Slashdot Mirror
Comey, Who Investigated Hillary Clinton For Using Personal Email For Official Business, Used His Personal Email For Official Business (buzzfeed.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Former FBI Director James Comey, who led the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of personal email while secretary of state, also used his personal email to conduct official business, according to a report from the Justice Department on Thursday. The report also found that while Comey was "insubordinate" in his handling of the email investigation, political bias did not play a role in the FBI's decision to clear Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing.
The report from the office of the inspector general "identified numerous instances in which Comey used a personal email account (a Gmail account) to conduct FBI business." In three of the five examples, investigators said Comey sent drafts he had written from his FBI email to his personal account. In one instance, he sent a "proposed post-election message for all FBI employees that was entitled 'Midyear thoughts,'" the report states. In another instance, Comey again "sent multiple drafts of a proposed year-end message to FBI employees" from his FBI account to his personal email account.
The report from the office of the inspector general "identified numerous instances in which Comey used a personal email account (a Gmail account) to conduct FBI business." In three of the five examples, investigators said Comey sent drafts he had written from his FBI email to his personal account. In one instance, he sent a "proposed post-election message for all FBI employees that was entitled 'Midyear thoughts,'" the report states. In another instance, Comey again "sent multiple drafts of a proposed year-end message to FBI employees" from his FBI account to his personal email account.
I've long suspected that use of personal email accounts is so rampant in government that if the FBI did prosecute, half of congress would be torn between destroying their own emails and trying to dig up anything the other party sent them from a person address. It's only a big deal with it can be turned into a political weapon.
The rhetoric about this issue is highly partisan, including your post. However, I don't think this is a liberal/conservative issue, really.
As a state employee, I'm allowed to use my personal email address for official business. Once in awhile I do so, if I want to have a particular discussion outside of work hours while not checking my work email for other business. Nothing I'm doing is sensitive, and I'm allowed to do it provided the emails are sent to an official state email address reasonably soon.
If Comey is using a personal email address to send himself drafts of agency-wide letters, that doesn't seem problematic. Comey isn't going to be sending sensitive information to the entire FBI.
Comey did completely mishandle investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Neither liberals nor conservatives approve of how Comey handled that investigation, so I don't think that's a controversial statement. Clinton was also incredibly reckless, to say the least, in using a personal email server for handling sensitive information. That is, indeed, problematic. As for there being a political bias, Mike Pence also used a personal email account to conduct official business while he was the Governor of Indiana. That email account was hacked, exposing sensitive information. Mike Pence didn't break Indiana law, and I'm not aware of him ever being investigated over the matter.
While both Clinton and Pence have been heavily criticized for using personal email for conducting work-related business, neither has faced serious consequences for doing so. I don't see a political bias here, for or against conservatives.
As for Comey, using a personal email address for a few emails that don't appear sensitive doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Comey's credibility is gone, but it doesn't have anything to do with this. This seems like a non-issue to me, especially compared with all of the other issues surrounding Comey.
What I don't understand about Comey is that he all but threw the election to Trump while panning Trump left and right.
It's easy to understand. Comey and the rest of the beltway didn't even suspect Trump might get elected. The purpose of that farcical reopen/close stunt was to clean the slate; Clinton would win the election and enter office with no outstanding investigative hangups.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
He cleared Hillary of violating a law with no intent requirement because she lacked intent and claimed being extremely careless wasn't negligent. Almost everyone with a security clearance will tell you there's not a chance they'd not get charged for similar behavior, and indeed people have been prosecuted for far less, the submarine guy being the most egregious example. He clearly gave a pass to Hillary; the most reasonable explanation for the other actions was to try to make it seem like that's not what was going on. And if you think this is just one more partisan opinion, a quick glance at my history will illustrate how much I loathe Trump (and all (R)'s), a necessary point to make since people automatically assume anyone who thinks Hillary should have been charged is a Trump supporter.