(Washington, DC) Transcripts reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal that former FBI Director James Comey began drafting an exoneration statement in the Clinton email investigation before the FBI had interviewed key witnesses.  U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, requested all records relating to the drafting of the statement as the committee continues to review the circumstances surrounding Comey’s removal from the Bureau.

“Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation.  The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy,” the senators wrote in a letter today to the FBI.

Last fall, following allegations from Democrats in Congress, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) began investigating whether Comey’s actions in the Clinton email investigation violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their official position to influence an election.  In the course of that investigation, OSC interviewed two FBI officials close to Comey: James Rybicki, Comey’s Chief of Staff, and Trisha Anderson, the Principal Deputy General Counsel of National Security and Cyberlaw.  OSC provided transcripts of those interviews at Grassley’s request after it closed the investigation due to Comey’s termination.

Both transcripts are heavily redacted without explanation. However, they indicate that Comey began drafting a statement to announce the conclusion of the Clinton email investigation in April or May of 2016, before the FBI interviewed up to 17 key witnesses including former Secretary Clinton and several of her closest aides.  The draft statement also came before the Department entered into immunity agreements with Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson where the Department agreed to a very limited review of Secretary Clinton’s emails and to destroy their laptops after review.  In an extraordinary July announcement, Comey exonerated Clinton despite noting “there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.”

In their letter, the two chairmen requested all drafts of Comey’s statement closing the Clinton investigation, all related emails and any records previously provided to OSC in the course of its investigation.

OSC is the permanent, independent investigative agency for personnel matters in the federal government and is not related to Robert Mueller’s temporary prosecutorial office within the Justice Department.

Read the letter below:

You May Also Like

Sarah Palin & Bill O’Reilly on Obama’s Gulf Oil Spill Address

Did you watch President Barack Obama’s primetime address regarding the Gulf oil…

The Female Prosecutor Who Will Question Ford and Kavanaugh

Rachel Mitchell, an experienced prosecutor who has decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, will question Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford.

UN CRPD Treaty to Be Resurrected

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) will be resurrected by the U.S. Senate. We need to tack action to fight it again.

Facebook and the Idiotic Memefication of American Politics

A picture like this posted on a Facebook wall makes all of…