Senator: Comey's remarks on Clinton probe heavily edited
WASHINGTON (AP) — A draft statement former FBI Director James Comey prepared in anticipation of concluding the Hillary Clinton email case without criminal charges was heavily edited to change the "tone and substance" of the remarks, a Republican senator said Thursday.
Some of the edits proposed to the May 2016 draft, obtained by The Associated
Comey, for instance, initially wrote that the FBI believed that Clinton and her aides were "grossly negligent" in their handling of classified information, language also contained in the relevant criminal statute.
But the text was edited to say they were simply "extremely careless" in their use of a personal email server, a phrase Comey adopted for his July 5 public announcement that the FBI would not be recommending charges.
Comey's ultimate statement also omitted language asserting that the "sheer volume" of information classified as secret at the time it was shared made it reasonable to believe that the former secretary of state and her aides were grossly negligent.
In addition, while Comey initially said it was "reasonably likely" that "hostile actors" had gained access to Clinton's email server, the text was edited to say that such an intrusion was "possible."
The original version noted that the FBI had worked with partners in the intelligence community to determine whether the server had been compromised. While it was unclear what significance this had, it was omitted from Comey's final text.
Though the FBI had not yet interviewed Clinton, then the Democratic candidate for president, at the time the statement was drafted, FBI officials had already determined that criminal charges were probably not warranted and had begun thinking about how to present that conclusion to the public.........
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Judicial Watch sues FBI for records about Strzok removal
The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Thursday it had requested FBI records related to the demotion of Peter Strzok from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian activities during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Strzok, a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, was reassigned to the bureau's human resources division over the summer after Mueller was informed of anti-Trump text messages sent between Strzok and Lisa Page, a fellow FBI official as well as Strzok's paramour.
The messages, approximately 375 of which were obtained by Fox News late Tuesday, included messages from Strzok to Page referring to Trump as "a f---ing idiot" and saying "Hillary [Clinton] should win" the election by "100,000,000-0."
The lawsuit also seeks information about how Strzok was assigned to Mueller's investigation in the first place.
"It is disturbing the FBI has stonewalled our request about the Mr. Strzok [sic] demotion for four months," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "One can only conclude the FBI and Justice Department (including Mr. Mueller’s operation) wanted to hide the truth about how Strzok’s and Page’s political biases and misconduct have compromised both the Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations."
Strzok participated in the FBI's fateful..........
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