1) The investigative decisions in the Clinton email case seemed to be made on the merits, the IG finds
When it comes to the overall handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Horowitz retraced its progress from its opening in July 2015 to its seeming conclusion in the summer of 2016, to try to assess whether the investigative team’s decisions were skewed by political bias — and on the whole, he found little evidence that they were.
The context is that there’s been much criticism from the right because investigators often used voluntary processes to get evidence, that they granted certain witnesses immunity, that their interview of Clinton herself was only for show, and that Clinton wasn’t charged for political reasons.
Yet in all these cases, Horowitz concludes that investigators’ choices were “not unreasonable.” He says these choices on evidence “were supported by Department and FBI policy and practice,” and that the immunity agreements were given after considering department policy. He also writes that FBI agents “asked Clinton what appeared to be appropriate questions and made use of documents to challenge Clinton’s testimony and assess her credibility during her interview.”
And when it comes to the decision not to prosecute Clinton or anyone else in the case, Horowitz writes that he found this was based on prosecutors’ “assessment of the facts, the law, and past Department practice in cases involving these statutes.” He adds, “We did not identify evidence of bias or improper considerations.”
