Bipartisan Group of Former DOJ Officials Raise Concerns Over Comey’s Breach Of Protocol

Sunday, as reported by the Associated Press, a group of nearly 100 former federal prosecutors and high-ranking DOJ officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations, including former AG Eric Holder and former Deputy AG Larry Thompson, issued the following joint letter expressing serious concerns over FBI Director Comey’s departure from long-standing department protocols:

As former federal prosecutors and high-ranking officials of the U.S. Department of Justice, we know that the impartiality and nonpartisanship of the United States justice system makes it exceptional throughout the world.  To maintain fairness and neutrality, federal law enforcement officials must exercise discipline whenever they make public statements in connection with an ongoing investigation.  Often, evidence uncovered during the course of an investigative inquiry is incomplete, misleading or even incorrect, and releasing such information before all of the facts are known and tested in a court of law can unfairly prejudice individuals and undermine the public’s faith in the integrity of our legal process.

For this reason, Justice Department officials are instructed to refrain from commenting publicly on the existence, let alone the substance, of pending investigative matters, except in exceptional circumstances and with explicit approval from the Department of Justice officials responsible for ultimate supervision of the matter.  They are also instructed to exercise heightened restraint near the time of a primary or general election because, as official guidance from the Department instructs, public comment on a pending investigative matter may affect the electoral process and create the appearance of political interference in the fair administration of justice.

It is out of our respect for such settled tenets of the United States Department of Justice that we are moved to express our concern with the recent letter issued by FBI Director James Comey to eight Congressional Committees.  Many of us have worked with Director Comey; all of us respect him.  But his unprecedented decision to publicly comment on evidence in what may be an ongoing inquiry just eleven days before a presidential election leaves us both astonished and perplexed. We cannot recall a prior instance where a senior Justice Department official—Republican or Democrat—has, on the eve of a major election, issued a public statement where the mere disclosure of information may impact the election’s outcome, yet the official acknowledges the information to be examined may not be significant or new.

Director Comey’s letter is inconsistent with prevailing Department policy, and it breaks with longstanding practices followed by officials of both parties during past elections.  Moreover, setting aside whether Director Comey’s original statements in July were warranted, by failing to responsibly supplement the public record with any substantive, explanatory information, his letter begs the question that further commentary was necessary.  For example, the letter provides no details regarding the content, source or recipient of the material; whether the newly-discovered evidence contains any classified or confidential information; whether the information duplicates material previously reviewed by the FBI; or even “whether or not [the] material may be significant.”

Perhaps most troubling to us is the precedent set by this departure from the Department’s widely-respected, non-partisan traditions.  The admonitions that warn officials against making public statements during election periods have helped to maintain the independence and integrity of both the Department’s important work and public confidence in the hardworking men and women who conduct themselves in a nonpartisan manner.

We believe that adherence to longstanding Justice Department guidelines is the best practice when considering public statements on investigative matters.  We do not question Director Comey’s motives. However, the fact remains that the Director’s disclosure has invited considerable, uninformed public speculation about the significance of newly-discovered material just days before a national election.  For this reason, we believe the American people deserve all the facts, and fairness dictates releasing information that provides a full and complete picture regarding the material at issue.

Signatories:

• Eric H. Holder, former Attorney General of the United States
• Stuart M. Gerson, former Acting Attorney General of the United States, former Assistant Attorney General
• Donald B. Ayer, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• James M. Cole, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• Jamie S. Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• Gary G. Grindler, former Acting Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• Larry D. Thompson, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• David W. Ogden, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
• Wayne A. Budd, former Associate Attorney General of the United States, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts
• Tony West, former Associate Attorney General of the United States
• Neal Kumar Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States
• Lanny A. Breuer, former Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
• Christine A. Varney, former Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division

• Lourdes Baird, former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California
• Paul Coggins, former U.S. Attorney for Northern District of Texas
• Jenny Durkan, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington
• Melinda L. Haag, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California
• Timothy Heaphy, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia
• Scott R. Lassar, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
• Michael D. McKay, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington
• Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney for Western District of Pennsylvania
• Neil H. MacBride, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
• Bill Nettles, former U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina
• Timothy Q. Purdon, former U.S. Attorney for the District of North Dakota
• Donald Stern, former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts
• Anne M. Tompkins, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina
• Elkan Abramowitz, former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York

• David B. Anders, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Jodi L. Avergun, former Section Chief, U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division
• Marion Bachrach, former Chief of General Crimes, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York
• Richard Ben-Veniste, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and former Assistant Watergate Prosecutor
• Shay Bilchik, former Director, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• David M. Buckner, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
• Alex Busansky, former prosecutor, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
• Helen V. Cantwell, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Sandra Cavazos, former Assistant US Attorney for the Northern District of California and the Eastern District of New York
• Charles E. Clayman, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Joel M. Cohen, former Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York
• Leo P. Cunningham, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California
• Bert Deixler, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California
• Keir Dougall, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Ira M. Feinberg, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Cary M. Feldman, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Martin Flumenbaum, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Stuart L. Gasner, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii
• Douglas F. Gansler, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and former Attorney General of Maryland
• Faith Gay, former Deputy Chief of the Special Prosecutions and Civil Rights Divisions, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York
• Gerald Greenberg, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
• Fred Hafetz, former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
• John Heuston, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California
• Michele Hirshman, former Chief of the General Crimes and Public Corruption Units, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
• Sydney Hoffmann, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• June M. Jeffries, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Marcia Jensen, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California
• John Joseph, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Nancy Kestenbaum, former Chief of General Crimes, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
• David V. Kirby, former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont
• Barbara E. Kittay, former prosecutor, U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• David S. Krakoff, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Larry H. Krantz, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Miriam Krinsky, former Chief of General Crimes, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California
• Laurie Levenson, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, Central District of California
• Tim Lewis, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and former federal judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals
• Lori Lightfoot, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
• Debra Long-Doyle, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Carl H. Loewenson, Jr., former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Jeffrey Marcus, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
• Richard Marmaro, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California
• Douglass B. Maynard, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Seth Miles, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
• Amy Millard, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Curtis B. Miner, dormer Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
• Cynthia Monaco, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Martin Perschetz, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Elliot R. Peters, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Karen A. Popp, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Jeff Rabkin, former Assistant U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and for the Northern District of California
• Daniel L. Rashbaum, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Southern District of Florida
• Alicia Strohl Resnicoff, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• David H. Resnicoff, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Lawrence Robbins, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Frank A. Rothermel, former U.S. Department of Justice Civil Fraud Prosecutor
• Lee Rubin, former prosecutor, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Betty Santangelo, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• John Savarese, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Richard L. Scheff, former Chief of the Corruption and Labor Divisions, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• William Schwartz, former Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
• John Siffert, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• David Sklansky, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California
• Matthew E. Sloan, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and the Central District of California
• Judge Mike Snipes, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas
• Stephen R. Spivack, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
• Jeremy H. Temkin, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Eric Tirschwell, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Michael Tremonte, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York
• Amy Walsh, former Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York
• Richard D. Weinberg, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Peter Zeidenberg, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and U.S. Department of Justice Public Integrity Section
• Lawrence J. Zweifach, former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York

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News Source: The Briefing

FBI Announces it is Reopening Clinton Email Investigation

Scroll down for updates.

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to a Congressional Judiciary Committee explaining that the FBI had decided to reopen the case investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The three page letter did not go into much detail which lead the Clinton campaign to respond. Campaign Chair John Podesta released a statement calling on Comey and the FBI to release more information surrounding their reasoning considering the election is less than two weeks away. The statement from Podesta is below.

“Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call. In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen. Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is ‘reopening’ an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization. Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that have come to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the Director himself notes they may not even be significant.

It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.

The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.”

The FBI did elaborate later in the day saying that additional evidence related to the Clinton investigation was discovered on a laptop seized during the investigation of Rep. Anthony Weiner. FBI officials said that the bureau will investigate the newly discovered emails on the laptop and that it is possible that the emails could be duplicates of ones previously turned over by the Clinton camp. State Department officials said they have not been made aware of the FBI’s new evidence. More details are likely to be released in the coming weeks, but the news of a reopened investigation could affect Clinton at the polls.

Read the letter from Comey to Congress below (download the letter HERE).

View this document on Scribd

UPDATE (10/28): Following an event in Des Moines, Iowa, Hillary Clinton spoke at a press event and addressed the issues of the FBI reopening its investigation. Clinton said that the FBI needs to release additional details regarding its investigation with the election being less than two weeks away. “Voting is underway, so the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” she said. She said that she was confident that nothing new would be found and that she did not know what new evidence the FBI might be referring to adding, “Right now, your guess is as good as mine, and I don’t think that’s good enough.” A video of Clinton’s statement is below.

UPDATE (10/29): The Washington Post obtained a copy of an internal memo sent by FBI director James Comey to FBI employees. In the letter, he briefly explains his reasoning for taking the early details of an investigation to Congress. Read the letter below:

To all:

This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation.  Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case.  Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.

Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.  At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.  In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.

Jim Comey

UPDATE (10/29): Hillary for America responded to the news with several press releases and a post on Medium from campaign chair John Podesta.

UPDATE (10/30): The FBI announced that it obtained a warrant to search the emails found on a laptop belonging to former Congressman Anthony Weiner. While it is unclear how many emails on the laptop, if any, are relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation, an official revealed that there are over 650,000 emails on the computer. It is likely that the majority belong to the former Congressman, but his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, also used the laptop. FBI officials also revealed today that several lower level investigators knew the emails existed weeks ago, but only recently brought them to the attend of Director James Comey. It is also unclear why a warrant was received after Comey briefed Congress of the investigation on Friday.

Hillary for America campaign chair John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook have been on the defensive since the revelations were announced. The campaign released a video about the facts of the case and calling for more details to be released considering the timing. The video released by The Briefing is below.

UPDATE (10/31): Former Attorney General Eric Holder wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he called FBI director James Comey “a good man,” but said that he made a mistake by telling Congress about evidence that may have nothing to do with the Hillary Clinton email case. In the editorial, Holder says, “The department has a practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Indeed, except in exceptional circumstances, the department will not even acknowledge the existence of an investigation. The department also has a policy of not taking unnecessary action close in time to Election Day that might influence an election’s outcome. These rules have been followed during Republican and Democratic administrations. They aren’t designed to help any particular individual or to serve any political interest. Instead, they are intended to ensure that every investigation proceeds fairly and judiciously; to maintain the public trust in the department’s ability to do its job free of political influence; and to prevent investigations from unfairly or unintentionally casting public suspicion on public officials who have done nothing wrong.” Read the full editorial HERE.

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News Source: The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, Politico, CNN, MSNBC, Medium, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post

Kaine Campaigns in Florida

On Monday, Tim Kaine campaigned in Florida beginning with a rally in Lakeland. During his speech, Kaine spoke about a number of Hillary Clinton’s platform points and about her personally. He framed her as a hard worker with supporters on both sides of the aisle saying, “Even when folks have been battling with her about stuff, she knows them. And in the Senate, which I know better than the House, there’s high regard for her work ethic, (and a view that) we can work together with her.” Kaine also spoke about tonight’s debate between Clinton and Republican Donald Trump saying he is anxious to see Trump answer for a number of his lies. A video from the event is below.

Kaine then traveled to Orlando where he attended a roundtable discussion with a group of Latino community leaders. During the event, Kaine spoke about the importance of Latino voters and urged them to register. He also spoke about Clinton’s proposals for immigration reform and how they are starkly different from those of Trump. “We should be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. Our focus shouldn’t be on deportation en masse, it should be on people who pose serious safety challenges,” he said. Kaine then listened as the community leaders and local residents expressed their concerns. A video from the event will be added when/if available.

A series of fundraisers were held today on behalf of Hillary for America. The first was a Disability Action for Hillary event in Washington, DC. The event featured a conversation with Eric H. Holder, Jr., 82nd Attorney General of the United States. A fundraiser in support of the Hillary Victory fund was held for American Citizens living in the Toronto, Canada area.

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News Source: ABC Action News, Tampa Bay Times, Orlando Sentinel