Speaker 1: Now let's turn our attention to the FBI. On Tuesday,
Speaker 1: FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that
Speaker 1: he would quote never comment on investigations, whether we have
Speaker 1: one or not in an open forum unquote. But members
Speaker 1: of Congress in the public have complained about Director Comey
Speaker 1: publicly commenting last year about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's
Speaker 1: use of a private email server, and now, in response
Speaker 1: to those complaints, the Inspector General for the FBI is
Speaker 1: looking into how Comey handled that investigation and whether others
Speaker 1: at the FBI improperly leaked information. Joining us to tay
Speaker 1: to talk about the inspector General's investigation is Nick Ackerman,
Speaker 1: a former federal prosecutor who is a partner Dorcy and Whitney. Nick,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. We glad to have you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be here. Why don't we start out by
Speaker 1: talking about what the Inspector General of the FBI is
Speaker 1: actually empowered to investigate. He's empowered to investigate improprieties by
Speaker 1: employees of the Department of Justice, which would include Director Comey.
Speaker 1: Uh and he pretty much has a wide ranging um
Speaker 1: jurisdiction to really look at everything that might be either
Speaker 1: un ethical, improper, or illegal that would bear on the
Speaker 1: business of the Department of Justice. And how does the
Speaker 1: investigation go forward. Does he start looking at emails? Are
Speaker 1: they going to be interviews with employees? Is he going
Speaker 1: to interview comey, all of those things. I mean, the
Speaker 1: proper way to do an investigation will be to start
Speaker 1: at the bottom, looking at the emails, invest talking to
Speaker 1: other employees. In fact, I think one area you didn't
Speaker 1: mention were people outside of the Department of Justice, for example,
Speaker 1: that clearly should be looking at what was leaked to
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. Rudy Julianni at some point said that
Speaker 1: he was talking to an active FBI agent. He later
Speaker 1: retracted that, Um, it's clear he was at least talking
Speaker 1: to retired agents who were talking to active FBI agents.
Speaker 1: So all of those people, if you're doing a thorough,
Speaker 1: comprehensive investigation, all of those people, all the emails that
Speaker 1: communicated between and among those people, all of those should
Speaker 1: be properly looked at. Well, Nick, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're gonna talk about a thorough investigation, you know
Speaker 1: we're talking. We've been talking a bit about the procedures involved.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the substance. Based on what the Inspector
Speaker 1: General has said and what we know has happened over
Speaker 1: the last year, let's say, or two years in this investigation,
Speaker 1: what is it that we can expect the Inspector General
Speaker 1: is actually going to be investigating here. I think he's
Speaker 1: going to be investigating Director Comey's actions and doing what
Speaker 1: he did, which was unprecedented and against all of the
Speaker 1: rules of the FBI. I mean, just to give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of background, Uh, the FBI is that
Speaker 1: arm of the Department of Justice that investigates cases. The
Speaker 1: FBI does not announce indictments, It does not announce investigations.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only truthful statement that Director call Me
Speaker 1: has made is yeah, he cannot comment on investigations, so
Speaker 1: that that you have to look at it in that context.
Speaker 1: As to what happened here, it's clear that he went
Speaker 1: beyond what he was well beyond what he was supposed
Speaker 1: to do as director of the FBI. He's simply supposed
Speaker 1: to take those investigative facts and turn them over to
Speaker 1: the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, who in turn
Speaker 1: then look at those facts that the facts puts. Put
Speaker 1: it before the Grand jury if they think there's a crime,
Speaker 1: and then make a decision as to whether or not
Speaker 1: somebody should be charged. That did not happen. Here is
Speaker 1: there wiggle room in the rules of the FBI or
Speaker 1: in the procedures because the Inspector General didn't start this
Speaker 1: investigation after Comy made the first announcement, he certainly should have,
Speaker 1: because there is no wiggle room. I have never ever
Speaker 1: seen an FBI director or agent make any statements about
Speaker 1: what is going on in an ongoing investigation. Not even
Speaker 1: JEdgar Hoover did that. The only time you ever ever
Speaker 1: see a director of the FBI or an official in
Speaker 1: the FBI show up to make a statement about an
Speaker 1: investigation is when there's an indictment, and in that context,
Speaker 1: all they can do is track the language of the
Speaker 1: indictment that the grand jury has voted upon. What Comey
Speaker 1: did was totally improper. I was a prosecutor for some
Speaker 1: thirteen years. I was an assistant to Special Watergate Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Cox and then Jaworski, and then was an assistant in
Speaker 1: the U. S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of
Speaker 1: New York. Never, at any time did any FBI agent,
Speaker 1: director assistant director ever go out and make a statement
Speaker 1: about what the status of an investigation is. And there's
Speaker 1: good reason for that. That's because you want to be
Speaker 1: able to protect people who are presumed to be innocent.
Speaker 1: You don't make a statement until a grand jury, which
Speaker 1: is provided for in the Fifth Amendment United States Constitution,
Speaker 1: determines that there's probable cause to believe that there's a crime. Here.
Speaker 1: There was absolutely no probable cause to believe there was
Speaker 1: a crime. Even Director Comy had to say so much,
Speaker 1: but then to go on and speculate as to whether
Speaker 1: or not there was a classified information, speculate as to
Speaker 1: the fact that he thought that Secretary Clinton had been
Speaker 1: careless in some way. All of this was totally improper.
Speaker 1: It's purely his opinion and has absolutely no business being
Speaker 1: said by the Director of the FBI, or even the
Speaker 1: Attorney General for that matter. We are talking with former
Speaker 1: federal prosecutor Nick Ackerman, who's a partner at Dorsey and Whitney,
Speaker 1: about the Inspector General of the FBI announcing that he's
Speaker 1: going to open an investigation into Director Comy's handling of
Speaker 1: the Hillary Clinton private email server investigation and also look
Speaker 1: at a host of other things that happened at the FBI,
Speaker 1: including whether people improperly disclosed information, uh, not just to
Speaker 1: um the press or to the Trump campaign, but also
Speaker 1: to the Clinton campaign. And it seems to be a
Speaker 1: fairly wide ranging investigation. Nick. You know, at the time
Speaker 1: that director called me testified before Congress, everybody knew that
Speaker 1: this investigation was going on. It wasn't a secret. I know,
Speaker 1: people knew about it, and he kind of had, you know,
Speaker 1: it was subpoena to go in. He had to go
Speaker 1: in and tell tell the Senate about what it was
Speaker 1: that he invested, you know, what had happened, at least
Speaker 1: what his conclusion was. Well, let me let me stop
Speaker 1: you right there, because he did not have to tell
Speaker 1: the Senate what his investigation did. He did not have
Speaker 1: to tell the Senate what his conclusions were. He should
Speaker 1: have said the same thing that you started out this
Speaker 1: broadcast with, that is that he cannot properly comment on
Speaker 1: the status, scope, or results of any investigation by any
Speaker 1: FBI agent. Well, let me let me ask you about
Speaker 1: another part of it. Though. The at the time that
Speaker 1: the right before the election, and this is one of
Speaker 1: the more controversial things that happened right before the election.
Speaker 1: Director Comey sent a letter to the to Congress saying
Speaker 1: that there had been some emails found on Anthony. It
Speaker 1: turns out Anthony Weiner's laptop, who's married to him, abbott
Speaker 1: in an aide to Hillary Clinton, which might have been
Speaker 1: relevant to the investigation. UM many have speculated the reason
Speaker 1: he did that at that time was because there was
Speaker 1: gone some FBI agents were gonna leak this information. Might
Speaker 1: Might it be if he was really trying to get
Speaker 1: ahead of a leak? Might that be a mitigating factor
Speaker 1: in in why he did it? Absolutely not. If he
Speaker 1: thought there was going to be a leak, as the
Speaker 1: director of the FBI, he should have taken the bull
Speaker 1: bother horns and immediately investigated who it was that was
Speaker 1: leaking this who was spreading it out. The way to
Speaker 1: deal with a leak is not to take the same
Speaker 1: information and spread it out to the entire world. Look,
Speaker 1: his motivation, we don't really know what it was, but
Speaker 1: it's one of two things. Either the guy has got
Speaker 1: terrible judgment, had no idea of what the consequences were
Speaker 1: of what he was doing, or he was trying to
Speaker 1: help the Trump campaign. I mean there's just two possibilities here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but there's only two.
Speaker 1: He has had a sterling reputation as as far as
Speaker 1: being FBI director and in prior years for all that
Speaker 1: he's done. And we've seen a lot of action by
Speaker 1: the Justice Department lately, a lot of indictments coming down.
Speaker 1: There's all different things going on, as if you're they're
Speaker 1: trying to push things through before the end of the
Speaker 1: Obama administration. And now we see this is the timing suspect.
Speaker 1: The timing of this investigation. Well, the part with the
Speaker 1: probably problem I have with the timing is this should
Speaker 1: have been done in July when he had that press
Speaker 1: conference where first of all, he basically grabbed the scene
Speaker 1: when it should have been done not by the Attorney General,
Speaker 1: who was conflicted out at that point because of the
Speaker 1: meeting with Bill Clinton, but it could have been done
Speaker 1: and should have been done by the Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 1: or the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division.
Speaker 1: So if I were default anything on the timing, it's
Speaker 1: just it he waited too late. This should have been
Speaker 1: done immediately after that press conference. Perhaps perhaps Loretta Lynch
Speaker 1: is meeting with President Clinton got things off to a
Speaker 1: bad start for them and they had to pull themselves
Speaker 1: out of it, and that might be the reason why
Speaker 1: it didn't get investigated earlier. I have no idea, that's
Speaker 1: pure speculation. But what we do know is that it
Speaker 1: was totally improper, It was totally out of school, and
Speaker 1: it should have been investigated at that point. In fact,
Speaker 1: if it had been investigated at that point, Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: might be president today. Well, our thanks to Nick Ackerman
Speaker 1: of Dorcy and Whitney Farmer, federal Prosecutor, for being here
Speaker 1: today in Bloomberg a Low to talk with us about
Speaker 1: the FBI Inspector General investigating the FBI's handling of the
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton email scandal. Thank you for having me