Original subtitles

[cheering, applause]

[Stephen Colbert] Yeah. I just, uh...

I just-- There's so many Comey stories.

They're ju-- they're an emotional roller coaster,

I just don't know what to think about James Comey.

First he seemed like he's the good guy,

then he seemed like he's the bad guy,

then it seemed like he sacrificed himself

to save other people.

Oh, my God.

-Is James Comey Severus Snape? -[laughter]

♪ dramatic music ♪

I was on the way to winning...

It was, in fact, a big October surprise.

T-That's not the FBI. That's not what the FBI is supposed to do.

[commentator] It is clear they have no idea

what these e-mails are.

[Rudy Giuliani] Jim Comey...

...reading of the law is completely wrong.

I consider this decision an outrage.

You chose to make public statements

about one investigation and not another.

There would be political ramifications to your comments.

Do you have any regrets,

or are there any things you would do differently?

♪ slow, somber music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[door opens]

You're wondering why there isn't any cake.

Afternoon, Mr. Rosenstein.

Two reasons.

One, I don't really like cake.

And two, I hate false ceremony.

Thank-yous are for Mother's Day.

Ah, Hoover.

There's a lesson in Hoover's story, Justin.

Director of the FBI is afforded an almost cultlike status.

To resist that takes discipline.

Humility.

Hmm. As opposed to...

You know what they do every year on the Fourth of July?

Jim Comey and his family?

-No. -They gather together and read

the Declaration of Independence aloud to one another.

That's not in his book.

He just found a way to make sure

that everyone knows.

That's Jim.

In governance, there are people who do the work,

and there are showboats.

-[taps book] -Jim...

was always a showboat.

[alarm clock beeping]

[turns off alarm]

[birds chirping in distance]

[sighs deeply]

Don't worry. He can't pick me.

They think I'm a Bush guy.

[pills rattle]

I know. They each make such a different statement.

Yeah, but which tie?

-Ta-da! -He goes gold.

-Very nice, Dad. -Handsome.

You owe me a buck.

Have a great day.

-Say hi to Barack for me. -Me, too!

[President Obama] Governor, I'm told you got

24 dead and over 200 injured.

Do we have that right?

I've ordered Janet Napolitano at DHS

and Craig Fugate at FEMA to coordinate with your team

to provide any assistance you might need.

Just, uh, just hang in there-- help's coming.

All right.

Come on in, Jim.

Good to meet you, Mr. President.

-You, too. -I should confess, sir,

I supported John McCain.

And Romney.

I know.

Come on.

So...

Why...

should I hire you to run the Bureau?

Why shouldn't I pick, say...

oh, someone who supports

my criminal justice reform initiative?

Uh, you could, Mr. President,

and that's an issue on which reasonable people can disagree.

But I believe stiffer sentencing laws have, on the whole,

made the country safer.

A lot of Americans aren't dead today

because the guys who might have killed them were locked up.

Well, still, it might be easier for me to have an FBI director

-who agrees with me. -Well, that's true, but...

you've always struck me as one of those leaders

who gains just as much from thoughtful disagreement.

Hmm.

You garnered a lot of attention for a...

well, taking on the Mob as prosecutor

and defending the DOJ in '04.

I suppose that's true.

Do you need a lot of attention?

That's not a huge driver for me.

No, uh, interest in politics down the line?

-None. -Good.

Politicians are awful.

-[chuckles] -Advisor of mine says

you were a... an outstanding deputy A.G.

-Thank you. -He also says

you can be self-righteous and, uh, morally superior.

Your advisor sounds like an excellent judge of character.

[laughs softly] What else do I need to know about you, Jim?

What do you... what do you think your weaknesses are?

Well...

um, sometimes I can be impulsive and...

convince myself I'm being decisive.

How's your health? Any recurrence?

None, sir. Clean scans for seven years now.

Hmm. Because, uh,

there's no pressure in any private sector job

equivalent to the burden of national security.

-That's understood. -The director can be

a whipping boy for Congress.

And you certainly wouldn't make

what the private sector can pay you.

Given all that, why would you want to come back to government?

When I was, uh, 16...

a man in a knit cap broke into our house

and put a gun to my kid brother's head.

He said, "You move, and I will blow his head off."

The guy had been terrorizing our neighborhood for months.

They called him the Ramsey Rapist.

I showed him where my parents kept their few valuables

and begged him not to kill us.

For some reason, he didn't.

Just locked us in the basement and left.

I slept with a butcher knife in my bed for years.

The guy was never caught, so I had this...

"what if" tape in my head.

"What if he comes back?

What if my sister is home when he does?"

I'd been...

powerless.

♪ slow, somber music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Money is nice.

Stopping bad guys is better.

You know, uh...

if you were to get this job,

conversations like this would be impossible.

The president and the FBI director...

have to be at arm's length.

One day, uh, you might be called upon

to investigate something someone in my party may have done

-or someone on my staff or... -You.

[laughs]

Well, for those investigations to be credible,

well, we cannot be close.

Mr. President, I hope I can look forward to years

of not being close with you.

[man] Good morning, Mr. Director.

[Mueller] Mm.

[Mueller] All the field officers regard us with some suspicion.

New York gripes the most.

They think they're their own Bureau.

How have you handled that, generally?

[laughs softly] I tell them, "If you're not happy, leave.

There's plenty of people that want your job."

You can't run this place if you mind being resented.

We do stand-up meetings,

so I don't have to waste time

while they sit and then get back up again.

[Mueller sighs]

But...

you're gonna have to make changes.

There's not a lot of talent in the pipeline,

not even for deputy.

You need somebody who's ready politically.

The FBI is the world of the bank shot.

Director Mueller, this is the promotion for the SAC

-in the Kansas City office. -Okay.

Keep your eye on Cyber.

We're hugely vulnerable to a coordinated attack.

-Bob? -Yeah?

Shouldn't we discuss what you're signing?

-What for? -That's a senior executive

who's going to be reporting to me in a week.

Can I know who he is and why you're promoting--

You want it, take it.

I don't want it; I just wanted to discuss it.

A word of advice, Jim.

If you've been doing this for ten years,

and a president asks you to stay on for another two,

say no.

[Comey] You should know that I have

several expectations of you.

I expect you to work hard,

because you owe that to the taxpayer.

I expect you to exercise good judgment.

Being here means you have the power to do good,

or, if you abuse that power, great harm.

I expect you to find joy in your work.

You are part of an organization devoted to doing good,

protecting the weak, rescuing the taken,

and catching criminals.

That is work with moral content.

Doing it should be a source of great joy.

And I expect you to protect this institution's reservoir

of trust and credibility,

which makes possible all of our work.

I expect you to fight for balance

in your lives.

You are all driven by our mission,

and you are used to absorbing stress.

That means you need more time with your loved ones, not less.

So...

I order you to love someone.

It's the right thing to do.

-It's also good for you. -[scattered laughter]

Crime in any form makes people feel powerless.

Let's fix that.

Oh. No, no, no.

I'm-I'm okay. I'll wait.

Thanks.

Hi. Jim.

Pam.

What do you do here?

Counterterrorism analyst.

What did you do before? What-what drew you here?

9/11. I was an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Missed work that day because of the flu.

Thanks, Pam.

Thank you, Pam. [chuckles]

Saved my spot. [sniffs]

What do you do here?

Hmm? Uh, computer tech, Counterintel.

What were you before? What-what called you here?

I worked for Monsanto.

Hated it.

What do you do here?

I'm the director.

Oh, yeah?

The director of what?

In his first two years at the Bureau,

Jim did everything you'd expect a Boy Scout to do.

He visited all 56 field offices

and dozens more overseas,

charming each and every one

of the Bureau's 37,000 employees.

He was adored.

Loved.

Nothing slowed him.

There were, you know, kidnappings...

lone shooters, terror plots.

[reporter] ISIS is not your parents' al-Qaeda.

The FBI nabbed at least six people.

The battle between Apple and the FBI.

Iran hacks into the control system

of an American dam.

[Rosenstein] Yet his sunniness was undimmed.

Until...

[Giuliano] Good morning.

[others] Morning.

What did the analysts pull together?

What's in the PDB?

[McCabe] Got a potential issue in the U.K.

Getting chatter that AQAP is going to hit

another airliner bound for the U.S.

JTF is reporting, uh,

chatter in New York indicating the same thing.

We don't know yet where they'll be flying from

or what techniques they'll be using.

Do we have a time frame on this?

Nothing specific, just increased chatter.

Is it something the boss needs to brief the A.G. on?

-Not yet. -What else?

Operation in Detroit that's ready to go down.

Guy at a mosque there told an informant yesterday

he was planning to target a Jewish children's center.

Do we have enough to charge?

-Yes. -Do we have the right

resources on the ground, good takedown plan?

We do. We'll give them to you off-line.

Okay. Let's skinny down for the director.

[door opens]

Mark, we got an I.G. referral

on Clinton and her e-mails.

We're gonna have to open a case.

Say more.

-Boss. -What's up?

Got a referral

from the intel I.G.

about Secretary Clinton's e-mails.

We're gonna have to open a case.

Say more.

Secretary Clinton's aides didn't hand over her e-mails

to government records-- is that a failure

or is that an oversight?

Well, it's a failure to comply with the law

that the secretary had to know about,

that her aides had to know about.

And it's a pattern of deception that began from before

she became secretary until her last day.

But I am a little bit worried

about the-the security of those e-mails.

Uh, they would've been, uh,

prime targets for cyber, uh, attacks.

They haven't given us e-mails for nine of the ten

senior aides that she had.

It's been over a year.

Well, let's start from the beginning.

Everything I did was permitted.

"Did she mishandle classified information

by using her personal e-mail system

while serving as Secretary of State?"

You know you're screwed, right?

I do not see a positive outcome here

no matter what we find.

Just do it right.

Welcome to your new home.

I want to say something before we start,

which I know you all already know.

Whatever this investigation yields,

history will look at what we do here through a microscope,

so our work needs to be letter-perfect.

No leaks, everything buttoned down.

We cannot cut corners, cannot screw this up in any way.

Is that clear?

Now, this is not going to become some kind of octopus.

We're not gonna chase down spills

to the ends of the earth, which could take a decade.

We're looking for "corrupt purpose."

Did Secretary Clinton knowingly break the law

either by using a personal e-mail server

to handle classified information

while serving at State,

or by directing the deletion of e-mails

from that server? Period.

I want to be briefed on this thing every day.

Pete?

We have three primary lines of inquiry.

One, the collection and examination

of e-mails that traversed Secretary Clinton's servers.

Her attorneys have produced some of those,

but 31,830 e-mails deemed too personal

by her attorneys to submit to the State Department

have been wiped from her current server.

Two, interviews of relevant witnesses

who wiped all those files off Secretary Clinton's

server using BleachBit.

Three, Secretary Clinton used these devices overseas,

often within the borders of sophisticated adversaries.

So... analysis.

Did that lead to classified information being compromised

by hostile cyber actors?

Intrusion analysis has already begun.

OTD will image all of Secretary Clinton's devices,

including the two servers we currently have in custody.

And a filter team will remove any material privileged

by attorney-client, medical or marital,

and attempt deduplication.

We are also sending preservation requests

to the State Department, the CIA, DIA, DOD and EOP

for e-mails from Secretary Clinton

or the clintonaccount.net domain.

Are there any questions?

Yeah, are we stuck with the two chickenshit prosecutors

Justice has assigned or can we demand somebody

with actual balls?

We're looking into that.

Those two are zeros.

Is there anything else?

[Giuliano] Do you have all the resources

you need? Do you need anything

pushed up the chain across the street?

[Strzok] We'll let you know, Mark.

Thank you.

Okay, now I'm pissed off.

Midyear's gonna be run out of NSD at headquarters

by a deputy-- how the fuck is that supposed to work?

Fucking D.C.-- those guys couldn't find

an elephant in the middle of Yankee Stadium.

And the prosecutors down there are even worse.

Boss... we have venue on this one.

-You gonna put up with this? -Gee, fellas.

You having trouble finding joy in your work today?

Relax.

Everything comes through here eventually.

-Right? -Fucking A.

Fucking A.

Tell me about Midyear.

Do you have all the resources you need?

Sort of.

Hillary's lawyers are slow-walking everything,

and no one at Justice is doing anything to stop it.

Her lead guy is David Kendall.

One of the prosecutors used to work for him, so...

there's an intimidation there.

Midyear team's getting frustrated with it.

I'll take care of it, thank you.

How's Judy?

She's good.

So this 18 months you signed up for,

how would feel about making that 24 months?

Now I understand the picnic setting.

I need to make some actual money, boss.

We're strapped.

Apartment here, house in Atlanta,

two college tuitions.

If I want to get home, I have to drive ten hours because

I can't afford to fly.

I'm sorry.

But I've got no one to replace you, Mark.

No one's ready.

And the Bureau can't function

without a deputy who commands the respect you do.

I made her a promise, boss.

We're steaming towards an iceberg.

You know that.

Do you see anybody who's ready to step in

and do the job at your level, day one, no drop-off,

nothing gets missed?

Just six more.

[Claire] Mom, you can breathe.

-She's gonna win. -You don't know that.

-Who's gonna beat her? -Trump.

Trump?

He's an idiot.

But he's a man.

And male voters are gender-loyal

in a way that women aren't.

And he isn't being investigated by anyone.

Yeah.

What's up with that, Dad?

If she broke the law, wouldn't you want to know?

No, not really.

-Me, neither. -[phone ringing]

Hey, Mark, what's up?

Boss, sorry to hit you on a Sunday.

Uh, you got a second? It's important.

Okay.

-Go. -Russia.

Some anomalous behavior concerning the election.

What kind of anomalous behavior?

[camera shutter clicking]

[Giuliano] We think they're trying to sabotage

Secretary Clinton's campaign.

How?

Ever spend much time on Facebook?

[woman laughs]

[mouse clicking]

Donald Trump clearly, uh, is-is scheduled,

at this point, to win the Republican nomination.

It's not just that he's ahead by so much.

It's the ways in which he's ahead.

The Trump supporters see Trump as political chemo.

He may be toxic, he may kill every healthy cell

in the bloodstream,

but he is the only cure for the cancer that is Washington--

Okay.

Secretary Clinton was a part of 81 e-mail chains,

containing 193 e-mails ranging from confidential to top secret,

all sent from unclassified systems.

That's staff failure.

Tell me why.

On sensitive material, staff is supposed

to include headers or footers with classification markings.

That's how these things get flagged.

It's standard. Her staff didn't do it.

But she knew the material was sensitive

and she knew the systems were unprotected.

Let's chase that down later.

Where are we with Huma Abedin's e-mails?

I asked. Justice doesn't feel the need to get a warrant,

because Abedin's work for Clinton was

"administrative in nature

and she was never an originator of classified materials."

But she could have been a forwarder

of classified materials; she could have taken stuff

off of classified systems and dumped it down.

They're just too fucking scared to walk

into Williams & Connolly and tell David Kendall

to stop obstructing this investigation.

That's a pretty big word.

Hey, are you in on Midyear, the Hillary case?

Yeah.

Godspeed, brother.

I hope you nail that bitch.

[beeps]

[door opens]

They have obfuscated every step of this process,

and I don't blame them-- they should use every legal

advantage at their disposal.

I blame our snowflake prosecutors

-for letting them do it. -Where are they, by the way?

-Where's Bob? -Uh, Bob won't be able

-to make it tonight. -Why not?

He's in his office, uh, crying.

Is there any pizza left?

Over there? I mean...

Uh...

[chuckles] I-I asked him

to push Hillary's team for the PRN server,

and apparently Kendall yelled at him.

Our line prosecutor is crying in his office

because a fancy lawyer yelled at him.

This is what I'm talking about, Pete!

-She's not wrong. -Yeah.

[Toscas] Every day, I hear from another

disgruntled member of the Midyear Exam team.

And every call has this assumption under it.

That somehow Justice isn't engaged here.

If you want those calls to stop,

-stop slow-walking everything. -Listen, Mark--

In a case this high-profile, there are bound to be tensions.

Sally, my team feels their investigation is being impeded.

And my team feels their work is being second-guessed.

Our strong consensus is that Secretary Clinton's attorneys

have not been operating in good faith

with this investigation,

that they're being allowed to obfuscate

by the line prosecutors here at Justice.

You think I'm not doing my job, Jim?

You think I'm getting played?

I think you're risk-averse, Bob.

Crying in your office doesn't help.

Every document or device we've requested,

we're going to get.

Her attorneys are only going to be

as helpful as you push them to be.

We're trying to be careful.

-Can you be careful faster? -That's what I'm talking about.

Thank you, everyone.

Loretta, uh, one other thing.

The Bureau's been getting bombarded with questions

about whether or not we're investigating Secretary Clinton.

It's starting to feel silly to keep issuing a "no comment."

People are openly talking about it in the press,

and even Secretary Clinton herself has referred to it.

So I'd like your permission, i-if asked, to acknowledge it

with, "We don't comment on investigations."

Fine.

But I think it would be better

to refer to it as a "matter."

Why would we do that?

Because we don't comment on investigations.

But if we're trying to establish

that we're treating this like any other case,

wouldn't it be helpful to use the same language

we'd use on any other case?

I'm trying to thread the needle here.

I think "matter" does that.

Okay. We can make that work.

Good.

Oh. Hey, Jim.

Hi, Rod.

-Uh, budget meeting. -Oh.

-How you been? -Fine, fine. Good to see you.

Would you ever want to come talk to my team about leadership?

I bring guest speakers in for them now and then.

-Various topics. -Mm.

Leadership's a big focus of yours, isn't it?

It is.

Well, then, would you?

I'm sure that they would appreciate it.

Uh, right now, their idea of leadership is me.

We've got a Child Exploitation Force

right down the street from there, don't we, Mark?

I could visit both in the same day.

-Make it a twofer. -Sure.

Yeah. Great. Contact my office,

-will you, Rod? -I sure will, Jim. Thanks.

-Mm-hmm. -[clears throat] Mark.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

[newswoman] After primary wins

in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,

the Trump campaign

is charging towards Super Tuesday.

Um, it would be messy, and it would be bloody, but if you...

For those who say Donald Trump cannot win, you're wrong.

Want an entertainer in chief?

Someone who will say whatever he wants to,

you know, to make it... make it all about him?

He is heading towards the nomination,

but he is in conflict with his party.

What people are saying now is, "Please,

everyone get together so we can keep this front-runner

from winning and destroying the Republican Party."

[newswoman] Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton

remains saddled with accusations of impropriety

stemming from the FBI's investigation

into her use of e-mails

while serving as Secretary of State.

One party insider saying

the only primary that matters now

is the Comey primary.

♪♪♪♪♪

Got a minute, boss?

Sure. What's up?

[sighs]

Twenty-four months.

Now that your days of actual hard work are over...

-[scattered laughter] -Congratulations.

-Thank you. -[applause]

[indistinct chatter]

[Page] Huh. There it is.

-Hi, Peter. -Hey, Lisa.

I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn in the brief today.

Those two are idiots,

and you should shitcan them pronto.

Anyone else not up to your standards?

Well, now that you ask, yes.

There's a couple of losers in the WFO

that are really slowing us down,

and the A.G. is no great shakes, either.

How about the commissioner of baseball?

He's retarded.

[Strzok chuckles]

I mean, you either have the designated hitter

in both leagues or not at all.

Do you want some punch?

Got a flight to catch, boss.

Thanks for the swell party.

Thanks for the two years.

I got Andy up to speed on a few things.

He'll do a great job. The guy's so smart.

He'll learn how to connect better with people.

And he can reach out anytime he needs to.

So can you.

I'll be taking you up on that.

You ever want to talk through the endgame on Hillary,

just call.

He said while slipping into a lifeboat. [chuckles]

-[chuckles] -No. Thanks, Mark.

I owe you.

Don't be a stranger.

Be good, Althea.

[chuckles softly] Okay.

[Page laughs]

[Page] Oh, my God.

[Giuliano] Couple things before I go?

Sure.

Oh, yeah. Found these under the desk.

Yours, right?

[both chuckle]

Keep an eye on Russia.

I know how much bandwidth Midyear is eating up,

but I don't like what I'm seeing.

I agree.

Every field office, we got Shorty and Boo

running around, looking for Hillary's e-mails.

-Meanwhile, we're under attack. -I'm with you.

One other thing. Completely unsolicited,

but I got to say it.

Your counsel's gonna become a problem,

-I think. -[McCabe] Lisa?

People complain to me about her.

She rubs some the wrong way, I know.

-Opinionated people do that. -She's divisive.

She creates issues where there don't need to be any.

I don't let her in my briefings.

She's smart.

She helps me get shit done.

-And I like a contrarian voice. -Hey, dummy.

Are you hearing me? She creates problems.

She rips everyone a new asshole in meetings,

and as soon as the boss is around,

it's, "Sir, may I raise a concern here?"

People hate that.

You better get snapped in to this.

[McCabe exhales]

-Anything else? -Yeah, there is.

[exhales] This is a lunchpail culture.

Driving a blue Porsche,

wearing matching blue cuff links

may not be the best message for you to send.

These were a gift from Jill.

-They're on your wrists. -Mark.

I didn't get here by dressing well.

Take care of the boss, will you?

He thinks that being right will save him.

It won't.

And as smart as he is,

his political instincts are not good.

Good night.

Mark.

I'll talk to her.

♪ lively, up-tempo music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[breathes deeply]

Hmm.

[door opens]

Ah, General. Good to see you.

[Flynn] And you, Sergei.

General Flynn, President Putin.

I very much appreciate the invitation, Mr. President.

And the-the courtesy of this visit.

[speaks Russian]

"A colorful

and talented man."

[chuckles] Well, he is that.

Um, I understand, uh...

you're not a fan of our current president,

Mr. Obama.

-[chuckles] Neither am I. -[Putin laughs]

We think you should enjoy the gala.

Julian Assange is hosting via satellite,

and Jill Stein will be at your table.

She's also running to be the U.S. president.

Well, I guess that pretty much sums up

how you folks feel about Secretary Clinton,

-doesn't it? -[Putin chuckling]

[speaking Russian]

Come.

Let's.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[indistinct chatter]

Caught me.

There's been a cyber breach

of the Democratic National Committee.

Looks like the hack went all the way up to Podesta.

Foreign actors or domestic?

Malware led us to a string of code that we've seen before...

emanating from Russia.

[sighs]

All right, let's start recruiting sources.

Find out more.

What the hell are they up to?

[Downer] So, uh,

you were saying, uh, Russia?

Russia.

Wow, are those guys smart.

Do you, uh... You know Professor Mifsud?

Joseph Mifsud?

-Uh, no, afraid I don't. -Huh.

-Is he Russian? -Maltan. Or Maltese.

Maltanese. He's from fucking Malta,

but he has connections in Russia.

All the way up to Putin.

We've been talking for months. [clears throat]

What about?

Hillary.

In what context?

Russia's got dirt on her.

Lots of embarrassing stuff. Thousands of e-mails.

And they made them all available to us.

Well, how did they get them?

Hacked straight out of the DNC

and the Clinton campaign.

And the Russians are making them available to you?

"We have dirt on Hillary,

and we want to help." That's a quote.

They said they could release it anonymously,

some big data dump on the Internet

timed to do maximum damage to her.

Who else knows about this, George?

That's the beauty of it.

No one.

God bless America.

Indeed.

We should go to France.

Okay. When?

2024?

Oh, good. Good. That's good. Distract me.

Everything looks great, Mr. Comey.

The doctor doesn't see any hot spots

-or signs of recurrence. -That's wonderful. Thank you.

You're still taking the aspirin?

Every day.

Good. Don't want any more blood clots.

-See you in a year. -He still has numbness

-in his fingertips and his feet. -That's common.

-The chemo. -[Patrice] Ten years out?

Are you getting enough rest?

-No. -I think so.

[chuckles] How you doing on stress?

I don't imagine Hillary's making that any easier.

I'll tell ya, I don't know how you keep your cool

in the face of that kind of arrogance and entitlement.

I think I'd explode.

Actually, he makes it a--

Thanks for the good news.

We'll see you next year.

Everyone's got an opinion, you know?

And the right to voice it.

That "Crooked Hillary" stuff is sticking to her.

Now it's part of your colonoscopy results.

[chuckles softly]

You know...

it's been a good day.

Let's just celebrate.

In Paris?

Love you.

[exhales]

♪ soft, hypnotic music ♪

[Rosenstein] The Midyear team's investigation

of Hillary Clinton ground on.

They issued 56 grand jury subpoenas,

conducted 72 voluntary witness interviews.

Search warrants, court orders,

immunity agreements.

They got every last one of her laptops,

examined them all, and found...

Nothing.

No crime that any reasonable prosecutor would charge.

We think she's guilty of great neglect and carelessness,

but we don't see anything indictable.

The systems at State are so arcane,

if you wanted to charge her,

you'd have to charge 150 other people, too.

After poring through the relevant case law,

we've reached the same conclusion.

Neither the Espionage Act nor Volstead apply here.

And we think it's time to start asking what the endgame

on this might look like.

In the middle of an election,

something this visible,

I don't think DOJ can put out a statement reading,

"We looked at it. We're not prosecuting Secretary Clinton.

Case closed." I think we need to explain our thinking on this

to the American people via the press.

-We feel that way, too. -But...

there is a very real downside

to having the A.G. make a statement on this.

It cannot appear to be partisan in any way.

We thought the right approach might be

for you and the A.G. to make the statement jointly.

We hold hands and jump off the bridge together.

How would you feel about that?

[Baker] As I see it, you got a few options--

all of them terrible.

You can make a joint statement with the A.G., as requested,

which is... terrible,

uh, because there's a widespread belief,

rightly or wrongly,

that Loretta is overly friendly with the Clinton campaign.

So standing beside her makes the Bureau seem complicit as well.

Two, you can fall back on department norms,

just issue a brief statement declining the case and move on.

That's terrible if our goal is to show the public

we really did try to make a case against Hillary,

aggressively, thoroughly.

Then there's the idea of me making the statement on my own.

Well, which is the worst idea, by a mile.

The Bureau doesn't do that.

Ever. It-it would violate a sacred norm

in a culture built on norms.

And, in my opinion, it would look horrible.

But it's the only one that allows us to tell the truth.

Loretta would never just stand there

and allow me to explain what Hillary did

and why we think it was dangerous.

This is a first attempt at a statement.

It represents our outer boundaries

in terms of transparency.

Uh, I really wish you hadn't done that.

Anything committed to writing is discoverable.

I'd ask you to assess three things:

the accuracy of the facts laid out in the draft,

any policy or other limitations around making such a statement,

and the wisdom and mechanics of presenting it

to the American people.

All right?

♪ soft, somber music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Is there anything on your mind?

-Why? -A little bit quiet.

Maybe a dead-end, politically motivated investigation

on a certain female presidential candidate?

[exhales]

Do you ever worry about my ego?

Why?

Has it not been feeling well?

♪♪♪♪♪

Do you want to tell me something?

Just that I love you, Treecy.

-[Page] So, how'd the 302 go? -[Strzok] Awesome.

-He lied his ass off. -Of course.

Guy went from "I was never inside the SCIF"

to "I may have removed the trash from there twice..."

-Mm. -...to "I troubleshot the fax

in there a couple of times"

to "Every time there was a secure fax sent, I sent it."

It kills me that people lie to our face

when they know that we know

-that they're lying. -I know.

Meanwhile, there's a Russian inside everybody's computer,

and nobody's talking about it.

[inhales]

It's been an hour.

We should log in.

[grunts softly]

♪ soft, somber music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Sorry.

It's good to meet you all.

Thank you for coming such a long way.

We are happy to help.

Natalia, the floor is yours.

The floor...?

Oh. [chuckles] I apologize.

That's an American expression.

It means we're ready to hear

every single disgusting detail

of the dirt you have on Hillary.

Amen.

Some days, our job is chasing Russians.

Let's talk about the Magnitsky Act.

On others,

we chase monsters.

And Jim had to do a lot of that.

[vibrating]

[phone ringing in distance]

[phones ringing]

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[indistinct police transmission]

[camera shutter clicking]

Assemble the first responders for me, would you?

I want to thank them.

[helicopter blades whirring in distance]

[camera shutter clicking]

♪♪♪♪♪

[phone ringing]

Not a good time, Andy.

Sorry, boss.

Just...

It's about the A.G.

-[staffer] Uh, General Lynch? -Mm-hmm?

Former President Clinton is here.

He'd like to, uh...

pay his respects.

Here where?

On the tarmac. That...

That's his plane.

What should I tell him?

Well...

[exhales]

Show him in.

[Tanya Rivero] An impromptu meeting

between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President

Bill Clinton is raising questions of impropriety

amid the ongoing FBI criminal probe

into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server.

[reporter] At the Phoenix Airport Monday night,

the former president saw Lynch's plane on the tarmac.

...doesn't wait to-to schmooze

with the attorney general who's gonna decide whether

-his wife is indicted or not. -I... [groans softly]

♪♪♪♪♪

[door opens]

[Comey] The A.G. has just announced

that she will not recuse herself from this investigation.

But she will accept our findings, whatever they may be.

Meaning this is now on us.

What a profile in courage.

[Comey] I no longer believe that I can credibly stand beside her

to announce that Justice is closing the Clinton case.

This bureau and the whole department

will look utterly compromised and partisan.

Does anyone see it differently?

No.

Mm, we all agree on that.

But I think the public is now going to demand an explanation

for our declining the case.

So I'm going to go ahead and deliver the declination alone.

[man clears throat]

Um...

That could go really wrong, boss.

For a million reasons.

I mean, it is just so not what we do.

I get that, Andy.

And conventional wisdom might mitigate against it.

But this is not a conventional circumstance.

This is a 500-year flood.

If we let Justice issue a one-sentence declination now,

it will place a corrosive doubt about our investigation

and, more broadly, the rule of law

into the public square.

Even standing next to her at this point

will make our work look suspect.

And it isn't.

Then why not call a special prosecutor

and take it off our plate?

That would be brutally unfair to the Clinton campaign.

A world-class FBI team just investigated her for a year.

And there is not one of us who believes

there is a prosecutable case here.

Calling for a special prosecutor would suggest just the opposite.

It would be a lie.

Trisha.

I... [stammers]

It's fine. Withdrawn.

No. I-I want to hear your thinking.

Well, I guess what I'm thinking is

grand juries are secret for a reason.

We don't comment on the propriety

of a subject's conduct,

especially during an election year.

[Priestap] DOJ's given that kind of detail

about conduct in uncharged cases when the public needs it.

They did it after Ferguson.

But the Bureau's never done it.

This is going to expose you to enormous fire.

Unnecessarily.

It-it will look political,

when our entire intent is to appear apolitical.

People in D.C. know I'm apolitical.

They know I'm not a hack.

In any other year, that might matter.

But not now.

[Rybicki] Would Justice know ahead of time

-what you'd be saying? -No.

I wouldn't want any appearance of coordination

between the Bureau and Justice on this.

We have to appear completely independent.

What if Loretta or Sally ordered you not to do it?

Then I would do as ordered.

But that's why I don't want it to get out.

There's still the option of standing beside Sally

to do this.

There is a valid argument for that.

She's my immediate superior.

But she also reports directly to Loretta,

who is now tainted.

I have looked at this from every angle.

They're all terrible.

Horrible.

Once you embrace that,

this option becomes easier to accept.

Well...

if anyone can pull it off, boss...

...it's you.

[Rosenstein] If he'd just been

a little humbler,

a little less certain that his morality

was somehow all that mattered... [inhales]

the world wouldn't know my name today.

Do you see?

Sir, may I raise a concern?

Sure.

Paragraph three of your draft.

"Grossly negligent."

I think it's confusing to use a term with a legal definition,

especially as we're not charging her with gross negligence.

Let's say "extremely careless."

Copy that.

If the country ever starts to distrust

the Bureau's intentions...

it's a bell that can never be unrung.

Jim, none of this can be unrung.

Mark it up.

And be brutal.

Let me reframe this for you.

We rescue a mom and three kids from an abusive father,

and you tell her that her children

cannot attend her school because of a paperwork error?

-[door closes] -Uh...

Do you see the disconnect there?

That's great.

Thank you.

I'll see you Monday.

Maybe you should be running the Bureau.

You just happened to be

-in the neighborhood? -I just...

no, I couldn't stand the idea of you eating alone.

You're gonna get clobbered, Jim.

Eh, got a ten-year term, don't I?

♪ quiet, pulsing music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

I think we should add: "Had these same e-mails

"been sent on a state.gov system,

the FBI never would have investigated this matter."

Let's not say "matter," huh?

I would also change "It's reasonably likely

"that states hostile to the U.S. gained access to her servers"

to "It's possible" that they did so.

Forensics can't take us any farther than that.

I don't think we should say that the president was

one of the people she was e-mailing with.

There's no reason to make the GRU's job any easier.

Replace it with, uh, "senior government official,"

"another senior government official."

Who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

It's important to say why the FBI can, in good faith,

recommend to DOJ that no charges be brought here.

Not just because no reasonable prosecutor

would bring such a case, but because

it's the right thing to do.

But that's not the tone of this statement at all.

The tone is: "I'm now going to prove the Bureau

did not take it easy on Hillary Clinton.

And I'm going to do that by telling you

what a horrible thing Hillary Clinton did,

even as I'm recommending against prosecution

in her case."

[Page] Look, if she had followed normal protocol

from the beginning, then we wouldn't have spent

a year fighting with her fucking lawyers.

Why does she get coddled now for breaking protocol,

and possibly the law?

Because we've decided not to charge her.

And I have real concerns about criticizing uncharged conduct.

And-and I also think that this statement

might violate the department's

election year sensitivity policy.

We are not supposed to do anything

within six months of an election if it might affect the outcome.

No, that only applies to election-crime cases.

Well, then the policy isn't broad enough,

but it should at least guide us.

Trisha, half this country thinks these e-mails are 9/11.

We have to go big here.

Don't you think she crossed the line?

I think her behavior was appalling.

I think that she's been told that she's so smart for so long

that she didn't think that normal rules applied to her.

But it's not our job to say so.

I also think the director's gonna get slaughtered for this.

You may be right, Trisha. I don't know.

Does everyone agree with her?

I think the piece is superb.

I think the A.G. put us in a box,

and this is a credible response.

[Comey] Anybody else?

I'm with Trisha, boss.

I-I think you're underestimating

how poisonous the political climate is at the moment.

I'm not a politician.

[phone ringing]

Yes?

[Comey] Good morning. I wanted to let you know

that I've called a press conference for today

to announce the Bureau's recommendation

on Secretary Clinton.

And what will you be recommending?

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to answer that.

It's, uh, it's very important

that I not have coordinated this in any way with DOJ.

Do you understand why?

Today? This morning?

Yes. At 11:00.

Thank you for letting us know.

♪ pensive music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Good morning.

I'm here to give you an update

on the FBI's investigation

of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system

during her time as Secretary of State.

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year,

the FBI is completing its investigation

and referring the case to the Department of Justice

for a prosecutive decision.

What I would like to do today is to tell you three things:

what we did, what we found,

and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

[Kate Bolduan] His announcement caught

a lot of people off guard.

You know how Washington works. Not knowing

the theme of a... of a press conference

is not something that's very typical.

Sean, your candidate, Donald Trump,

the presumed Republican nominee just tweeted.

He said, "The system is rigged.

General Petraeus got in trouble for far less.

Very, very unfair! As usual, bad judgment."

[Manu Raju] Republicans believe that

he made the wrong decision

in not referring this case to the Justice Department.

They believe that she was given preferential treatment

in that decision to not

prosecute this case even further.

They say this is a clear violation of federal law,

so expect to hear questions about why

Comey made this decision.

And from Comey's perspective, he believes...

Are you sure you want to watch this?

Everybody else is.

[Boris Epshteyn] ...that what Comey stated

is that Hillary Clinton should have been fired from her job.

By who? President Obama, if she were still...

[weather reporter] ...and high temperatures moving back

just in time for the weekend.

Those are your local weather headlines.

And now...

At least I'm finished with her e-mails already.

Daddy, I don't think so.

[crowd] Lock her up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!

The latest e-mails released by Wikileaks suggest that

top officials at the Democratic National Committee

planned to undermine Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

We have more material related to the...

Hillary Clinton, uh, campaign.

The FBI is now investigating the hack that led to

the leak of Democratic National Committee e-mails.

That's Sporyshev, Podobnyy.

-How recent are these shots? -Within a week.

Really?

Okay, Russia.

-Bill? -[clears throat]

Who picks these file names?

[McCabe] Randomly generated in C.I.

His name's George Papadopoulos, advisor to the Trump campaign.

We've just learned that in March,

Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat

that the Russian government had dirt in the form of

e-mails on Secretary Clinton,

and had offered it to the Trump team.

Say more.

Diplomat didn't think much of it

until last week, when he saw that the Russians

had hacked the DNC.

How high up is Papadopoulos?

He had a hand in writing Trump's first foreign policy speech,

the Mayflower Hotel address,

which was basically a love letter

to the Russian government.

Okay.

If Russia were going to make other contacts

inside the Trump campaign,

who would be their likely targets?

[all] Carter Page.

[Comey] Carter Page.

[Priestap] Yeah, we briefed you on him in '14,

when he was working at Merrill Lynch Moscow.

The GRU recruited him as an asset.

The guy's a dope.

He was living in his car not long ago.

But he was the first member of Trump's national security team.

He's blinking red.

How high up is he? Who does he report to?

In Russia or on the campaign?

You know General Flynn.

Fired by President Obama two years ago.

He was paid $45,000

by Russia Today last December

to speak at their gala in Moscow,

where he sat next to Putin.

He was also paid to lobby for Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Now a senior advisor to Trump.

We tried to bump him with a CHS.

We're not getting anything.

Let's see if we can develop anything else.

Who's next?

You know Paul Manafort.

Also under criminal investigation

since 2014.

He's on the payroll of Russian oligarchs,

Oleg Deripaska

and Dmytro Firtash, for ten million a year.

He's got close ties to Konstantin Kilimnik

of Russian intel, and he served

as a paid lobbyist to a bunch of Russian-backed officials

in Ukraine.

Now he's serving as Trump's campaign chair.

Also blinking red.

Why are there four guys with ties to Russia

on one campaign?

Maybe Trump doesn't vet people very well.

Maybe he does.

We're starting to see propaganda about Secretary Clinton

from Radio Sputnik and Russia Today

showing up verbatim in Trump's stump speeches.

I don't know that it's coordinated, but...

Obviously, we're going to keep this extremely close-hold.

Any connection between Russian efforts

to influence this election and the Trump campaign

is a very serious and explosive matter.

I don't want it mentioned in morning briefings.

Thanks, everyone. We'll skinny down now.

Can someone find out why I keep seeing

Rudy Giuliani on TV saying things about our investigations

that he shouldn't know?

We suspect another leak at NYO.

Well, plug it, will you? Before I go rip-shit?

Yes, sir.

It really frosts me.

Yes, sir.

[McCabe] You've got a leaker in your office.

Want to give me some context, Andy?

Rudy Giuliani is on TV nonstop since the declination

predicting things that he shouldn't know.

Now, I know you've got a bunch of Hillary haters

up there pissed off that we dropped her case.

You've got to shut this down, Bill.

You sure it wasn't one of the formers?

They've got the ties to Rudy.

The formers wouldn't have access to the kind of intel

that he's revealing.

Could be SDNY. He's got ties there, too.

Let me level-set this for you, Bill.

Reign your guys in.

You fire people if you have to,

but get your office's shit together.

Will do.

Thanks.

Ma'am?

Hello, Justin.

I thought you might want another soda.

Oh, no. Just one a day. But thank you.

Have a seat.

Really?

Sure.

Mind if I ask you, ma'am...

what is that in the frame?

That was from my first trial ever.

Pro bono case when I was

at King & Spalding.

An all-white jury that found for an African-American woman

named Lovie Morrison against a... a white family

trying to steal her land in Barrow County, Georgia.

And that cloth was the deed.

I had never tried a case before.

I didn't even know where to stand.

My star witness was a bootlegger's wife.

But...

that jury did right anyway.

And you remember that next time somebody tells you

this country can't be its best self.

Or the law doesn't matter.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'll let you get back to your work.

Night, Justin.

[thunder rumbles]

[Priestap] Boss, we've now been presented a dossier

concerning Russia and its possible connection to Trump.

We've not independently corroborated

any of the conclusions here, but...

they come from a highly credible source,

ex-MI6, who has a history of cooperation with the Bureau

and the rest of the I.C.

Then let's hear it.

The dossier asserts that Putin began cultivating Trump

as an asset more than five years

prior to his entry into politics.

They traded favors with him.

They aided his Miss Universe pageant.

They offered their help in future Trump real estate deals

within Russia, including the Trump Tower in Moscow.

And granted him access to hundreds of millions

in loans from banks controlled by the Russian oligarchy

just as U.S. banks had declared Trump

to be an unworthy credit risk.

It was a years-long effort to...

recruit and maintain Trump as an asset of the FSB

with the long-term goal of...

using him to sow discord and disunity within the U.S.

The dossier further asserts that since last year,

the Trump campaign has "accepted a regular flow of intelligence

from the Kremlin on his political rivals."

Again, we have not corroborated any of this independently,

and it should be noted that the original financier

of the dossier was a Republican "Never Trumper,"

and the funds to finish the dossier

then came from the Democrats.

Go on.

The dossier holds that the FSB's main leverage

over Trump is likely blackmail,

made possible because the Russians had videos

of Trump engaging in "perverted sexual acts"

when he stayed in the Presidential Suite

of Moscow's Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2013.

Specifically, a "golden showers show."

I'm-I'm sorry. What-what does that mean?

It means, uh, they defiled a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama

slept in during a state visit by urinating on it, sir.

-I see. -Again, the Bureau has not yet

been able to independently corroborate the claim,

or any of the conclusions here, but... given what we now know

of Trump's complicated financial ties to Russian banks,

his loans from known oligarchs,

his ongoing attempt to get that tower built in Moscow,

the dossier does provide a plausible,

if alarming working theory:

Russia has compromised Trump.

That supposition does not leave this room.

Let's just find out if it's true.

How aggressively?

The harder we pursue, the more likely we are

to burn our source.

We can't think that way on this one.

We can't take the traditional, years-long C.I. approach.

-Why not? -Because what if candidate Trump

becomes President Trump before we've determined

whether or not any of this is true?

If he takes office

and we still think he may be a Russian asset,

how do we share intel with him?

How do we vet his national security nominees?

Just find out if it's true.

Get me Jim Clapper.

Mr. President, as you know, for the past year,

we've been watching the Russians engage

in a multifaceted influence campaign

concerning our election, directed by Putin himself.

Cyber espionage,

propaganda across all social media platforms,

hacking DNC e-mails and then releasing them

at the moment of maximum damage.

Now, the goal of this effort, in our assessment,

had been to harm our democracy,

weaken Secretary of State Clinton's future presidency.

We can now say with a high degree of confidence

the Russians have a third goal.

They are trying to secure the election of Donald Trump,

by any and all means.

-Who else knows about this? -It's extremely close-hold.

A very small circle within the I.C.

Does it make sense to alert the public of this attack?

Sir, w-we have some disagreement on that.

Mike and I think it's the right thing to do.

But there is a compelling argument against it.

[Comey] It might achieve

the Russians' goals by undermining

the public's confidence in our electoral system.

Well, I'm determined not to do that.

Do the Russians know we have this?

Mr. President, I'm not entirely sure that they care.

[Rosenstein] Crossfire Hurricane

suddenly became priority number one.

Then came Anthony Weiner.

[commentator] Anthony Weiner caught

in yet another sexting scandal.

The disgraced former congressman, husband

to longtime and powerful Hillary Clinton advisor

Huma Abedin, humiliated once again,

this time on the front page of the New York Post.

Abedin said, "I have made the decision

to separate from my husband."

Trump couldn't resist weighing in on the separation,

accusing Clinton of bad judgment

for having someone like Weiner in her orbit.

Elaine, we notice that Weiner

has now deleted his Twitter account,

about five and a half years too late.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[cabinet door opens]

♪ suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Holy shit.

[Sweeney] There are 141,000 e-mails

on the laptop that might be relevant to Midyear Exam

associated with seven domains, primarily state.gov,

clintonaccount.net and clinton-foundationfund.net.

Now, as I said, NYO only has the legal authority

to look at the material on the Weiner laptop

relevant to the sex crime charges against him.

We can't look at any of the Midyear stuff,

nothing to which Abedin was a party.

Andy, it's our feeling here that, uh,

you're gonna have to get a new warrant.

Okay. CD and NYO personnel should connect on this,

figure out what you have there.

Hopefully it's all just duplicates

-of what we've already seen. -Duplicates?

[Sweeney] Uh, the time frames overlap with the periods

you're looking at here. I mean, this is very much

-in the Midyear lane. -We did such

a thorough scrub before, this is likely all duplicates

-of what we've already seen. -Okay, Andy, we--

Listen, Bill, can we take this off-line?

I have to get to Quantico. I'll call you from the car.

-Sure. -[Page] What a shitshow.

I don't think it's a crank lead, but there are all kinds

of process issues attached to it and technical issues, too.

My guess is it's something

we wait until the first of the year to deal with.

-Hmm. -Anyway, I'm, uh,

-I'm going up there tomorrow. -You're a dick.

Leaving me here with all this fake e-mail hysteria

while you're lounging on the Acela?

Well, somebody's got to do it.

Like I said. Dick.

[Page] Trump can't become president, right?

Right?

No. He won't.

We'll stop him.

"We" as in the Bureau? You just gave me a boner.

No, "we" as in the public.

That's who you're counting on? Oh, honey.

[laughs softly]

[Page grunts]

♪ pensive music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[McCabe] I just got a call from NYO,

asking where we were on the Anthony Weiner laptop.

Where are we on the Anthony Weiner laptop?

We're behind.

We were unable to begin the carving process on the laptop

in New York last month due to legal limitations.

We needed either a new search warrant

or a modification of the prior one.

And did we seek a new warrant or a modification?

No. There was a miscommunication.

But we now know that the laptop contains 347,000 e-mails,

including backups of Secretary Clinton's BlackBerry e-mails.

Her BlackBerry e-mails.

-Yeah. -The ones we did not have

access to in round one.

The ones that might prove criminal intent?

Yes.

I see.

So we are now 15 days before a presidential election,

and we have to go through 347,000 e-mails

to determine if one of the candidates in that election

needs to be indicted,

and we could have had that answer a month ago?

Yes, sir.

[phone vibrates]

[sets phone down]

-Was that Andy? -Yeah. Why?

So is this.

I'm aware.

-And? -And I think it's crap.

A story like that brings an unnecessary vector

of suspicion upon the Bureau.

He must have told you about the contribution, right?

I mean, he'd have to have, before he had anything to do

with an investigation into Hillary.

Jill should never have run, anyway.

No Democrat was ever gonna win in Loudoun County.

It was long before he became a deputy, and he's doing fine.

He's working his tail off.

Jim, don't go Jimmy Stewart on this one.

He's an operator. Mr. Porsche.

No law against driving a Porsche, Treecy.

Doesn't it make you angry?

Anger doesn't help.

[McCabe] Boss, the Anthony Weiner laptop

that NYO recovered last month.

[Comey] Okay.

It contains e-mail metadata from Secretary Clinton.

From her BlackBerry domain account,

which she used in her first three months at State.

As you know, these were the e-mails

we did not have access to in our initial investigation.

I-If any e-mails were going to indicate

criminal intent on her part, it would be these.

I see. And we discovered these last month?

Yes, sir.

I did mention it to you initially.

I imagine you didn't index it.

No.

Andy, you can drop off now.

I don't need you on this call.

-Yes, sir. -[line clicks]

-Sir, would you excuse me? -Of course.

What do you need?

Permission to seek an expanded search warrant.

You got it. How fast can you review and assess

-these extra e-mails? -Several weeks.

[Comey] The election's 12 days away.

-Can we bring in more bodies? -[Priestap] We determined

that that would be ineffective.

Outsiders wouldn't know

-what to look for. -And our chance

of resolving this by November 8?

Zero.

Okay.

Do it as quickly as you can.

Do it well, always well, no matter how long it takes.

Now, does Congress need to be advised of this?

We just told Congress in July that this was all over.

That is now materially untrue.

We are reopening our investigation.

If we conceal that fact,

will it look like we sat on information

to benefit one campaign over another?

All right, I want all of you to take a break for an hour.

Get out of this room, get some air.

Then we'll reconvene so I can hear your thinking.

[clears throat] Sir,

the FBI has never commented

on the reopening of an investigation.

It might very well be unfair

to Secretary Clinton in terms of due process.

We wouldn't be publicly commenting on it.

We'd be notifying Congress. A letter to the chairs

of the eight appropriate committees

-in the House and Senate. -I understand, but--

But, uh, this close to an election,

that will almost certainly leak,

so notifying Congress

is tantamount to notifying the public.

So we should conceal it? Lie by omission?

Well, what if we announce and then don't find anything?

What if we don't announce and then find criminal intent?

[Strzok] Even if we did conceal it,

-NYO would leak it anyway. -[Priestap] Mm-hmm.

We'd look sneaky and ineffective.

-We don't know that. -Of course they'd leak it.

That place is a sieve.

And they hate Secretary Clinton. In five minutes,

Rudy Giuliani would be screaming it on Fox News.

He's a former prosecutor and a former U.S.A.

-So? -So he knows better.

Well, that's hysterical.

This whole campaign is a job audition for him.

What was the saying at SDNY, boss, about him back in the day?

"The most dangerous place to stand in the world

is between Rudy Giuliani and a microphone."

[Strzok] Right.

One hour.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[door closes]

Thoughts?

My fear is how partisan we'll look

if word gets out and we've said nothing.

Saying something would be worse.

And we don't know, categorically,

-that NYO will leak it. -Weiner's lawyers could leak it.

DOJ could leak it. It's not close-hold.

[Comey] That's my fear, too. We don't announce,

and three days before the election, word leaks.

"The FBI has reopened the investigation

on Hillary Clinton, not told anyone about it."

Where does that put the credibility

of this institution?

Another scenario.

Hillary's just been elected.

A Republican-controlled House is drafting bills of impeachment

before she's even sworn in.

Now imagine we find something incriminating.

We present those findings to House Judiciary.

They ask us when we first found these e-mails,

and we'll be obliged to say that we learned of them

a month before the election.

And the world will conclude

that we actively concealed this from the American public

in order to tip the election.

Where does that leave the credibility

of this institution?

Any letter that you put out at this juncture

is going to be interpreted by the public

to mean that we've found new evidence of wrongdoing.

If I don't inform Congress on this,

I should be fired. Run out of town.

But, boss, what if our doing this

results in the election of Donald Trump as president?

That's a great question. Thank you for asking it.

Down that road lies the death of the FBI

as an independent force in American life.

If I ever start considering whose political fortunes

might be affected by a decision even for a second,

we're done.

You still disagree?

I know you believe in telling the truth.

I do, too.

But there are all kinds of truths out there.

We're also, for example,

investigating the possibility

that Trump's campaign is in bed with Russia.

But that's intel.

But it's a truth.

And concealing one truth and publicly announcing another

is selective honesty.

Isn't it?

Trisha, I told Congress and the country

that this case was closed.

If that's revealed to be a lie,

how would they ever believe us again?

[cooing softly]

-[door opens] -[Strzok] Hey, boss?

[Giuliani] A-And then, I think he's got

a surprise or two that you're gonna hear about

-in the next two days. -Right. Rudy--

I-I mean, I mean, I'm talking about

some pretty big surprise.

-[laughs] -Stay tuned.

[turns off TV]

-He's gonna leak it. -If he hasn't already.

-That's likely true. -[scoffs]

A second ago you were telling him not to do this.

I'm trying to find some door

other than the one that leads to hell.

[Comey] As I see it, we only have two options here:

speak or conceal.

One is really bad, the other catastrophic.

That's right.

Welcome to really bad.

Is this a conversation or a decision he's already made?

The official line is "The director believes

he has a duty to inform

the appropriate congressional committees."

That's not quite "I alone can fix it," but it's close.

And to me, that means he's going to do it.

Unless you order him not to.

And then he does it anyway, and we have to fire him.

Or he resigns and people find out why.

Or the contents of the letter are leaked and we've exposed

ourselves to an obstruction of Congress investigation

for preventing him from correcting

-a misimpression. -But you're his boss.

You can order him to stand down and deal with the consequences

if and when they come.

Loretta, he's taking a beat here.

To me, that means he's giving us the option to step in

and make the decision for him.

Mm-mm. We cannot be perceived to be leaning on him.

The best way to convince him not to do it is to convince

the people close to him to stop him from doing it.

You agree?

I think norms and policies matter.

And I think Director Comey believes

that his own ethics are now worth more

than the norms that have always steered us.

You want to bring him in?

Tell Director Comey we think this is a bad idea...

-Yes. -...but we do not wish

to discuss it with him.

[knocks on door]

[Comey] Hey.

-Hey, Dad. -Got a minute?

Yeah, definitely.

Abs...

...your father's about to get punched in the face

in public again.

Thought I should warn you.

It's not something I'm looking forward to, but I'll be fine.

Another press conference?

No, but the effect will be the same.

Worse.

Are you doing the right thing?

I think so. Pretty sure.

Then that's it.

-I love you, Dad. -[laughs softly]

I love you, too, babe.

Oh, I'm proud of you.

Thanks.

[Patrice] It's too close to the election.

It's much too close.

-Do you want him to win? -I can't talk about this

-with you anymore, Treecy. -Jim. Jimmy.

-I can't. -What are you doing?

Now, I would never ask you to prosecute someone

or not prosecute someone in my life.

I wouldn't do that.

But you have four daughters.

Now think about what it would mean for them

to see a woman become president.

Now think about what it would mean for them

to see her lose... to him.

And you would have to live with that.

And they would have to live with that, forever.

Please don't make it seem like my choices

are between loving my daughters or doing my job.

This is not your job.

Swinging elections is not your job.

-But protecting the Bureau is. -No.

You went there to put bad guys away.

The Ramsey Rapists of the world.

Not to help them become president.

You have no idea what I'm dealing with.

-Then tell me. -I can't.

You are going to convince everyone that she is Crooked...

...Crooked Hillary.

And then what?

I'm begging you...

...for once in your life, don't do your duty.

Just let it go. Please?

♪ slow, somber music ♪

Honey, I can stand the whole world

being mad at me, I really can.

But not you.

Then listen to me.

Jimmy.

Dad.

♪ suspenseful music ♪

[phone chimes]

[door opens]

[Comey] Morning, Rod.

Can't tell you what an honor this is, Jim.

The whole office is so excited.

-Flattered to be asked. -Right this way.

By now,

you all know Jim Comey's résumé.

Former U.S. attorney in SDNY.

Former deputy attorney general.

Currently director of the FBI.

He is a man of utter integrity and patriotism.

He's also the reason I am a U.S. attorney.

Jim selected me for the post 12 years ago,

which I guess means he owes all of you an apology.

I wanted him to speak with you today

about an obsession of his:

leadership,

especially as seen through the lens

of the firestorm he experienced this summer

during the Bureau's investigation

of Secretary Clinton.

Please welcome my friend and colleague,

Jim Comey.

Thank you, Rod.

Thanks, Rod.

I'll try to live up to that.

Um, first,

I want to thank each of you.

You came here to do good.

You've all made sacrifices to keep that promise.

You stay up late working on a summation to explain why a...

drug dealer or child pornographer is guilty.

You chase materials to organize court exhibits

that some yo-yo from the Bureau mislabeled.

[scattered laughter]

And you shrug pleasantly when people speak

of the "awesome resources of the federal government,"

as you eye the fancy supplies at a law firm

and think about swiping some stuff

to take back to your office.

[laughter]

Despite obstacles, you do the work.

You protect people.

That's noble.

What makes that work possible

is a reservoir of trust and credibility,

a reservoir that was built for us

and filled for us by those who went before us in this work,

many of whom we never knew.

Our obligation is to protect that reservoir,

to keep it full or make it fuller,

for those who will follow us into public service.

The problem with reservoirs is that it's hard to fill them

and one tiny hole can drain them.

And that's what happens if our vigilance fails,

if, even for a second,

we ever put anything--

politics, partisanship--

above the primacy of truth and justice.

I love the Bureau.

I love its mission.

That guides me every day,

in everything I do.

And if it leads me to make mistakes, well...

[chuckles softly]

I know they'll be honest ones.

[DeMarco Morgan] The presidential election

was rocked Friday

by news that FBI Director James Comey

had sent a letter to congressional leaders

announcing that he was reopening the investigation

into Hillary Clinton's use of a private

e-mail server while Secretary of State,

following the discovery of new e-mails.

[reporter] Democrats are blasting the FBI director,

saying he's essentially throwing Donald Trump

a softball with just days to go before the campaign ends.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic lawmakers say

the move was political.

They're calling for more transparency.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta

held a heated conference call with reporters Saturday.

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and the vice chairperson

of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,

said she was shocked to read Comey's letter.

[Clinton] He doesn't know whether the e-mails referenced

in his letter are significant or not.

I'm confident, whatever they are,

will not change the conclusion reached in July.

Therefore, it's imperative that the Bureau explain

this issue in question, whatever it is,

without any delay.

[reporter 2] According to officials, Director Comey

does not plan on providing any public updates

about the investigation until it is done.

That means no piecemeal updates on how many e-mails

were discovered that related to the investigation

or anything else specific until a conclusion has been reached.

So that means we will likely not hear about it

from Director Comey until after the election.

♪ somber, suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[Strzok sighs]

[Strzok] We got through all the e-mails, boss.

The wizards downstairs built a program.

There's nothing here.

No new evidence of intent.

You're sure? This is not just fatigue talking?

We double and triple-checked each other's work,

and every e-mail.

Our conclusion is solid.

And our feeling is that the Bureau is obligated

to write another letter to Congress, advising them.

I want you all to go home and get some sleep,

with my deepest thanks for your hard work.

No one in America appreciates it, but I do.

[Quijano] With about 48 hours to go before the polls

begin to close, there's breaking news tonight

from FBI Director James Comey

on those recently discovered e-mails

connected to Hillary Clinton's private server.

Comey sent a letter to a congressional committee today

saying the FBI's review of the additional e-mails

has not changed the Bureau's decision

not to prosecute Secretary Clinton.

A Clinton aide says her reaction to the Comey letter

was understated, and she hasn't mentioned it here in Cleveland.

They believe the word will get out

whether Clinton talks about it or not in these closing days.

It's really, it's not a huge part.

Mm, it's an important part.

-Eh... -You get two songs.

-I think it's awesome. -Two songs.

-Me, too. -Okay, Dad.

[soft laughter]

Go Hillary.

[rock music playing faintly]

♪ suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

[indistinct chatter]

[Patrice] You got your I.D.?

Yes, I have my I.D., Mom.

♪ slow, contemplative music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Go ahead.

I'm so proud of you.

-You gonna join us, Dad? -Nah. Nah.

Well, you can, you know.

No, it's not something an FBI director should do.

You're still a citizen.

The point was to see you cast a vote. Go.

-You okay? -Yeah.

Treecy.

I wanted to stop the bad guys.

Brilliantly done, brother.

Go.

[Dana Bash] Now, Wolf, I have-- Wolf, I have

a little bit of information, but I just want to be sure

-that I have it right... -Mom?

[Wolf Blitzer] All right, go ahead, John.

[John King] To just go through this, as you go

through these, again, you go through the outstanding states.

Wisconsin, you see the lead, you're looking for the--

to try to find the Democratic votes

and the math's just not there.

Uh, and that, you know, again, if it was one state,

you'd say, "Okay, they're gonna be

extra careful about one last state."

You go back to Michigan, it's very hard for the math,

and I just want to pop this up, Wolf.

It is not inconceivable

that Donald Trump catches up in Minnesota.

Uh, you know, Minnesota, the one state

Walter Mondale won, uh, in the Reagan sweep.

Uh, now, it's-- you know, the math is hard still...

-[Blitzer] All right, stand by. -...but this is a sweep.

[Blitzer] Dana, you were, you wanted

to be precise, so go ahead.

[Bash] That's right. Uh, CNN can report that Hillary Clinton

has called Donald Trump to concede the race.

She has called Donald Trump to say that

she will not be president.

♪ dramatic, haunting music ♪

♪♪♪♪♪

Boss.

The networks have all called it for Trump.

Thank you, Bill.

♪♪♪♪♪

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♪ atmospheric music ♪

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