You’re looking at the headline and thinking “How is this news?”, but oh, let me tell you. Various Democrats on Twitter over the past 24 hours have made the case that Strzok’s texts are essentially a nothingburger because there’s no hard proof that his bias affected his investigative decisions. He’s entitled to his political opinions.

Which is true. But it’s also true that the IG was so convinced of Strzok’s bias that he thought Strzok might have slow-walked the reopening of the Emailgate probe in October 2016 because he feared it might hurt Hillary. In the Inspector General’s opinion, in all probability, Strzok’s failure to protect Clinton’s victory wasn’t for lack of trying. Think about that.

Anyway. If Robby Mook’s willing to acknowledge Strzok as a problem, I can acknowledge this point from lefty Ari Melber as a fair assessment of Comey’s problem. So can we all, I assume:

Comey’s constant, unbending public refusal to acknowledge he made *any professional mistakes of any kind* — let alone learn from them — is both a sight to behold and one of the original causes of the mistakes, a total blind spot for his own personal righteousness. https://t.co/wSj1Y5j1tz

— Ari Melber (@AriMelber) June 15, 2018

It’s not strictly true that Comey can’t acknowledge mistakes, but the mistakes he admits are at the margins. He has no regrets about all the big stuff, from the decision not to charge Hillary to going over Loretta Lynch’s head with his famous press conference to going over her head again and disclosing the reopening of Emailgate in October only to announce days later that it was closed again. So sure is the guy of his own moral and ethical rectitude that he left his superiors in a position where they couldn’t attempt to talk him out of his planned course of action for fear that they’d look like bad guys if they tried. Here’s Sally Yates from the IG report explaining the dilemma she and Lynch found themselves in when Comey issued his last-minute letter about reopening the investigation in October:

Sally Yates on the fundamental impossibility of telling Jim Comey not to do a thing. pic.twitter.com/fPop0YVhF8

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 15, 2018

If they’d urged him not to send the letter, at least for a few days while the FBI went through Weiner’s laptop to see if any key new Hillary evidence was there, that might have leaked. And if it had leaked, it would have appeared as though Obama’s DOJ was trying to suppress the release of the letter to help protect Hillary’s election chances even though not releasing the letter was the proper call according to DOJ protocol. Comey put them in a position where they had to bite their lips and silently condone his unorthodox moves even though he was their subordinate, and he ended up quite possibly tilting the election to POTUS. A man who now calls him “scum”!