Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 26, 2021 | Sundance | 145 Comments

Apparently Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, has written a book describing her life experience during a time when her husband Anthony Weiner was sending pictures of his penis to various underage girls around the country.  [One of Andrew Breitbart’s Funniest Moments]

Back in 2011, Andrew triggered a series of events that long outlasted his time with us.  Very influential New York Democrat Congressman Anthony Weiner was texting pictures of his penis (amid other things) to underage girls.  Andrew was tipped off and eventually exposed the story.  It was a hot mess of DNC, MSM and the entire Clinton machine circling the wagons to protect Weiner and attack Breitbart.  Andrew won against the entire machine in epic fashion. It was just awesome.

A few years passed, and then Anthony Weiner was caught doing it again, only this time there were criminal charges.  Huma has written a book about her life in the aftermath of Weiner’s exposure and appears on CNN to talk about it.

There is a facet to the Huma Abedin story that no one in the media will discuss, including Dana Bash.   Huma’s husband, Anthony Weiner, tried to cut a deal with federal officials at the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to avoid criminal prosecution.  Weiner offered to give Huma Abedin’s laptop, which included all of Huma’s electronic communication files with Hillary Clinton, to the US Attorney’s office and FBI in return for no prosecution.

Huma’s laptop was essentially the Abedin/Weiner insurance policy against the Clintons.  The laptop contained copies of all the emails that were missing from the Clinton private servers, because Huma’s email account automatically copied the emails to her account in the cloud so she could access them from any device.  There were 350,000 emails and at least 344,000 Blackberry communications on the laptop. [FBI FILES]

The Abedin laptop had all the Clinton emails that Hillary Clinton’s lawyers said were no longer available, as the servers were destroyed and data deleted.

The Southern District of New York (SDNY) and FBI took custody of the laptop, but never made the deal with Anthony Weiner.

Despite numerous mistaken reports about the Clinton email issues at hand, it was THAT Abedin laptop that was the true purpose of Bill Clinton meeting with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac, Arizona 2016.

A review of the Inspector General report about the FBI activity surrounding the Abedin laptop, an overlay of the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages around the time of the laptop, and a review of James Comey statements about the laptop, all tell a remarkable story about the coverup.

Chapter 11 of the IG Report – This issue of the handling of the Weiner/Abedin laptop screams DOJ/FBI coverup operations. Consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):

Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.

The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop, and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails, that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”

Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.”  (pg 388)

The key takeaway here is two-fold.  First, the laptop is in the custody of the FBI; that’s important moving forward (I’ll explain later).  Also, specifically important, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5]

Note: “OTD was able “to do some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop.”

OK, you got that?

Now lets look at the very next page, #389 (again, emphasis mine):

[…] The FBI determined that Abedin forwarded two of the confirmed classified emails to Weiner. The FBI reviewed 6,827 emails that were either to or from Clinton and assessed 3,077 of those emails to be “potentially work-related.”

The FBI analysis of the review noted that “[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against prior emails recovered during the investigation” and therefore the FBI could not determine how many of the potentially work-related emails were duplicative of emails previously obtained in the Midyear investigation. (pg 389)

See the problem?  See the contradiction?

Strzok is saying, due to some amazing wizardry, the FBI forensics team was able to de-duplicate the emails.  However, FBI forensics is saying they were NOT able to de-duplicate the emails.

Both of these statements cannot be true.  And therein lies the underlying evidence to support a belief the laptop content was never actually reviewed.  But it gets worse, much worse….

To show how it’s FBI Agent Peter Strzok that is lying, go back to chapter #9 and re-read what the New York case agent was saying about the content of the laptop.

The New York FBI analysis supports the FBI forensic statement in that no de-duplication was possible, because the metadata was not consistent.   The New York FBI Weiner case agent ran into this metadata issue when using extraction software on the laptop.

CHAPTER 9:    The case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation was certified as a Digital Extraction Technician and, as such, had the training and skills to extract digital evidence from electronic devices.

The case agent told the OIG that he began processing Weiner’s devices upon receipt on September 26. The case agent stated that he noticed “within hours” that there were “over 300,000 emails on the laptop.”

The case agent told us that on either the evening of September 26 or the morning of September 27, he noticed the software program on his workstation was having trouble processing the data on the laptop.  (pg 274)

The New York Case Agent then describes how inconsistent metadata, within the computer files for the emails and Blackberry communications, made it impossible for successful extraction.  The FBI NY case agent and the Quantico FBI forensics agent agree on the metadata issue, and the inability to use their software programs for extraction and layered comparison for the purposes of de-duplication.

Both NY and Quantico contradict the statement to the IG by FBI Agent Peter Strzok.  However, that contradiction, while presented in a factual assertion by the IG, is entirely overlooked and never reconciled within the inspector general report.  That irreconcilable statement also sheds more sunlight on the motives of Strzok.

Next up, there were only three FBI people undertaking the October Clinton email review.  To learn who they are we jump back to Chapter #11, page #389.

The Midyear team flagged all potentially work-related emails encountered during the review process and compared those to emails that they had previously reviewed in other datasets. Any work-related emails that were unique, meaning that they did not appear in any other dataset, were individually reviewed by the Lead Analyst, [Peter] Strzok, and FBI Attorney 1 [Tashina Gauhar] for evidentiary value.  (pg 389)

Pete Strzok, Tash Gauhar and the unknown lead analyst.  That’s it.  Three people.

This is the crew that created the “wizardry” that FBI Director James Comey says allowed him to tell congress with confidence that 1,355,980 electronic files (pg 389), containing 350,000 emails and 344,000 Blackberry communications, were reviewed between October 30th and the morning of November 6th, 2016.

Three people.

Pete, Tash and one lead analyst.  Uh huh.

Sure.

The Inspector General just presents the facts; that’s obviously what he did.  Then, it’s up to FBI and DOJ leadership to accept the facts, interpret them, and apply their meaning.

No bias?

But FBI is committed to bias training?

FUBAR.

There is an actual hero in all of this though.  It’s that unnamed FBI Case Agent in New York who wouldn’t drop the laptop issue and forced the FBI in DC to take action on the laptop.  Even the IG points this out (chapter #9, page 331):

We found that what changed between September 29 and October 27 that finally prompted the FBI to take action was not new information about what was on the Weiner laptop but rather the inquiries from the SDNY prosecutors and then from the Department. The only thing of significance that had changed was the calendar and the fact that people outside of the FBI were inquiring about the status of the Weiner laptop. (pg 331)

Those SDNY prosecutors only called Main Justice in DC, because the New York case agent went in to see them and said he wasn’t going to be the scape goat for a buried investigation (chapter #9, pg 303). “The case agent told us that he scheduled a meeting on October 19 with the two SDNY AUSAs assigned to the Weiner investigation, because he felt like he had nowhere else to turn.” … “The AUSAs both told us that the case agent appeared to be very stressed and worried that somehow he would be blamed in the end if no action was taken.”

On October 20, 2016, the AUSAs met with their supervisors at SDNY and informed them of their conversation with the Weiner case agent. The AUSAs stated that they told their supervisors the substantive information reported by the case agent, the case agent’s concerns that no one at the FBI had expressed interest in this information, and their concern that the case agent was stressed out and might act out in some way. (pg 304)

Why would the New York Case Agent be worried?

Consider Page 274, footnote #165:

fn 165:  No electronic record exists of the case agent’s initial review of the Weiner laptop. The case agent told us that at some point in mid-October 2016 the NYO ASAC instructed the case agent to wipe his work station. The case agent explained that the ASAC was concerned about the presence of potentially classified information on the case agent’s work station, which was not authorized to process classified information.

The case agent told us that he followed the ASAC’s instructions, but that this request concerned him because the audit trail of his initial processing of the laptop would no longer be available. The case agent clarified that none of the evidence on the Weiner laptop was impacted by this, explaining that the FBI retained the Weiner laptop and only the image that had been copied onto his work station was deleted. The ASAC recalled that the case agent “worked through the security department to address the concern” of classified information on an unclassified system. He told us that he did not recall how the issue was resolved.

Now watch embed tweet video:

In light of IG's failure to look at leaking/anti-Clinton bias among agents in NYC field office, this seems quite relevant. Nunes says "good FBI agents" told him about Weiner laptop in late September 2016. pic.twitter.com/BU6ysY7Xwn

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 15, 2018

Summary:

• There were only three people in the Mid-Year-Event team granted authority to physically do the Clinton email review.
• They were: FBI Agent Peter Strzok, FBI Attorney-1 Tashina “Tash” Gauhar, and an unnamed lead analyst.
• FBI Agent Peter Strzok says they were able to cull the number of emails through the use of “some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails.
• The New York FBI case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation, a certified Digital Extraction Technician, as well as the FBI forensics team in Quantico, say it was impossible to use the conflicted metadata to “de-duplicate” the emails.
• Someone is lying.
• FBI Director James Comey said his investigative unit used some form of “wizardry” to review the content of the Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner laptop.
• The Inspector General makes no determination as to who is telling the truth, and never asked the question of whether an actual review of the laptop emails took place.
• The FBI still has possession of the Abedin/Weiner laptop.

.

.

⇑ These Cannot Both Be True ⇓

Within this interview, former FBI Director James Comey is questioned about the announcement of re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation on October 28th, 2016.  In his response to why there was a delay between the FBI being notified by New York on September 28th, and waiting until October 28th, James Comey revealed a very important nugget.

The New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) called Main Justice in DC to ask about why they were not receiving authority for a search warrant. We knew that call took place on October 21st, 2016.  Now we know “why” and who New York called at DOJ HQ.

Listen closely to James Comey at 06:06 to 07:30 of the interview (prompted):

Baier: “Did you know that Andrew McCabe, your deputy, had sat on that revelation about the emails”?

Comey: “Yeah, I don’t know that, I don’t know that to be the case. I do know that New York and FBI headquarters became aware that there may be some connection between Weiner’s laptop and the Clinton investigation, weeks before it was brought to me for decision – and as I write in the book I don’t know whether they could have moved faster and why the delay”

Baier: “Was it the threat that New York Agents were going to leak that it existed really what drove you to the ‘not conceal’ part?

Comey: “I don’t think so. I think what actually drove it was the prosecutors in New York who were working the criminal case against Weiner called down to headquarters and said ‘are we getting a search warrant or not for this’?  That caused, I’m sorry, Justice Department Headquarters, to then call across the street to the FBI and poke the organization; and they start to move much more quickly. I don’t know why there was, if there was slow activity, why it was slow for those first couple of weeks.”

There’s some really sketchy stuff going on in that answer. Why would SDNY need to get authorization for a search warrant from DC, if this is about Weiner’s laptop?  Yes, you could argue it pertains to a tightly held Clinton investigation run out of DC, but the Weiner prosecution issues shouldn’t require approval from DC.

But let’s take Comey at face-value.  So there we discover it was justice officials within SDNY (Southern District of New York) who called Main Justice (DOJ in DC) and asked about a needed search warrant for “this”, presumably Weiner’s laptop by inference.  Now, let’s go look at the Page/Strzok description of what was going on.

Here are the messages from Lisa Page and Peter Strzok surrounding the original date that New York officials notified Washington DC FBI.  It’s important to note the two different entities: DOJ -vs- FBI.

According to the September 28, 2016 messages from FBI Agent Peter Strzok, it was the SDNY in New York telling Andrew McCabe in DC about the issue.  Pay close attention to the convo:

(pdf source for all messages here)

Notice: “hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s attorney to SDNY”.

Pay super close attention.  This is not an outcome of a New York Police Dept. raid on Anthony Weiner.  This is Weiner’s attorney going to the U.S. attorney and voluntarily turning over emails. The emails were not turned over to the FBI in New York, the actual emails were turned over to the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District.

Key point here: Weiner’s attorneys turned over “emails”.  Actual “emails”.

♦If the U.S. Attorney in New York has the actual physical emails on September 28th, 2016, why would they need a search warrant on October 21st, 2016? (Comey’s call explanation)

♦Why would Weiner’s attorney be handing over evidence?

Think about this carefully.  I’ll get back to the importance of it later; but what I suspect is that Weiner had physical material that was his “insurance policy” against anything done to him by Hillary Clinton.  Facing a criminal prosecution, Weiner’s lawyer went to the U.S. Attorney and attempted to exploit/leverage the content therein on his client’s behalf.

Fast forward three weeks, and we go back to FBI in DC.

On October 21, 2016, this is the call referenced by James Comey in the Bret Baier interview.  Someone from New York called “Main Justice” (the DOJ National Security Division in DC) and notified DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General George Toscas of the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails via the “weiner investigation”.

[I would point out again, he’s not being notified of a laptop, Toscas is notified of “emails”]

George Toscas “wanted to ensure information got to Andy“, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe…. so, he called FBI Agent Peter Strzok…. who told George Toscas, “We know”.

Peter Strzok then tells Bill Priestap.

Of course, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe already knew about the emails since September 28th, 2016, more than three weeks earlier.

In his Bret Baier interview, FBI Director James Comey says this call is about a search warrant.  There is no indication the call is actually about a search warrant.  [Nor would there be a need for a search warrant if the call was actually about the emails that Wiener’s attorney dropped off on 9/21].

However, that phone call kicks off an internal debate about the previously closed Clinton email investigation; and Andrew McCabe sitting on the notification from New York for over three weeks – kicks off an internal FBI discussion about McCabe needing to recuse himself.

Now it’s October 27th, 2016, and James Comey Chief-of-Staff Jim Rybicki wants McCabe to recuse himself.  But Rybicki is alone on an island. Lisa Page is furious at such a suggestion, partly because she is McCabe’s legal counsel and if McCabe is recused, so too is she.

At the same time as they are debating how to handle the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails, they are leaking to the media to frame a specific narrative.

Important to note here, that at no time is there any conversation -or hint of a conversation- that anyone is reviewing the content of the emails.  The discussions don’t mention a single word about content… every scintilla of conversation is about how to handle the issues of the emails themselves.  Actually, there’s not a single person mentioned in thousands of text messages that applies to an actual person who is looking at any content.

Quite simply: there is a glaringly transparent lack of an “investigation”.

Within this “tight group” at FBI, as Comey puts it, there is not a single mention of a person who is sitting somewhere looking through the reported “600,000” Clinton emails that was widely reported by media.  There’s absolutely ZERO evidence of anyone looking at emails or scouring through laptop data…. and FBI Agent Peter Strzok has no staff under him who he discusses assigned to such a task…. and Strzok damned sure ain’t doing it.  So what gives?

Moving on – Note to readers. Click the graphics and read the notes on them too:

It’s still October 27th, 2016, the day before James Comey announces his FBI decision to reopen the Clinton investigation.  Jim Rybicki is still saying McCabe should be recused from input; everyone else, including FBI Legal Counsel James Baker, is disagreeing with Rybicki and siding with Lisa Page.

Meanwhile the conversation has shifted slightly to “PC”, probable cause.  Read:

While Lisa Page is leaking stories to Devlin Barrett (Wall Street Journal), the internal discussion amid the “small group” is about probable cause.

The team is now saying, if there was no probable cause when Comey closed the original email investigation in July 2016 (remember the very tight boundaries of review), then there’s no probable cause in October 2016 to reopen the investigation regardless of what the email content might be.

This appears to be how the “small group” or “tight team” justify doing nothing with the content received from New York.  They received the emails September 28th, and it’s now October 27th, and they haven’t even looked at it.  Heck, they are debating if there’s even a need to look at it.

Then on October 28th, 2016, the FBI and Main Justice officials have a conference call about the entire Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton email issue.  Here’s where it gets interesting.

George Toscas and David Laufman, from DOJ-NSD, articulate a position that something needs to happen likely, because Main Justice is concerned about the issue of FBI (McCabe) sitting on the emails for over three weeks without any feedback to SDNY (New York).

Thanks to Deputy Director McCabe, Main Justice in DC, specifically DOJ National Security Division, now looks like they are facilitating a cover-up operation being conducted by the FBI “small group”.  [Which is actually true, but they can’t let that be so glaringly obvious].

As a result of the Top-Tier officials conference call, Strzok is a grumpy agent because his opinion appears to be insignificant.  The decision is reached to announce the re-opening of the investigation.  This sends Lisa Page bananas…

In rapid response mode, Lisa Page reaches out to Devlin Barrett, again to quickly shape the media coverage.  Now that the world is aware of the need for a Clinton email investigation 2.0, the internal conversation returns to McCabe’s recusal.

Please note, that at no time in the FBI is anyone directing an actual investigation of the content of the Clinton emails.  Every single second of every effort is devoted to shaping the public perception of the need for the investigation.  Every media outlet is being watched, every article is being read, and the entire apparatus of the small group is shaping coverage therein by contacting their leak outlets.

So let’s go back to that Comey interview:

♦What exactly would SDNY need a search warrant for?

♦Anthony Weiner’s lawyer has delivered SDNY actual emails.  Why would he do that?

Now lets connect those questions to an earlier report.

According to ABC News, Comey writes in “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” that he became the public face of the investigation partly because of a mysterious development which he felt could cast “serious doubt” on Lynch’s independence.

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

On page six of the IG report on Andrew McCabe (point number 4), we find a conference call between Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe and the FBI field office in New York, where the subject of the Weiner/Abedin/Clinton email findings overlap with: the Clinton Foundation (CF) investigation, the Clinton Email investigation, pressure for Asst. Director McCabe to recuse himself, and Washington DC via Loretta Lynch using DOJ Main Justice leverage from the Eric Garner case against the NY FBI office and New York Police Department.

From the OIG report:

4. The Attorney General Expresses Strong Concerns to McCabe and other FBI Officials about Leaks, and McCabe Discusses Recusing Himself from CF Investigation (October 26, 2016)

McCabe told the OIG that during the October 2016 time frame, it was his “perception that there was a lot of information coming out of likely the [FBI’s] New York Field Office” that was ending up in the news. McCabe told the OIG that he “had some heated back-and-forths” with the New York Assistant Director in Charge (“NY-ADIC”) over the issue of media leaks.

On October 26th, 2016, McCabe and NY-ADIC participated in what McCabe described as “a hastily convened conference call with the Attorney General who delivered the same message to us” about leaks, with specific focus being on leaks regarding the high-profile investigation by FBI’s New York Field Office into the death of Eric Garner. McCabe told us that he “never heard her use more forceful language.” NY-ADIC confirmed that the participants got “ripped by the AG on leaks.”

According to NY-ADIC’s testimony and an e-mail he sent to himself on October 31, McCabe indicated to NY-ADIC and a then-FBI Executive Assistant Director (“EAD”) in a conversation after Attorney General Lynch disconnected from the call that McCabe was recusing himself from the CF Investigation.

(Page #6 and #7 – IG Report Link)

What makes this explosive is the timing, and what we now know about what was going on amid the FBI “small group” in DC.

On September 28th, 2016, Andrew McCabe was made aware of emails given to New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) directly from Anthony Weiner’s lawyer.  Again, the information relayed to DC is not about a Weiner laptop, it’s about actual emails delivered by Weiner’s lawyer.  The laptop was evidence in the Weiner “sexting” case involving a minor; however, the laptop, reportedly, also contained thousands of State Department documents from Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife.

When Weiner’s lawyer walked into SDNY to deliver his leverage emails, Preet Bharara, a Clinton-Lynch ally, was the United States Attorney.

Again, look at the text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok (Inbox) and FBI Special Counsel to Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page (Outbox):

[The letter to “Congress” at the end of the text exchange relates to notification of the re-opening of the Clinton investigation – Actual date of notification 10/28/16]

According to later reporting, FBI Director James Comey was not notified of the emails until after October 21st, 2016.  However, in late October and early November, there were reports from people with contacts in New York police and New York FBI, about Washington DOJ officials interfering with the Weiner investigation.

On the same date (October 26th, 2016) as the Lynch, McCabe and NY FBI phone call, former NY Mayor Rudy Giuilani was telling Fox News that an explosive development was forthcoming.   Two days later, October 28th, 2016, Congress was notified of the additional Clinton emails.

However, a few more days later, November 4th, 2016, there was an even more explosive development, as Erik Prince appeared on radio and outlined discoveries, within the Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner/Hillary Clinton email issues, that were being blocked by AG Lynch.

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.

“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.

“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.

“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said. (Link)

An earlier Grand Jury in New York had refused to return an indictment against the NYPD in the Garner case.  As an outcome of that grand jury finding, and as an outcome of their own investigation, the local FBI office and Eastern District of New York DOJ office was not trying to pursue criminal charges against the NYPD officers involved.  This created a dispute, because federal prosecutors (EDNY) and FBI officials in New York opposed bringing charges, while prosecutors with the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department in Washington argued there was clear evidence to do so.

On October 25th, 2016, Loretta Lynch replaced the EDNY New York prosecutors:

New York Times (Oct. 25)  – The Justice Department has replaced the New York team of agents and lawyers investigating the death of Eric Garner, officials said, a highly unusual shake-up that could jump-start the long-stalled case and put the government back on track to seek criminal charges.

With that move – on Oct. 25th, 2016, AG Lynch was now in position to threaten criminal prosecutions against the NYPD, and repercussions against the NY FBI and EDNY using the Garner case as leverage, just like Erik Prince outlined in the phone interview above.

Additionally, we see confirmation from the IG report the Garner case was brought up in the next day (Oct 26, 2016) phone call to the NY FBI field office, just as Erik Prince outlined.  Obviously, Prince’s sources were close to the events as they unfolded.

The NY FBI and Eastern District of New York (EDNY) were threatened by Washington DC Main Justice and FBI, via Loretta Lynch and Andrew McCabe, to drop the Clinton/Abedin/Weiner email investigation matters, or else the Garner DOJ Civil Rights Division would be used as leverage against the NYPD.  And Loretta Lynch had SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as the enforcer waiting for her call.

And so it was…

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

The emails Anthony Weiner’s lawyer brought to Preet Bharara were Weiner’s leverage to escape prosecution.  Likely, those emails were exactly as Eric Prince sources outlined.  However, the SDNY responding to upper level leadership buried those emails.

In DC, the FBI (Comey and McCabe) created the appearance of a re-opening of the Clinton investigation to keep control and ensure the investigative outcomes remained out of the hands of the Eastern District (EDNY) and New York FBI field office.  They had no choice.

However, once the FBI opened the investigation October 28th, they did exactly the same thing they had done from September 28th to October 28th… they did nothing.

A few days later, they declared the second investigation closed, and that was that.

They never expected her to lose.