Experts are baffled by Comey's use of a forged Russian document

>The memo showed Wasserman Schultz describing in a message how Lynch had privately assured a Clinton staffer during the campaign that the Justice Department wouldn't take the investigation too far. Comey knew the information in the memo wasn't real, but he feared that the memo would cast doubt on the credibility of the FBI's investigation if it leaked after Lynch closed the probe, CNN reported.

>The sequence played a part in his decision to circumvent the Justice Department to hold the press conference, where he issued a blistering assessment of Clinton's recklessness that many believe damaged her reputation among voters.

'None of it makes much sense'

>Comey told lawmakers after the press conference that he had no choice but to go around the Justice Department and answer directly to reporters out of fear that the document might leak, but he did not tell them that the document was probably fake, according to CNN.

>Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN on Sunday that Comey "never once told a member of the House or the Senate that he thought the email was fake" and would have been "incredibly incompetent" to act on a document he knew to be fraudulent.

>"I can't imagine a scenario where it's OK for the FBI director to jump in the middle of an election based on a fake email generated by the Russians and not tell the Congress," Graham said.

Olson said Comey's decision to bypass his superiors based on the document was even more bizarre.

>"None of it makes much sense," Olson said. "The notion that the FBI needs to circumvent DOJ procedure and officials because a known false document might be used publicly to forward some political agenda makes no sense. And the notion that DOJ is somehow incapable of defending itself against false publicity does not withstand scrutiny."

>FBI officials briefed Lynch on the existence of the document one month after Comey publicly announced the end of the email investigation. Lynch said she "never communicated" with the Clinton campaign staffer in question, Amanda Renteria, and offered to be formally interviewed by the FBI about the matter, according to The Post.

>Renteria also told The Post she had never spoken to Lynch. And Wasserman Schultz said she had never heard of the Open Society Foundations official, Leonard Benardo, whom the document said she had emailed to discuss Lynch's communications with Renteria.

>"The FBI is in the business of ascertaining the true facts through investigation," Olson said. "That is what should have been done. I'd love to know why it was not done."

>Matthew Miller, who was a Justice Department spokesman under Barack Obama, agreed that Comey "absolutely should have briefed" his superiors on the existence of the document before holding the press conference, especially if he thought it was fake.

>"If he already knew the document was fake, then he in no way should have relied on it to make decisions about how to handle the case, and he had an obligation to brief his superiors," Miller said on Tuesday.

>"Even if it was a real document, it wouldn't excuse him acting on his own," Miller added. "There are procedures set up for handling sensitive information like this when someone is potentially compromised, which is the best-case interpretation of his thinking. He could have briefed his direct boss, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and the two of them could have decided how to proceed.

>"The bottom line is this document seems to have been an excuse to do what he always wanted to do, rather than an actual factor in any decision-making."

>>146679
Baffled? Globalists want Russia to be the scapegoat for all wrongdoings

Nothing surprising about this

>Comey has said he felt compelled to tell Congress in October, three months after he closed the investigation, that the bureau had discovered new emails that were possibly relevant to the probe because he had already gone public with the details of the case. Clinton has said the disclosure, which dominated media coverage in the days leading up to the election, factored heavily into her loss.

>Many Clinton backers felt vindicated by Comey's revelation in March that the FBI had been investigating ties between President Donald Trump's associates and Russia since July, but others were outraged that Comey had broken protocol to disclose the existence of new emails days before the election but didn't tell voters that Trump's campaign also under investigation until four months later.

>Trump fired Comey earlier this month amid the bureau's Russia investigation.

A 'wildly successful' Russian operation

>The revelation that a tainted document — believed to have been planted by the Russians in the trove of hacked documents obtained by the FBI — influenced Comey's decision-making is evidence of the extent to which Russian disinformation could penetrate the highest levels of American law enforcement during the presidential campaign.

>The weaponization of stolen documents is increasingly becoming Russian hackers' modus operandi, according to a new report from researchers at the Citizen Lab group at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Public Affairs. Hackers linked to Russia have begun stealing data and tampering with it to achieve specific propaganda aims, the report said, "and to seed mistrust and disinformation."

>Glenn Carle, a former CIA operative who spent 23 years at the agency, said Comey's use of the document to justify a decision that may have "changed the course of US history" meant that Russia's election meddling was more "wildly successful" than anyone had imagined.

>>146682
>Globalists
who?

This is depressing to read. How can Comey be this stupid? Or else, though unlikely, bought?

>>146722

The all eternal, all encompassing boogeyman.

>>146731
I would have taken Hillary's bribe to toss out the incriminating emails. That was pretty dumb not to accept it.

>>146682
This entire article pretty much gives credit to the notion Trump was right to fire the guy.

>>146731
Watch his hearing testimonies if you haven't already. The guy paints himself as the hero of justice and the true savior of the legal system. For every dumb idea he had, there was a check/balance system in play he simply ignored and skated around that would have achieved his goal better.

Every action he has taken is something you'd expect from Trump, only sad part is he can't cite political inexperience like the former.

>>146749
Russians?