charges relating to classified information before or after Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI on July the 2nd?
Mr. COMEY. After.
Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. Then I am going to need your help in trying to understand how that is possible.*
Some reporting that came out showing that answer was a lie:
“Comey had his own ideas. Unbeknownst to his Justice Department colleagues, Comey had resolved to proceed alone with the announcement. Since May, he had been holding a parallel series of meetings with top F.B.I. confidants to thrash through his plan. He would publicly announce—and explain—the Clinton decision without Lynch at his side. “We had discussions for months about what this looked like,” Michael Steinbach, who retired as the F.B.I.’s executive assistant director for national security in February, 2017, said. “This, for us, was the best course of action, given the political situation that we were in—for us to do it independently.””
"According to the unredacted portions of the transcripts, it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Corney had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. That was long before FBI agents finished their work. Mr. Comney even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership.
The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts."
It’s not that hard to understand, Mr. Ratcliffe (and others) -
Prosecutors know, as they’re building a case, if the case is a strong one or a weak one. If a case craps out - which happens all the time - then a prosecutor will naturally discuss how it’s proceeding, and how he might wrap it up, with his coworkers.
As early as May, Mr. Comey knew that he didn’t have enough evidence of criminal activity to recommend criminal charges and he didn’t expect that Mrs. Clinton was going to incriminate herself in new and exciting ways during her testimony. Plus, Mr. Comey was trying to find a way to make his announcement in a neutral fashion, so that it would look impartial. This was complicated by Mr. Clinton’s spontaneous schmoozefest on Director Lynch’s plane.
But the decision on how Mr. Comey wanted to proceed was not finalized until after Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, in which, as expected, she didn’t provide any new leads. Mr. Comey’s final decision wasn’t final until he announced it.
Or Bryan Pagliano, “Guccifer”, Cheryl Mills, John Bentel, Justin Cooper and a slew of others. None of whom have been interviewed yet as Comey drafted his letter.
Just because they hadn’t been interviewed yet, doesn’t mean that it was complete mystery what they were going to say. The investigation had been going on for months. Comey certainly knew, by May, what questions the investigators planned to ask in those interviews as well as what answers the interviewees were expected to give. Comey would also have known by then what he could prove about the interviewee’s testimony.
Working out all that stuff is an important investigative process, because it tells you what questions you should be asking.
None of those people were ever going to come to their late-in-the-day interviews and say, “OH! You mean those emails! Yeah, I got them right here. Help yourself!”
But even if one of them had surprised Comey - that doesn’t mean it was wrong of Comey to start preparing for a difficult decision based on what he had in front of him.
When your candidate doesn’t follow through on his campaign promise to have his opponent arrested after the election you might wonder if you backed the right dictator.
Easier to believe that the [del]Jews[del] liberals are preventing this with their sneaky tricks.
Isn’t Okra the guy that poo-poo’s every new damning piece of evidence against his dreamy dictator? And then turns around and posts every piece he feels is damning against an old lady who is in retirement (or anyone he feels has helped her). :rolleyes:
“The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts.” - trumpster fire really shouldn’t have been trying to get Comey to make that statement that he wasn’t being investigated then.
Just like sports writers never do a draft with team x winning and an alternative with team y winning. Just to have one in the can so that when the game is over, they can easily modify one of the versions.
The New York Times is most certainly sitting on an unpublished obit for Woody Allen. Are they complicit in his eventual death?
No, they are just doing that controversial thing called “preparing”. I’m sure DAs across the country know how their case is going before it gets to closing arguments. If you are a DA in a high profile case, and you know you are going to lose, you are going to have your statement prepared in advance for when you walk out of court that last day and face the cameras.