IG Report Reveals FBI Investigators Were Aware of Obama’s Public Statements

Congressman Steve King released the following video of his questioning of Department of Justice Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. King questioned IG Horowitz at length about former President Barack Obama’s influence over the decision to re-write the “intent” language in former FBI Director James Comey’s “summary of the prosecution/exoneration statement” of Hillary Clinton.

In the wake of public comments made by President Obama, the intent language in Comey’s “summary of the prosecution/exoneration statement” was changed from the statutory language of “gross negligence” to “extreme carelessness.”

This change is important to note because it served as part of Comey’s justification for absolving Mrs. Clinton of criminal wrongdoing. In response to his questioning, the Inspector General conceded that his report showed that President Obama’s public comments had been the cause of much internal discussion within the FBI.

Excerpt:
“Mr. Horowitz, let me assert that the evidence I’m looking at suggests that President Barack Obama spoke that word [intent] into law. On the taped program of October 10, 2015, he said Hillary Clinton was “careless but not intentional.” That program was aired on October 11, on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” I have an article from the New York Times that’s dated the 16th of October, the article that references October the 11th, where it says in the article “Mr. Obama said he had no impression that Mrs. Clinton had purposefully tried ‘to hide something or to squirrel away information.’ In doing so, Mr. Obama spoke directly to a core component of the law used against Mr. Petraeus, intent, and said he did not think it applied in Mrs. Clinton’s case.”
“I’m going to suggest that the President suggested that language through the open medium and spoke the word into the law to require intent, which shows up in the following months, in particular in James Comey’s July 5th, 2016 summary of the prosecution/exoneration statement. Six times that word “intent” shows up. I find it no place else.”
King has long believed that the trail of bias and corruption in the events surrounding the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal leads directly to Barack Obama, and that during the Obama administration the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were weaponized against Republican political opponents. With his testimony today before the Joint Committee on Judiciary and Government Reform, the Inspector General validates King’s belief that if Barack Obama were sending a message to the Federal Bureau of Investigation thru his public statements about Sec. Clinton, it was a message that was received within the Bureau.