Newly Declassified DOJ Watchdog Report Shows FBI Cut Corners in Clinton Email Investigation
I'm archiving "Clinton annex" here to make its text searchable. You can download the annex in PDF format via the link below:
Check my other posts for the previous parts. This is part 10.
(U) Fall 2016 Releases
(redacted) Additional releases of emails obtained through Russian cyber intrusions continued into late 2016. These included the release by DCLeaks of emails from the personal Gmail account of Capricia Marshall, who worked as former Secretary Clinton's Chief of Protocol at the State Department from 2009 to 2013, and the release by Wikileaks of a large number of emails from the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, the Chief of Staff to the Clinton earmpaign.5 Following the release of the Marshall emails, FBI analysts conducted database searches and discovered that the FBI Cyber Division previously had prepared a list of election-related email addresses targeted by GRU cyber actors since early 2016. In an email sent to Executive Assistant Director Michael Steinbach and others on October 9, 2016, Strzok stated:
(redacted) At least three of them - belonging to Ian Mellul, Capricia Marshall, and John Podesta - have been released recently by Wikileaks and DCLeaks. Of note, the targeting list also includes Amanda Renteria (important given her role in one of two (redacted) reports of significant MYE interest), potentially the AG, several senior members of Clinton's State Department/campaign staff, and a (redacted) Russia analyst.
(redacted) Asked about these emails, an FBI attorney assigned to both the Midyear and Russia investigations (FBI Attorney 1), told us that in September or October 2016, the intelligence community task force investigating Russian Influence in the 2016 Presidential Election discussed the two (redacted) reports referencing Lynch in connection with their efforts to identify the "most explosive" information that the Russians potentially would leak.6 FBI Attorney 1 stated, "Those (redacted) memos were some of the most sensitive documents that we thought that they might release."
(redacted) However, FBI Attorney 1 told the OIG that the Midyear team did not discuss the two (redacted) reports in connection with the decision to send the letter to Congress regarding the discovery of emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop on October 28, 2016. Comey told the OIG that, although the June 2016 DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 releases impacted his decision to make his July 5 statement, he did not recall the (redacted) reports being discussed in the Fall of 2016.
F. (U) Comey’s June 2017 Congressional Testimony
(U) During congressional testimony in 2016 and 2017, Comey explained his reasons for deciding not to inform Department leadership about his plans to make a public statement on July 5, 2016. In his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017, Comey was asked about the impact of the tarmac meeting between Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on his decision to make a public statement, and whether there were other factors that impacted this decision. Comey replied, "There were other things that contributed to that. One significant item...I know the committee's been briefed on. There's been some public accounts of it, which are nonsense, but I understand the committee's been briefed on the classified facts."
(redacted) As described in Chapter Six of our unclassified report, Lynch told us that Comey never informed her that he had concerns about her role in the Midyear investigation or her ability to credibly announce a declination. And, as described above, Lynch said that the briefing given to her by McCabe and Anderson focused on the factors impacting the FBI's assessment that the (redacted) reports were not credible. According to Lynch, no one told her that the (redacted) reports had factored into Comey’s decision to issue his July 5 public statement. She said she first learned that this information played a role in his decision based on Comey's congressional testimony in June 2017.
(redacted) Yates similarly told the OIG that Comey never conveyed to her that he had any basis for concern that Lynch was exerting pressure on the investigation, that he was worried that the two (redacted) reports might leak, or that the information influenced his decisionmaking in the Midyear investigation. Yates stated, "And not only was I not aware of that, again when I'm having meetings with the Director and we are strategizing about how best to roll this out, if those were playing a role in his decision as to what he would do, I would have thought he would have raised that with me."
(U) Asked about Comey’s June 2017 congressional testimony, Yates stated:
(U) I was shocked by that.... I just felt like it was horribly unfair for him to take something he knew not to be true, that he never expressed to us as having any concern about, and then to publicly, in front of Congress and the rest of the world, say this like there was something to it - or that he had this other concern. I just thought that, was really unfair to her....
(U) It was almost a "I know something you don't know, but I can't tell you what it is in this setting," which again I have a hard time believing that this was really a factor in his decisionmaking and that he would have concealed that from me when we were having our discussions.
5 (U) See DCLeaks, supra (retweeting Wikileaks releases of Podesta emails).
6 On December 27, 2016, the FBI sent an LHM to (redacted) summarizing the two (redacted) reports. This LHM was cited in the ICA as support for the statement that (redacted) were protective of the accesses they used to derive intelligence reports for President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials, and may have argued to prevent the disclosure of non-public material - to include information collected from U.S. think tanks potentially damaging to the Clinton campaign - that would have endangered continued collection on U.S. decisionmaking in a Clinton administration.