THE CONCLUSION OF THE I.G. REPORT WON'T BE AS POWERFUL AS THE ANECDOTES

The inspector's general's report on the FBI's Clinton email investigation was released today, and here's the headline of the main New York Times story:

Comey Cited as ‘Insubordinate,’ but Report Finds No Bias in F.B.I. Decision to Clear Clinton

From the story:

The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey was “insubordinate” in his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, a critical Justice Department report concluded on Thursday.

But the report, by the department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, does not challenge the decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton. Nor does it conclude that political bias at the F.B.I. influenced that decision, the officials said.

“We found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations,” the report said. “Rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutor’s assessment of facts, the law, and past department practice.”

That's what the inspector general concluded after sifting all the evidence. Some liberals would now like to believe that the right has no more justification for conspiracy-mongering. The front-page headline at HuffPost floats this rosy scenario:

‘DEEP STATE’ CONSPIRACY THEORY TAKES ON WATER

But that's silly. There are just too many anecdotes for the right to seize on, the most obvious one being this:

Perhaps the most damaging revelation in the report is a previously unreported text message in which Strzok, a key investigator on both the Clinton email case and the investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign, assured an FBI lawyer in August 2016 that “we’ll stop” Trump from making it to the White House.

“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” the lawyer, Lisa Page, wrote to Strzok.

“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.

"We" in this context could mean "voters," but the less charitable explanation is hard to dismiss. On the other hand...

Were Strzok and Page biased? If so why did they advocate more intrusive approaches to Clinton investigation? pic.twitter.com/1DYewvOriM

— Post-Impressionist Liberal (@Yastreblyansky) June 14, 2018

He cites this passage from the executive summary of the report:

As we describe Chapter Five of our report, we found that Strzok was not the sole decisionmaker for any of the specific Midyear [Clinton] investigative decisions we examined in that chapter. We further found evidence that in some instances Strzok and Page advocated for more aggressive investigative measures in the Midyear investigation, such as the use of grand jury subpoenas and search warrants to obtain evidence.

Nevertheless, the exchange is a powerful weapon for the right. There's also this:

The Department of Justice inspector general identified a number of instances where FBI employees regularly spoke with members of the media and received a number of free perks from journalists including meals and tickets to various events.

On page XII in the report, the IG says the department “identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.”

... The contact between FBI agents and the media extended to receiving “improperly receiving benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”

And this:

An FBI attorney who worked on the special counsel’s Russia investigation until earlier this year sent anti-Trump text messages to a colleague, including one exclaiming: “Viva le Resistance.”

... The attorney’s messages show that he was distressed at the FBI’s decision in October 2016 to re-open the investigation into Clinton’s emails....

The FBI lawyer also suggested that he would work to resist the Trump administration.

“Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?” one FBI lawyer wrote on Nov. 22, 2016.

“Hell no. Viva le resistance,” the future Mueller attorney responded.

The report's conclusion lacks the emotional punch of the anecdotes -- and we know how much the right likes to weaponize anecdotes. (Anecdotes are the primary way they've persuaded themselves that immigrants are a criminal class.) So this is not going to be a public relations win for the forces of reason -- far from it.