An unidentified FBI attorney assigned to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election left that case after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog discovered instant messages that “included statements of hostility toward” then-candidate Donald Trump, including one stating "viva le resistance," according to a new report.
The highly anticipated report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, released Thursday, disclosed text messages and instant messages sent on FBI devices by five FBI employees who were assigned to the Clinton email probe.
“We found that the conduct of these five FBI employees brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI,” the report said.
One unidentified lawyer, named in the report as “FBI Attorney 2,” worked in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, National Security and Cyber Law Branch and was assigned to the Clinton email and Russia probes, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling.
But he left the special counsel’s team in late February 2018, the report stated, after the Office of the Inspector General provided the special counsel with instant messages that raised political issues, including Trump. Three exchanges identified by the inspector general “raised concerns of potential bias.”
One exchange was sent Oct. 28, 2016, the day then-FBI Director James Comey notified Congress the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server had effectively been reopened.
The unidentified FBI attorney told two FBI employees, “I mean, I never really liked the Republic anyway.”
He told a third employee, “I’m clinging to small pockets of happiness in the dark time of the Republic’s destruction.”
The lawyer told the Office of the Inspector General that the messages reflected his “frustration” that the FBI “was essentially walking into a landmine in terms of injecting itself” into the presidential election.
The second exchange was sent Nov. 9, 2016, and involved another unnamed FBI employee not assigned to the Clinton probe.
The lawyer told the other employee then, “I am numb.”
The unidentified employee replied, “You promised me this wouldn’t happen. YOU PROMISED.”
The FBI attorney later said, “I am so stressed about what I could have done differently,” and said the FBI “broke the momentum” for Clinton.
In that exchange, the FBI employee called Trump voters “poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing.”
The FBI attorney replied, “I’m just devastated. I can’t wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days.”
“I just can’t imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we made over the last 8 years. ACA is gone. Who knows if the rhetoric about deporting people, walls, and crap is true,” he said in a later message, according to the report. “I honestly feel like there is going to be a lot more gun issues, too, the crazies won finally. This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also Pence is stupid.”
He said it was difficult “not to feel like the FBI caused some of this. It was razor thin in some states.”
The lawyer lamented the fact that his “god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff," which appears to be a reference to Trump.
The FBI attorney told the Office of the Inspector General of the exchange that the two were discussing personal feelings about the election, but said his “personal political feelings or beliefs … in no way impacted” his work on the Clinton email or Russia investigations.
The third exchange involving the unnamed FBI lawyer took place Nov. 22, 2016. In that discussion, which involved another attorney, the two remarked on the amount of money a member of the Trump campaign, who was the subject of an FBI investigation, had been paid.
The second attorney asked, “Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?”
The FBI lawyer in question responded, “Hell no,” adding, “Viva le resistance.”
When asked by the inspector general’s office if the latter comment indicated he was “going to fight back” against Trump, the attorney said it was just “commentary” between two people “in a personal friendly capacity where she is just making a joke, and I’m responding.”
The FBI attorney said both he and the other lawyer were assigned to the Russia probe when the exchange took place and acknowledged “the perception issues that come from” the messages.
The inspector general noted in the report that the conduct in question from the FBI officials “cast a cloud over the” bureau's Clinton email investigation. The Justice Department’s watchdog, though, said there was no evidence that connected the political views expressed in the messages to the decisions related to the Clinton email probe.
On top of everything else, no less.
And... WHY is the Meuller investigation still credibly unpartisan and not shut down at this point? Will anyone still believe their findings are not corrupt at this point?
The press has known for 2 weeks who this lawyer is, but for reasons that are a mystery, his name has been kept secret.
