Opinion: The report that exposes Trump’s lies

Don’t be confused by Team Trump’s attempts at confusion. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, June 15, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist The [new report]( from the Justice Department’s watchdog covers a lot of ground. It runs more than 500 pages and evaluates investigations that touch both President Trump and Hillary Clinton. As a result, some of the initial news coverage — which has to cram all of the big findings into a few paragraphs — can be a little difficult to follow. If you’re trying to do so, I recommend keeping your focus on the big picture. The report addresses one question that’s more important than any other: Did the Justice Department and F.B.I. use their power, as Trump has repeatedly claimed, to help Clinton’s campaign and hurt his? In the lead-up to the report, Trump’s allies agreed that this was paramount. “The central question in my opinion,” David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, [wrote this week on the Fox News website]( “is did Hillary Clinton and her cronies get preferential treatment in her email server investigation for political reasons?” And the report’s answer is clear: No. Federal investigators and prosecutors did not give preferential treatment to Clinton. They pursued the case on the merits. They were guided by, as the inspector general’s report puts it, “the prosecutor’s assessment of the facts, the law, and past Department practice.” The most significant mistake in the investigation didn’t help Clinton. It hurt her, badly. It was James Comey’s decision to violate department policy and talk publicly about the investigation. If it weren’t for that decision, [the polling data suggests]( Clinton would be president. Now that the report has been released, Trump and his allies are trying to confuse people about what it actually said. The White House and loyal media organizations like Fox News are mixing the report’s subjects to make it sound much better for Trump than it really is. And more serious news coverage often struggles to find clear enough language to explain the bait and switch, without seeming to lose its objectivity. For starters, Team Trump is using the report’s criticism of Comey ([which I think is justified]( to suggest Comey can’t be trusted on other matters — like the Russia investigation. But the report doesn’t question Comey’s honesty, ethical standards or motives. It questions his judgment in publicly discussing a different matter. Even more, Trump’s allies are focusing on the report’s criticism of two F.B.I. agents who were involved in both the Clinton email and Trump/Russia investigations. The text messages between the two, who were in a romantic relationship, suggest that they were deeply, and inappropriately, biased against Trump. But they did not have the authority to make major decisions about the Clinton investigation. And the one who was still involved in the Russia investigation was removed from the case once his supervisor learned of his attitude. A banner headline on the Fox News website, not surprisingly, has a good example of Trumpworld’s effort at confusion: “DOJ IG report reveals FBI agent’s ‘stop’-Trump text, calls Comey ‘insubordinate.’ ” Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, [offered]( another example on Thursday afternoon: “It reaffirmed the president’s suspicions about Comey’s conduct and the political bias among some of the members of the F.B.I.” And then Trump himself delivered [the expected tweet]( on Friday morning: “The IG Report is a total disaster for Comey, his minions and sadly, the FBI.” The real story of the report is quite different. It finds that Trump’s claims of a “rigged system” to protect Clinton are outright fabrications. They are, [as is so often the case]( with Trump, lies. And the report finds no reason to lose confidence in Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. That investigation appears to be rigorous, fair and nonpartisan — which is precisely why it scares Trump and his enablers so much. Related. In The Times, legal experts Barry Berke, Norman Eisen and Dani James [make a similar point]( “The misrepresentations of the inspector general’s report,” they write, “are simply the latest attempt to advance the unsupported refrain that the Mueller investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ cooked up by members of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy to delegitimize his presidency. It’s not.” Comey, [in his own op-ed]( disagrees with the substance of the report while celebrating its existence. “This is what institutions devoted to the rule of law and accountability look like,” he writes. [In Lawfare]( Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic and their colleagues note that the report does little to rewrite the story about how Comey and other officials erred in their judgments. Most of the facts were already in the public record. The full Opinion report — including [the editorial board on the report]( — follows. The Inspector General’s Report Editorial [No, Hillary Clinton’s Emails Will Never Go Away]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD That doesn’t mean James Comey and the F.B.I. worked to get her elected in 2016. Op-Ed Columnist [The Report’s Real Message: Trump Is Lying]( By DAVID LEONHARDT He has repeatedly claimed that the Justice Department tried to protect Hillary Clinton. A watchdog’s report says otherwise. [James Comey: This Report Says I Was Wrong. But That’s Good for the F.B.I.]( By JAMES COMEY An inspector general report faulting me also found no evidence of bias or improper motivation in the F.B.I. investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. [Why Trump Is Wrong on the Comey Report]( By BARRY BERKE, NORMAN L. EISEN AND DANI JAMES He and his allies are muddying the waters. It has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation. 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