Office of the Inspector General U.S. Department of Justice

[hrsepwrguy]

A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election

I haven't had a chance to read it all yet but here is a highlight that is interesting. Pg 420-421

The conduct of the five FBI employees described in sections A, B, and C of this Chapter has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI. As described in Chapter Five, our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the
specific investigative decisions we reviewed in Chapter Five.  Nonetheless, the conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the FBI Midyear investigation and sowed doubt the FBI’s work on, and its handling of, the Midyear investigation.  Moreover, the damage caused by their actions extends far beyond the scope of the
Midyear investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral fact finding and political independence.We were deeply troubled by text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.  
Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review.  Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok,who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time,conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official,Page,
that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two
disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously,
implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.  
This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.Moreover, as we describe in Chapter Nine, in assessing Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop in October 2016, these text
messages led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.

Here is the link to the full report
https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download
.

[Barb135]

I don't think it's helpful to zero in the text messages of these 2 agents when there were so many other things being done/not done by the FBI during the campaign period.  Those text messages were a drop in the bucket compared to other things that were said and done.  

I doubt we've heard all of it, yet.  I'm guessing we're going to find that one person in the political arena is just as corrupt as the next, right along with a lot of the people trying to call them out, regardless of the party they stand for...