[IBM]

This story is obviously sourced mainly from Raphel and her friends/allies. Personally I view the FBI investigation as them just doing their jobs. In the end this wasn't really a failure on their part, assuming the innocent reason for all the suspicion was true, they investigated her as they were tasked and the DoJ ended the investigation when they realized there was no case.

I think the interesting story is the change in culture at the State Department which has the effect of getting less human intelligence. I'm not sure if that's because they want to be cooped up in their embassies because they feel less safe meeting with people in certain host countries, or if security requirements are being imposed on them. Clearly in this case Raphel felt restricted and she had no problem, but I'm not sure other State Deparment employees feel the same.

Benghazi and the Camp Chapman attack [1] are pretty good reasons why they should be concerned about security.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Chapman_attack

[lefler]

"Doing their jobs" misses a huge part of the story. Someone illegally leaked the details of the ongoing investigation to the New York Times, changing what could have been a temporary unpaid leave for Raphel into a front page story with damaging after effects.

Had this been investigated and resolved secretly, as per the rules, Raphel could have reapplied for her job after the FBI concluded there was no espionage case.

[wtbob]

> Someone illegally leaked the details of the ongoing investigation to the New York Times, changing what could have been a temporary unpaid leave for Raphel into a front page story with damaging after effects.

Pending further information, I suspect that it was someone in Raphel's camp who leaked those details. The best case situation for her was for this to be argued in the court of public opinion.

[lefler]

I do not share your suspicion. The initial 20161106 wapo article had this: "U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing."

Pleading "ongoing investigation" suggests the source was in law enforcement, not authorized to discuss the case, discussed the case anyway, and used anonymity to avoid the consequences. A victim or friend can safely go on the record with a reporter, an investigator cannot.

In any case, the friends of Raphel seemed quite upset about the leak when they were spoken to for follow-up articles.