In Monday’s testimony, former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was carefully precise and scrupulously correct about any information that was either classified or pertinent to an open investigation. However, there is another public official whose actions are the exact opposite.
Perhaps [FBI Director James Comey]’s most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin — Weiner’s wife and a top Clinton deputy — had made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton messages to her husband, “some of which contain classified information.” Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss. (Weiner’s laptop was seized after he came under criminal investigation for sex crimes, following a media report about his online relationship with a teenager.)
Comey painted this scenario as part of his explanation of why had had to issue a letter to Congress concerning the state of the investigation, even though he admitted knowing that the letter would become public almost immediately, and could be seen as interfering in the election. The “forwarding tens of thousands of emails” scenario—some of which Comey insisted were classified—not only served to justify the letter to Congress, but gave Senate Republicans renewed speculation over how this might ensnare Abedin, or even Clinton.
Only there’s an issue with the whole story.
FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do.
The tens of thousands of emails that were supposedly forwarded by Abedin? Make that more like “a handful.” And how many of that handful were classified? Make that none.
There did seem to be headers from thousands of Abedin’s emails on Weiner’s laptop. But not because she was treating her husband as a printing service.
According to two sources familiar with the matter — including one in law enforcement — Abedin forwarded only a handful of Clinton emails to her husband for printing — not the “hundreds and thousands” cited by Comey. It does not appear Abedin made “a regular practice” of doing so. Other officials said it was likely that most of the emails got onto the computer as a result of backups of her Blackberry.
If Abedin’s emails were there simply in the form of a Blackberry backup file, they may not have been visible at all through normal email tools. Both Weiner and Abedin could easily have not known they were on the device at all. The backup file might have also simply included headers to emails that had never been downloaded to the Blackberry. So it’s not just “thousands of emails might have gotten there a different way,” it’s that there may not have been thousands of emails at all, and those that were on the device were likely contained in a binary file that made them all but invisible to a casual user.
Comey’s statement shows that the one being most casual with information about classified emails was … James Comey, who months later still hadn’t bothered to get his facts straight about the investigation. Instead, he was still creating a fantasy that had Republicans drooling for potential legal action.
After Comey painted this troubling picture, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz demanded to know why Abedin and Weiner hadn’t been charged with mishandling classified information, calling the failure to do so “puzzling.”
“You said Ms. Abedin forwarded hundreds or thousands of classified emails to her husband on a non-government, non-classified computer,” said Cruz. “How is — how does that conduct not directly violate the statute?”
The truth was much more prosaic. But of course, the more dramatic story in which emails were flung around and Weiner was regularly viewing State Department data does serve a purpose—it helps Comey justify putting out his letter. And if there’s anything Comey has been concerned about from the beginning, it’s justifying James Comey.
The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it.