else. we live to eat in new orleans. ofwatch c-span's city tour's new orleans, louisiana. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. now, democrats react to the justice department's report on the fbi's investigation of the 2016 presidential campaign. this briefing is 30 minutes. mr. schumer: ok, good afternoon, everyone. i'm proud to be joined by my colleague, senator feinstein and warner, and my dear friend and mr. schumer: ok, good afternoon, everyone. i'm proud to be joined by my colleague, senator feinstein and warner, and my dear friend and house colleague, who i know longer than anybody probably in this room, jerry nadler. leader pelosi, ranking member

cummings, and ranking member schiff are voting and on their way. and they'll speak when theyt here. well, so we now know the long-awaited report from the inspector general has been made public. several things are crystal clear. first and foremost, anyone who was hoping to use this report to undermine the mueller probe or prove the existence of a deep-state conspiracy against president trump will be sorely disappointed. those of us who are interested in the truth, however, are pleased to know that the inspector general wrote time and time again that when it came to the clinton email investigation, that thence conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or improper consideration." no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were

affected by bias or other improper considerations. rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutors' assessments of the facts, the law and past department practices. plain and simple, couldn't be plainer. couldn't be a more strong repudiation of those who wish to say that there was bias in the mueller investigation. did director comey, the f.b.i., and d.o.j. handle the public aspects of the investigation into hillary clinton's emails correctly? of course not. we democrats said that then, the inspector general makes it clear now. but director comey's mishandling of the publicity around the clinton email campaign all accrued to the benefit of then-candidate trump. not the other way around. it was trump who benefited. from all these mistakes. so it hardly reflects deep-state

or bias against him. and as the president told lester holt in his own words, on national tv, he fired director comey because of the russia probe. so what does this all mean going forward? we know that in the days ahead, the president and his allies will try to twist themselves into pretzels and try to use this report to undermine the special counsel and russia probe. unfortunately for them, nothing in this report lays a glove on special counsel mueller or the ongoing russia probe. if this was the president's plan to take down the special counsel, president trump swung and missed. the special counsel's integrity is widely recognized and his investigation has already produced almost two dozen indictments and guilty pleas. nevertheless, the president isn't one to let the facts gets in his way, so we have no doubt he'll be tweeting all sorts of

false information and false innuendo. but there are two facts not susceptible to spin. one, donald trump won that election so, the complaints about the f.b.i. and jim comey and all the rest don't lead anywhere. at the end of the day, the actions reviewed in this report helped donald trump win the election, not the other way around. and two, this report contain no evidence to make any reasonable person conclude that the special counsel investigation is anything other than independent, impartial and just as important today as it was before this report was issued. senator feinstein. ms. feinstein: thank you, leader. all i have been able to read is the executive summary where the recommendations are. and i think senator schumer summarized the most important one, and that is we found no

evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations. rather, we determined that they were based on the prosecutors' assessment of the facts, the law and past department practice. what the i.g. did conclude was that james comey violated department of justice policies on three occasions. with his july 5 press conference, his october 28 letter to congress, and his november 6 notification to congress. many of us agree on that conclusion. and the i.g. report repeatedly says that the justice department forbids discussion about ongoing investigations. again, let me read a quote from the report. comey engaged in ad hoc decision making based on his personal

views, even if it meant rejecting longstanding department policy or practice. we found unpersuasive comey's explanation as to why transparency was more important than department policy. and practice with regard to the reactivated midyear investigation. while by contrast, department policy and practice were more important to follow with regard to the clinton foundation and the russia investigations. department policy and practice is to not discuss investigations, and for me that's the key takeaway today. house and senate republicans continue to demand the deputy attorney general rosenstein and special counsel mueller disclose information about the russia investigation. if it was wrong for comey to release information related to the clinton investigation, it

would be wrong for the f.b.i. and justice department to release information about the mueller investigation. throughout the clinton investigation, republicans in congress demanded information from director comey and d.o.j. under subpoena and threat of contempt. today they're doing the same thing with the mueller investigation. it was wrong then and it's wrong now. instead of demanding disclosure of information about the ongoing investigation, congress should protect investigative information from disclosure. lastly, the f.b.i. said the following. although no bias or other improper consideration was found in the f.b.i.'s decisions or actions, the appearance of bias is disconcerting and potentially damaging to the f.b.i.'s ability

to perform its mission. law enforcement must not only avoid actual bias, but also the appearance of bias. mr. schumer: thank you, senator feinstein. senator warner. mr. warner: thank you, senator schumer. let me just -- two or three quick points. one, i think this is an example where the system worked. there were concerns raised. the inspector general did a thorough and lengthy review. pointed out mistakes were made. so that the white house and its allies that continue to make attacks against the integrity of virtually everyone who works at the department of justice, and at the f.b.i., i hope would go on to a bit of a pause. here was an example where the system worked and there are two conclusions i draw from the report. one, no political bias. and two, the actions of the then-f.b.i. director more than

one time actually benefited mr. trump's campaign and his election chances. so, i hope we can put this behind us and continue to allow the mueller investigation and the last remaining bipartisan investigation, the senate intelligence committee investigation, to finish our work. mr. schumer: thank you, senator warner. leader pelosi. ms. pelosi: thank you very much, leader schumer, for bringing us together. i appreciate the comments made by you, as i was coming over here i heard you. and by senator feinstein and ranking member on intelligence, senator warner. and ranking member on judiciary, senator feinstein. i'm honored to be here with my colleague, ranking member jerry nadler, on the house judiciary committee. and others who may be joining us. oh, adam's here. now we're joined by our ranking member on intelligence, adam schiff. in addition to what was

presented, i wanted to make two points which may be additional, but i want to emphasize them. one is that the i.g. informed us that leaks to rudy giuliani were part of the investigation. we'll see what that takes us to. the report does not answer how he got those leaks and democrats are demanding answers. secondly, it the report says that the f.b.i. was under constant pressure from congressional republicans. that pressure has now been directed to the mueller investigation. the report provides no basis for the g.o.p. to challenge the legitimacy of the mueller investigation. it must continue unhindered. it's deeply disturbing that the republicans remain obsessed with undermining our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. republicans need to end this and focus on what matters, protecting our democracy. just this week special counsel mueller said that the election meddling operations are still

occurring. yesterday, the house g.o.p. failed to appropriate a single dollar to protect our elections. they refused to hold a full committee hearing on election security, in homeland or house administration committee. congress takes an oath of office to support and defend the constitution and to protect the american people. democrats are honoring that oath with real actions to secure our elections. and i repeat, we found no evidence, says the inspector general, we found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors are affected by bias or other improper considerations, rather we determine that they were based on the prosecutors' assessment of the facts, the law and the past department practice. i yield now to the distinguished ranking member of the judiciary committee in the house, jerry nadler. mr. nadler: thank you very much. like senator feinstein, i've only had time to read the executive summary.

after reviewing it, i have two key reactions. first, the decisions described in the report all helped donald trump win the election. all the errors were in trump's favor. when he appeared before the house judiciary committee in 2016, september, 2016, i told director comey that he was wrong to treat the two presidential candidates differently. speaking at length about the clinton investigation on several occasions, while refusing to acknowledge even the existence of what we now know was the investigation of the trump campaign. the report today confirms that we were right to be worried about the double standard. it also confirms that mr. comey was absolutely wrong in his decision to publicly reopen the investigation in october. his choice was not as he often frames it between silence and disclosure. his choice was between, as the report puts it, policy/practice

-- following policy/practice and not following policy/practice. we also, if we learned anything from these findings, it should be that the department of justice and special counsel mueller must be able to complete the current investigation without political interference. a lesson that my republican colleagues seem to have missed and that president trump may never learn. second, the comments of my republican colleagues since this report released are completely untethered from reality. republicans are clinging to the hope that somehow, some way, their long-debunked myth of an f.b.i. conspiracy against president trump is still true. a group of freedom caucus members just wrote the department of justice to ask for, and i kid you not, an investigation into the investigation of the investigation. a second-degree or third-degree investigation. facts are facts. secretary clinton did not, as my republican colleagues suggest, receive special treatment.

the political views of the agents running this case did not effect the outcome of the investigation. these are findings of the report. where the department of justice and the f.b.i. deviated from normal policy and practice, they did so to the detriment of secretary clinton and the benefit of the campaign of donald trump. and if you are still unconvinced, if you think that this report stands for anything but the fact that the republican narrative that we have heard, and i'm sure we'll continue to hear, is completely false, i direct you to the key findings of the inspector general. and i think it's quoted right here. we found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors -- it is quoted right here. we found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or by other improper considerations, rather we determined that they were based on the prosecutors' assessment of the facts, the law and past department practices. so let me express the hope that we will now see an end to the

slander by our republican colleagues and by the president of the people in the department of justice, of the people in the f.b.i., and the continued attempt to pressure them into not doing their jobs properly. the continuing attempt of what i think are continuing obstruction of justice act. thank you very much. mr. schumer: adam schiff, ranking member on intelligence in the house. mr. schiff: thank you, mr. leader. just to underscore a couple points. i think probably the two key conclusions of the inspector general report are, first, that no political bias influenced the decision making at either the f.b.i. or the department of justice. while there may have been political bias exhibited in some private text messages, none of that political bias influenced decision making in the clinton email investigation. the second, i think, key conclusion of the inspector general is that director comey and others made serious errors of judgment. and while these serious errors

of judgment were not driven by political considerations, they were nevertheless serious mistakes. those mistakes unquestionably have the effect of helping the trump campaign. that was not by design, but that was the effect. and you need look no further than candidate trump's comments, applauding then director comey for discussing the investigation in october to see which way those errors in judgment cut. none of this report obviously reflects at all on the continued investigation by special counsel. it is more important than ever that that investigation go on unimpeded. but it's not completely irrelevant in the sense that one of the points made by the inspector general, perhaps among the gravest mistakes attributed to director comey, was discussing an ongoing investigation publicly, sharing information about an ongoing investigation with congress, with the knowledge that that

information would likely be made public. that is of a continuing concern. as some in congress press the justice department once again to disclose information about a pending investigation. we should not repeat that mistake again. and so just to sum up, there were serious errors of judgment made. those errors of judgment were not made owing to political bias, but nonetheless they were serious mistakes. and those mistakes had the effect of helping the trump campaign. none of this reflects on the special counsel's work. and we're determined to make sure that work goes on unimpeded. but we should be mindful of the inspector general's conclusion that discussing an ongoing investigation, sharing information about an ongoing investigation, when it is likely that investigation be made public, is a mistake. and we should be doing everything possible not to repeat that mistake. thank you. mr. schumer: thank you, congressman schiff.

congressman cummings, ranking member of the oversight committee in the house. mr. cummings: thank you very much, senator schumer. after reviewing the inspector general's report today, there's one broad overarching and inescapable conclusion that i draw. the f.b.i.'s actions leading up to the presidential election helped donald trump in his effort to become president of the united states of america. director comey had a double standard. he spoke publicly about the clinton investigation, while keeping secret from the american people the investigation of donald trump and russia. director comey talked publicly about hillary clinton's closed case, which resulted in no

charges, and disclosed the reopening of the case in october of 2016, based on emails that showed absolutely nothing new. at the same time he kept secret from the american people the ongoing investigation of president trump's campaign and russia. which was happening exactly at the same time. i felt disheartened by this report because i warned director comey personally against this double standard before the election. i want to share with you a statement that i issued on october 31, 2016, just days before the election. and here's what i said. if it comes out after the election that the f.b.i. kept secret from the american people the fact that it was

investigating former trump campaign manager paul manafort, for seeking access to his emails, or investigating anyone else associated with trump, then i have no idea how director comey will be able to explain his actions. i do not know how director comey will justify his decision to withhold information relating to trump, while publicly announcing ongoing investigative steps against his opponent just days before the election. i issued that statement october, 2016. sadly, this is precisely what the inspector general's report confirms today. the report concludes that these actions violated longstanding guidelines intended to protect

citizens from unfair attacks and prevent the f.b.i. from influencing our elections. let me close by making one final comment. we understand why director comey did this. republican committee chairman with unilateral subpoena power, launched incessant, cynical and false attacks against the f.b.i.'s investigation of hillary clinton. i witnessed it myself. the simple lesson from today's report is that the f.b.i. should not have buckled under this republican pressure. these policies are intended to keep the f.b.i. from doing exactly what it did, influencing the course of a presidential election. ironically today republicans are lobbying those same attacks

against special counsel robert mueller. it's time for those attacks to stop. special counsel mueller's investigation has produced 18 indictments against 20 individuals and three companies, encompassing 75 criminal acts, and has yielded five guilty pleas. i've said it before, ladies and gentlemen, but we are in a state where we have to protect the soul of our democracy. and i have said it to the press, it is so important that we get this right. things that are happening today may not be reversed during my lifetime. but i'm going to fight with everything i've got to make sure we maintain this democracy. it allowed all of us to be where we are today. thank you. mr. schumer: thank you, congressman cummings. we'll take questions on this subject.

reporter: -- \[inaudible] -- the president point to this report and say, look, james comey clearly violated protocol multiple times. i was completely justified in firing him. mr. schumer: the bottom line is the president said he fired him because of the russian investigation, on an interview with nbc. so, that speaks for itself. reporter: -- \[inaudible] -- concerned about the fact that the justice department waited until today to disclose the newly revealed text messages in which they talk about stopping donald trump, strzok said in that message, you know, saying we'll stop, it referring to trump becoming president. are you at all concerned about the conduct of peter strzok and these messages? mr. schumer: it's knot nothing new in this report -- it's nothing new in this report. strzok has made many bad comments and it led director mueller to remove him from his investigation as soon as those came out.

i believe it was last february. several months ago. mr. nadler: the report finds, and this is on page 3 of the executive summary, it says, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed or that the justifications offered for these decisions were pretextual. our review did not find evidence to connect the political views expressed in these -- i will say the word private, in these messages, to the specific investigative decisions that we reviewed. rather, consistent with the analytic approach described above, we found that these specific decisions were the result of discretionary judgments made during the course of the investigation by the midyear agents and prosecutors and these judgment calls were not unreasonable. in other words, the report specifically finds that whatever the private political opinions

of strzok and page, expressed in emails between the two of them, they did not bring that bias in any way to the investigation and the investigative decisions made by them and others were all reasonable. it further says, in some instances, we further found evidence that in some instances strzok and page advocated for more aggressive measures in the midyear investigation such as the use of grand jury subpoenas and search warrants to obtain evidence. in other words in some instances strzok and page were more raucous against hillary's side, if you will, than the decisions that were ultimately made. reporter: -- fired -- [inaudible] mr. nadler: my personal opinion, it's up to wray. my personal opinion is no. lots of people -- we don't know the political opinions of other people. as long as they showed bad judgment writing those things, but as long as they kept them from affecting their judgments or from affecting the decision

and the key finding of the investigation, one of the key findings of the inspector general, is that none of those personal political opinions affected the investigation or decisions in the investigation in any way. and therefore do not detract from the validity of the whole thing. reporter: given all the criticism of director comey and his judgment in this report and from those of you on stage, do you think any of you learned today, undermines his credibility in the areas where he's a witness in the mueller probe, on the obstruction and so forth? mr. schumer: again, he didn't handle himself well here. but no one has cast dispersions at this point. we'll have to wait to see what happens if he is a witness. but no one's cast dispersions on that aspect of things. on his honesty. it's an error of judgment, but not an error of credibility. do you want to say something? >> i was going to make that point.

the inspector general criticizes director comey for a failed exercise of judgment. mr. schiff: not for lack of candor or integrity. but for exercising judgment in a way that was inconsistent with department policy and the explanations that he gave did not merit ignoring the department's policy. the director has sought to frame the issue as reveal or conceal and i think the inspector general properly framed the issue as abide by the department policies or ignore them and the director should have abided by them. mr. schumer: ok. last question. reporter: many democrats were defensive of hillary clinton during the election. many endorsed her even before the outcome of this probe. with the benefit of hindsight and this report, there's a real question at the heart that needed to be probed and was this investigation legitimate?

from the beginning? the f.b.i. investigation? mr. schumer: the f.b.i. investigation of hillary? reporter: yeah. mr. schumer: yeah, i suppose. look, their findings speak for themselves. plain and simple. thank you, everybody. >> now, fbi director christopher wray holds a news conference following the release of the justice department's ig report on the bureau's handling of the hillary clinton email investigation in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.