Inspector General Report on the FBI

This long-awaited report was supposed to reveal the cesspit in the FBI--all those conspiratorial corrupt agents trying to prevent Trump from competing in the election or taking the power he rightfully won.

The report didn't do that. A few weeks before its release (when the final changes are being made to the umpteenth draft), Trump predicted that it would be perhaps the biggest scandal ever, reaching all the way to Obama. Beyond that, Trump is strangely vague about the contents. Trump was either misinformed or deluded. The complaints in the report encompass several teams of agents but are clustered around just a few elements of the process, primarily the FISA warrant.

It's interesting to recall what the wingnuts predicted. Trump's phones were tapped (by Obama!). His campaign was spied on. The meeting between Mifsud and Papadopoulos was an FBI or CIA trap. The Trump Tower meeting was an FBI trap. The supposed report by the Australian diplomat was a fake. The FBI was working solely with the DNC and Hillary campaign, and the rest is lies to cover up how putrid and biased the FBI had become--no professionalism, raw partisanship. (I've written recently about one such conspiracy post.)

Well, the IG report is available with minimal redactions, and it does very little to support that wingnuttery. I've read various parts of it. It concludes that the FBI had reasonable grounds to open the investigation. It seems like the IG found the stuff about the Australian diplomat plausible, and not a phony cover story. A very common phrase from the report was:

... we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.

This wording was used in regard to the opening of the counterintelligence investigation, the use of 'confidential human sources' (informants sent to collect information), or in seeking the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page. So those texts between Strzok and Lisa Page that the conservative media pretended were so ominous--the IG didn't find that they had any operational effect. No surprise there. They always seemed to be casual texts, not messages between conspirators setting operations into motion.

The biggest issues concerned the FISA warrant, the use of information from Steele, and the handling of that information and exculpatory information. The IG report had a lot of complaints about that area. However, that is really very limited.

Just consider what wasn't in the IG report:

1. Efforts to entrap Trump advisers (as conspiracy theorists theorized).
2. Clinton or her close circle instructing the FBI.
3. The FBI gathering tons of inside strategy information from multiple taps and bugs on the Trump campaign.
4. The FBI gathering inside campaign strategy information from tapping Page.
5. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside campaign strategy information around in the FBI. 
6. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside strategy information about the Trump campaign with close advisers of Obama or Clinton. 
7. The FBI working with Clinton and Obama advisers on how to hamstring Trump during his transition and after his inauguration. 

How do I know this isn't in the report? Because I read through the rather boring Table of Contents (pages xx-xxviii). It's a relatively painless overview of the decidely non-juicy details.(CHAPTER FOUR: THE FBI'S RECEIPT AND EVALUATION OF INFORMATION FROM CHRISTOPHER STEELE PRIOR TO THE FIRST FISA APPLICATION... CHAPTER EIGHT: MISSTATEMENTS, OMISSIONS AND ERRORS IN THE FISA RENEWAL APPLICATIONS.) Conclusions start on page 410. That's how I found out who got their hands slapped the hardest.

From the IG report, you don't get a sense that the FBI was a den of anti-Trump activist spies. Instead they are rather methodical drudges, but they still didn't manage to follow all the very important rules, and therefore everyone involved should have their performance reviewed. This applies especially to Bruce Ohr of the DOJ. Uhhhh, that's it. Performance reviews. That's kind of anti-climactic. 

The most common complaints, besides that information wasn't included in the FISA application or renewals as it should have been:

While we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents ... we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified. 

Yep, those agents didn't explain why they didn't do things the right way. So maybe they were conspiring with... someone, but they were wily enough to get away with it. 

Were there any bombshells from the IG report? None at all, unless you were counting on some juicy conspiracy revelations. Too bad for those who were, such as Attorney General and all-around toady Bill Barr. I'd say better luck next time (the Durham investigation), but I wouldn't mean it.

Some will interpret it this way.

Image: cartoonistgroup.com

Update 4/1/20. As I suspected, the kinds of mistakes/shortcuts taken in the Carter Page FISA application weren't unique, but were rather common practice for FISA applications, which the Inspector General found as a follow-up to some of his other investigations. All those tut-tutting the Page application didn't know what the actual practice is, and, horrors, some rules are kind of winked at. Ummm, I've done this myself on some of the damn paperwork on some of my jobs, so that was always my top suspicion.

Update 4/10/20. Another disclosure on a Friday afternoon. Some footnotes in the Page FISA warrant were declassified. GOPers claim that they show the FBI knew the Steele document was rubbish. The footnotes actually show that the FBI was aware that the Steele document was likely to be partly Russian disinformation. GOPers maximize the disclosures beyond what they say. Fox News goes for broke. Hmmmm, though, on a Friday afternoon. Is this a burial or not?