On June 14, Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice’s inspector general, released a long-awaited report on the partisan shenanigans of a few FBI agents in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The report sharply criticizes then-director James Comey for his bad judgment and disregard for agency protocol. The report also disclaims any finding of “political bias” in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, but its narrower findings do not allay all our worries on that score.
In the report’s conclusion, agents Peter Strzok, who later served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and Lisa Page, his mistress and texting buddy, are the primary offenders. The IG’s team finds that their texts to one another not only reveal a “biased state of mind,” they “imply a willingness to take official action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” It’s hard to disagree: When Page texted, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” her lover responded: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
Similarly disturbing is the conclusion that Strzok may have failed in October 2016 to follow up on an “investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop” because his decisions “were impacted by bias.” That’s the laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman from New York, husband at the time of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. There were classified emails on this laptop related to the Clinton investigation. It’s not hard to imagine what Strzok’s motive might have been in burying this lead. The IG report notes that his biased and political text messages call into question his decision-making at the bureau. That Strzok also served on the Russia investigation is troubling, although to special counsel Robert Mueller’s credit, he dismissed Strzok from his investigation once he became aware of these texts.
The 500-page report contains plenty of other material to make a fair-minded person wonder if her fans at the bureau were able to help Hillary Clinton escape an indictment in 2016. Another pair of agents involved with the Clinton investigation, “Agent 1” and “Agent 5”—also amorously involved—exchanged texts in which one said, “we . . . shouldn’t even be interviewing [her]” and, on Election Day, “You should know; . . . that I’m . . . with her.” On another occasion, Agent 1 complained that the Clinton email probe was “meaningless” and “pointless” and “a waste of resources.” When Agent 1 was done interviewing Clinton, he had this to say: “done interviewing the President.”
The inspector general’s team went on to interview Strzok, Page, Agent 1, and Agent 2, and included relevant contents of those interviews in the report. The report faults the agents for unprofessionalism but stops short of concluding the investigation was tainted by bias. The “conduct of these employees cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation and sowed doubt about the FBI’s work on, and its handling of, the [Clinton email] investigation,” the inspector general concludes. “The damage caused by these employees’ actions extends far beyond the scope of the [Clinton] investigation and goes to the heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence.”
There’s a more optimistic interpretation, too. Strzok vowed that he and Page would “stop” the election of Donald Trump, presumably by helping to ensure a favorable outcome of the Clinton investigation, but remember: They failed. And they failed, it would seem, because they were exceptionally incompetent schemers. What sort of conspiracists text damning messages to each other on government devices?
A strong contingent on the right worries about the “deep state,” the latest term for entrenched, permanent bureaucracies that presidents and prime ministers have fought—often unsuccessfully—for generations. It’s not an unreasonable concern. Lawless and self-serving bureaucracies can do great damage. But it’s useful to keep in mind that they are very often staffed by bumbling fools. As the inspector general’s report reminds us, the deep state can be pretty shallow.
