Big News, via the New York Times: “Lynch to Accept Guidance of F.B.I. in Clinton Email Inquiry”:
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, a Justice Department official said. Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee will overrule investigators in the case.
The Justice Department had been moving toward such an arrangement for months — officials said in April that it was being considered — but a private meeting between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political furor and made the decision all but inevitable.
Just one problem: It’s not true. Here’s Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, citing a senior DOJ official:
Attorney General Lynch reserves the right to overrule the recommendation of career prosecutors and the FBI in the Hillary Clinton email probe. This official says the probability she would overrule is “very, very low,” but it is not zero.
In other words, Lynch is not “recusing herself,” as has been rumored, and she is not committing herself to the FBI’s recommendation. Despite the “furor,” nothing has changed.
And, for the record, you can be sure that “very, very low” will be just high enough when the time comes.