Scandal: The long-awaited report from the Justice Department's inspector general about the FBI's handling of the Clinton email scandal seems to absolve the bureau of any political bias. What it really shows, however, is that the FBI — under pressure from President Obama — was just going through the motions the whole time.

Most of the focus of the report in the news has been on its criticism of then FBI director James Comey. The IG says that some of his actions were "extraordinary and insubordinate" — a scathing indictment if there ever was one. It is another black mark on Comey's already badly tarnished reputation, and well deserved.

However, the report also finds that there was "no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations."

Naturally, that's what Democrats have seized on as proof that, aside from Comey's bungling, the FBI did its job.

But look at the report in its totality and you see that time and again officials made "judgment calls" that weakened their investigation. In other words, from the range of options available to them, they consistently chose the less aggressive course of action.

It says, for instance that "We questioned why the Midyear team" — referring to the "Midyear Review" code name given to the Clinton investigation — "did not serve subpoenas on or seek to obtain search warrants related to the last known persons to possess devices that the team was never able to locate."

At another point it says that the FBI had considered obtaining permission from the Department to review certain classified materials that may have included information potentially relevant to the investigation." And while "the Midyear team drafted a memorandum to the Deputy Attorney General in late May 2016 stating that review of the highly classified materials was necessary to complete the investigation and requesting permission to access them, the FBI never sent this request to the Department."

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/ig-report-clinton-email-investigation-political-bias/