“Having just completed a first review of the IG Report on James Comey, with numerous highlights for further overlay and research, here are my thoughts upon initial review.
First, there is absolutely no doubt James Comey used his memos akin to FD-302 investigative reports from an FBI agent. Meaning, from beginning-to-end he considered himself an investigative agent against the President-elect and then President Trump.
Note: The recording of his encounter with the target, President-elect Trump should be “treated like FISA derived information in a counterintelligence investigation.” During this January 6th operation, Comey was the active FBI agent gathering evidence for later use. The collected intelligence would be shared with the team via memo #1.
Remember the Lisa Page Texts from the same date?
The FBI redacted almost all of that text because it outlines the distribution of the evidence Comey was collecting. Comey’s memos were essentially FD-302 reports, and the officials within the DOJ and FBI didn’t want that exposed. Lisa Page text was heavily redacted because it would have shown the January 6th encounter was an operation against Trump.
Every encounter and every aspect of every action within that encounter was conducted in what Comey perceived as an official investigative capacity.
President Trump was the target of Comey’s operations and he wrote his memos as investigative notes therein. Example: Comey ran the, operation:
So the “small group”: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Baker, Priestap, Rybicki, et al, were running a counterintelligence operation against the incoming administration.
There are parts of the IG report highlighting a stunning amount of self-interest.
Example: Who made the decision(s) about what “was” or what “was not” classified? Or, put another way: who was making the internal decisions about Comey’s exposure to legal risk for sharing his investigative notes (memos) outside the department?
The answer is the same “small group” who were carrying out the operation:
James Baker, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, James Rybicki and Lisa Page were determining what parts of James Comey’s investigative notes needed to be classified.
The corrupt FBI was in position to police itself. This is not a conflict of interest, it is better described as a profound conflict of self-interest.
The information the ‘small group‘ wanted to use to frame the target would be visible, not classified; however, any material that would outline the construct of their corruption in targeting the target would be hidden, classified. You can’t make this stuff up folks.
The “small group” WAS the sources and methods they were protecting.
Everything needed to understand that level of corruption is outlined in the way the IG report discusses the handling of James Comey’s investigative notes (ie. memos). AND the fact that James Comey kept them hidden, yes hidden. Read this stuff!
First, “no hard copies of any of the memos were found in Comey’s FBI office.”:
So, if the memos were not held in Director James Comey’s official FBI office, the next logical question is where were they?
Well, when Special Agents went to James Comey’s house, he still kept them hidden and never informed the agents:
If Mr. Altruism, James Comey, was simply fulfilling the duty of a concerned and dedicated FBI Director, why not tell the FBI agents -picking up FBI records- that he had copies of FBI investigative notes in his “personal safe” while they were there?
What honorable justification exists for keeping them hidden from valid investigators?
Obviously me, you and God are not the only ones able to see the sketchy nature of this construct. In fact, an internal FBI whistleblower came forward soon after that search of Comey’s home to request official “whistleblower status protection” from the IG.
Think logically…. What would prompt someone inside the FBI; who at some point gained access to the Comey memos; to request ‘whistleblower protected status’?
Doesn’t the “whistleblower request” indicate the requesting FBI official saw something nefarious in the way this was all going down?
Who was that ‘whistleblower’?
Well, first, Captain Obvious would tell you it has to be someone who actually gained possession of those memos right?…. this is not a big group. Second, you only need to read a few more pages of the IG report to see who it was:
The “whistleblower” was the Supervisory Special Agent described in page 38 as above.
The memos were “stored” in a “reception area“, and in locked drawers in James Rybicki’s office. [“Drawer safes” are silly FBI legal terms for fancy locked drawers] Also note…
“Reception area“? “May 15th“?
Well, (#1) apparently no-one wanted to be the one holding the hot potato of investigative evidence (Comey memos); that ownership would outline them as participatory members in carrying out the targeting of then President Trump. Oh, yeah, those investigative notes were not in “the office of the FBI Director” on May 10th, when you were here searching the last time,… for some mysterious reason.. they, uh,… well, they were discovered… in the “reception area“… yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket! Right under the four month old copy of People Magazine, n’ stuff.
….ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME WITH THIS?
…AND (#2) the very next morning, GUESS what happened?…
Now we see why the FBI Supervisory Special Agent in charge of inventorying Comey records asked the IG for official “whistleblower status.”
Sketchy warning flares surrounded the SSA agent right there in the FBI executive suites.
Of course the SSA gave the Inspector General the seven memos, asked for whistleblower protection, and likely told the IG the way they were produced stinks to high heaven. Good grief. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/29/2019)