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 6.
(U) Initial Meeting with the Department
(redacted) According to the LHM, Anderson and McCabe met with Margolis on March, 2016. Also present at this meeting were Jim Rybicki; FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Jim Trainor; and George Toscas, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) in the Department's National Security Division (NSD) who was the most senior career prosecutor involved in the Midyear investigation.
(redacted) According to the LHM, FBI officials gave the (redacted) reports to Margolis and Toscas to review and described the factors that led them to conclude that the information was not credible. The group then discussed what investigative steps, if any, would be appropriate to address the assertions in the report without compromising T1, They ultimately agreed to ask T1 to query its holdings for additional material relevant to the (redacted) reports, subject to a determination that such a step would be legal.
(redacted) The LHM states that the group considered and rejected the idea of discussing the reports with Lynch at that time "given that we had not yet exhausted all available investigative steps that might affirm or rebut our assessment that the reports were not credible." When asked about this decision, McCabe told us that at that meeting, Margolis recounted his experience of being accused of wrongdoing as a young prosecutor, and that he was presented with the accusation before anyone investigated it to see if it was true, which "enraged" him and made him feel like he was carrying a "black cloud” over him. McCabe said that this factored into the decision to take steps to verify or discredit the information before informing Lynch or other political appointees. Anderson stated that they considered it "premature" to provide the information to political appointees, and that it would have placed Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Yates and John Carlin (Assistant Attorney General for NSD) in an awkward position because they would be unable to tell Lynch about it.
(redacted) Request to T1 for Relevant Information
(redacted) Following the March 31 meeting, Anderson and then FBI General Counsel James Baker consulted with NSD's Office of Intelligence regarding whether the FBI legally could ask T1 to query (redacted) existing holdings for information relevant to the two (redacted) reports. They concluded that such a request would be lawful - i.e., within the FBI's authority and not violative of any legal constraint or prohibition, including the Fourth Amendment - provided that the FBI did not ask T1 to conduct additional data collection to obtain responsive information. Asked about the basis for this distinction, Anderson told the OIG that asking T1 to conduct additional data collection would involve tasking a (redacted) without legal process, which the FBI is legally prohibited from doing.
(redacted) On May 4, 2016, Anderson sent a request to Trainor with a draft (redacted) to be provided to T1 (redacted). The (redacted) asked T1 to review (redacted) current (redacted) and provide copies of any documents relevant to the two (redacted) reports, including any documents that may have been used by the Russian actors in the creation of the reports. The request stated that the FBI was not requesting that T1 conduct additional data collection, and asked that T1 pass responsive information directly to the FBI.
(redacted) According to the LHM, T1 responded several weeks later that it had no responsive information. Anderson informed Toscas about this response on June 17, 2016.
(U) July 1 Conference Call
(redacted) On July 1, 2016, McCabe, Anderson, Rybicki, Margolis, and Toscas held a conference call to discuss potential additional steps following the response from T1. According to the LHM, all of the participants on the call agreed that the information in the (redacted) reports was not credible. The group discussed whether legally available investigative steps, such as using legal process to obtain records of any contacts between Lynch and Amanda Renteria, would shed light on the assertions in the reports. They determined that information showing the mere fact of contacts between Lynch and Renteria would not be probative, and that they did not have sufficient evidence to meet the probable cause standard to obtain the contents of any communications between them. The group reached a consensus that the next step would be to present the report to DAG Yates, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (PADAG) Matt Axelrod, and AAG Carlin, and then to meet with Lynch.
(redacted) Comey told the OIG that he was aware that the group had discussed obtaining Renteria's phone records, but had determined that information showing contacts between Lynch and Renteria would not be helpful. Asked about this, Comey stated:
(redacted) [T]hat's a fairly aggressive step to be getting phone records of a senior campaign official and it isn’t likely to be dispositive or move the ball down on the field...because okay, so the Attorney General of the United States knows somebody on the Clinton campaign and...there's communication between them, so how is that helping us.
(redacted) Comey stated that his understanding was that Margolis thought obtaining phone records would "take us down the path [where] we're investigating the Attorney General of the United States, and that I think his sense was, you ought to have more of a reason to go forward with it than what you have." Comey said that they determined that this step was not warranted given that the information in the (redacted) reports was not credible on its face.
(redacted) As described in more detail below, Lynch later told the OI that she did not even know who Renteria was, and did not have any contacts with the Clinton campaign.