Discussion: Here's Why McCabe Might Have Slow-Rolled The Clinton Email Probe

McCabe may have been doing — or at least trying to do — what Comey failed to do: Prevent the FBI from inappropriately influencing the election.

The irony is that the FBI and the entire Obama Administration bent over backward to protect Trump from suffering news about Russia’s meddling, while McCabe is taking the fall for doing precisely that in the far less newsworthy Weiner-goose chase.

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TPM is a little slow on the uptake here. I saw this opinion posted by many posters here on TPM days ago.

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Iow he got pushed out for doing his job something comey apparently wasn’t willing to do

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Trump got the full LBJ, and we got stuck with Trump. He’s hoping that Trump goes the way of Nixon…

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New York FBI Office: need we say more?

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It is long standing FBI policy not to say anything during a political campaign that would in any way impact the outcome of the election. McCabe slow walking the disclosure would have been completely consistent with that long standing policy. He would have been rightfully criticized for disclosing the information. Comey making his announcement at the very end of the campaign was a clear violation of FBI policy.

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Sounds like they need to clean house in FBI in ny

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I will be glad when someone asks comey that question

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The NY FBI office is compromised by the Russian Mob to the point where internally in the FBI, they cut them out of the loop if they can.
The NY FBI office is also the source of Rudy Giuliani’s information when he was telling everyone that “Hillary is TOAST” in Sept. 2016 and “more big stuff would be coming out soon” on her.
Internal investigations into the NY FBI office have been stonewalled and roadblocked for years because of their “kompromat” by the Russian Mob. This is widely acknowledged (privately) within the FBI.

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suggests McCabe may have acted improperly by waiting three weeks to act on the request from agents in the New York office

The IG needs to look into how long that office waited to act after discovering that they had some of Abedin’s emails, and look into what, if anything, that office did to nudge Comey into going public with the results of the investigation and then again about the new batch of emails.

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The irony is that the person who fast-walked the investigation and announced that Hillary was again under investigation a few days before election was also fired. The announcement was made even before there was credible info that there was something there there. FBI was acting just like the media. Trying to hedge on Hillary’s victory so they don’t get blamed. The media on the other hand, did not put Trump’s feet on fire because he was going to lose.

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"Comey’s decision ultimately to disclose the emails to Congress reportedly came after FBI agents in the New York office exerted pressure to get the news out. "

In other words, we can file all this blather about “anti-Trump bias” under Rove’s Rule No. 1: loudly and incessantly accuse your opponent of exactly what you’re doing wrong, i.e., project. The real “deep state” here were the anti-Clinton fucks who fervently hoped they could finally “get” her. The fact that the agents in the NY office drove both Comey’s decision to disclose emails to Congress AND the apparent complaint that McCabe “slow walked” their demands to chase more bullshit down the GOP rabbit hole indicates that THEY are the ones who should be investigated for bias.

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AND his having made that announcement was cynically used as the justification for that firing.

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Great link, I had not read/heard that. Thanks!

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New York FBI Field Office…New York FBI Field Office. You mean, the anti-HRC FBI Field Office that presumably was leaking information to Rudy Guiliani during the campaign? That one? Sounds like McCabe was right to be cautious of stuff coming out of that office.

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Trump won’t say it this time, so I will. “This is fake news.” Those emails weren’t new, just archives. It’ll be a happy day when these conspiracy theorists are not in charge of the government.

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“The DOJ should do everything possible not to influence an upcoming election at any level,” Steve Miller, a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, told TPM. “So if the reports are true that he slow-rolled it, that would be, in my view, consistent with DOJ policy. Nothing remotely nefarious jumps out at me.” “I can’t imagine any DOJ policy was violated here,” Miller added.

Comey was pushed to take action by Republicans. What he did in response was questionable. Some say that what he did helped Trump win. And then Trump fired him, using his (ostensibly) pro-Trump action as camouflage. He should have followed the rules, said Trump!

Now it appears that McCabe did follow the rules. And so Trump demands his head on a pike, for following the very rules Comey was (ostensibly) fired for violating.

And I thought I was cynical.

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[quote=“cervantes, post:18, topic:68025”]
Now it appears that McCabe did follow the rules. And so Trump demands his head on a pike, for following the very rules Comey was (ostensibly) fired for violating.
[/quote] Welcome to the Banana Republic!

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More important, if McCabe was moving slowly on the Clinton probe, he may have had good reason to do so: The Justice Department has a longstanding policy instructing staff to be especially cautious about taking any investigative steps that could influence elections, especially in the final stages of a campaign.

Yes! That’s exactly what I thought when I read about the slow-walking. Remember, Comey was rightfully criticized when he released that ridiculous letter about emails on Weiner’s laptop.

Here’s the transcript of Feinstein asking him why it was necessary that he do eleven days before the election. Comey’s answer was unsatisfactory.

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