Of all the silky lies being told in
It's the silky lie told by then-President
It may have set the tone for the smarmy intrigue detailed in the FBI inspector general's damning 500-page report on the investigation of
And
Obama told his silky lie when his chosen successor was
Clinton had endangered top-secret information by using an unsecured, home-brew email server when she was
Obama's lie was told in 2015, when Obama was asked by
"The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports," Obama said. He was so silky that you couldn't even hear his tongue rustling along his teeth.
He waxed on about how his administration was all about "transparency."
But Obama did not learn about Clinton's home-brew server like "everybody else."
According to the inspector general's report, Obama was in fact one of 13 top government officials communicating with Clinton on her private email server, even as Clinton's server was targeted by foreign intelligence services.
According to the IG report, before former (and fired) FBI Director
It was edited for
But Comey's comments were also edited to protect someone else. The IG report discusses a key paragraph in Comey's statement summarizing the FBI's thinking that "hostile actors" had accessed Clinton's server.
The paragraph, the report said, "referenced Clinton's use of her private email for an exchange with then
Obama cut his political teeth in
And they'll honor him by name.
Just chew on this apiece: How could
Obama might have been portrayed as a victim of her use of a private server. She used that server to hide her dealings with the controversial
But then, two things would have happened.
Her campaign would have fallen apart immediately, and along with it, Obama's legacy.
The Obama White House, the senior pro-Obama bosses of the FBI and just about all the political suits thought Clinton would be our next president.
And who wants to anger the next ruler? Careers were at stake, promotions, perks, power, just as it was back in the day, in old
You should read the report for yourself. Ignore the spin that there was no bias found at Obama's DOJ and FBI.
It crawls with bias. Deals were cut. Then-Attorney General
Pro-Clinton FBI investigator
When Page panicked, worrying that Trump might actually win the
"No. No, he won't," Strzok texted her on an FBI phone. "We'll stop it."
By then, he was helping lead a new FBI investigation, the one investigating Trump for possible collusion with Russian dictator
Special counsel
The Mueller investigation should continue. So should the congressional inquiry into the DOJ and FBI. Americans need sunshine on all of this.
But one thing should be understood here: The Clinton investigation went wrong when it was taken away from capable field agents and handed to the political suits and intriguers. Bias is their coin. Comey was their boss. His reputation has been hurt by the report.
And Trump, vulgar and boastful, was overjoyed to see Comey, a likely witness against him, take such a big public hit.
Trump is no angel. He's famous for lies. Mueller may indeed be closing in with the Friday jailing of former Trump campaign manager
But Trump's lies are obvious and blustery, like those told by a bad carny hustler.
Trump is no Obama.
Obama was the silky one.
And the silky ones prosper, in
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.