TLDR
Comey didn’t have to hold off indefinitely or even just for 11 days. He just had to take the time to figure out if the emails were significant before making a public announcement about them. As it is, he just created maximum FUD with his suggestions and then left Clinton twisting.
He should have treated this just like the FBI treats all their cases: he should have refused to comment on ongoing investigations until he has all the information. Comey’s the one who turned this into a public circus. It’s laughable that his excuse is that he was trying to avoid starting a public circus.
I suspect if he held off at all, it would have leaked within 48 hours. There have already been multiple reports of serious anger within the FBI from agents who felt he soft-pedaled the original investigation. No way someone doesn’t dial a media contact if they think Comey is doing it again.
- How long would that take?
- What is the basis for your answer to #1?
Jane Mayer at the New Yorker weighs in. As many of us know, Mayer is the author of a recent book about the Kochs and money in politics and is a distinguished staff writer for the magazine.
The article basically supports my earlier premise that Comey was covering his ass, but it also suggests that Comey – an Obama appointee but a Republican – violated all precedent in meddling in a critically divisive election this way, even more than he had when unnecessarily making editorial comments earlier stating that while criminal charges would not be pursued against Hillary, she had been “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, extremely classified information.”
Coming less than two weeks before the Presidential election, Comey’s decision to make public new evidence that may raise additional legal questions about Clinton was contrary to the views of the Attorney General, according to a well-informed Administration official. Lynch expressed her preference that Comey follow the department’s longstanding practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations, and not taking any action that could influence the outcome of an election, but he said that he felt compelled to do otherwise.
Comey’s decision is a striking break with the policies of the Department of Justice, according to current and former federal legal officials. Comey, who is a Republican appointee of President Obama, has a reputation for integrity and independence, but his latest action is stirring an extraordinary level of concern among legal authorities, who see it as potentially affecting the outcome of the Presidential and congressional elections.
“You don’t do this,” one former senior Justice Department official exclaimed. “It’s aberrational. It violates decades of practice.” The reason, according to the former official, who asked not to be identified because of ongoing cases involving the department, “is because it impugns the integrity and reputation of the candidate, even though there’s no finding by a court, or in this instance even an indictment.”
The whole situation is unprecedented – AFAIK, there has never been a presidential nominee under criminal investigation in the weeks & months prior to the election. A cabinet member setting up their own private IT system is unprecedented. The first investigation was unprecedented. The AG publically announcing she’d accept Comey’s recommendation was unprecedented. Faced with a novel situation, anything Comey does in response will by definition be unprecedented.
That’s a little bit like Trump complaining that no other candidate has been accused of serial groping. It’s unprecedented!
That’s his problem. If he’s got agents going behind his back then it’s on him to shut them down. Presumably, the FBI director is in a position to figure out who’s leaking info about their case and the juice to do something about it.
If he gets heat because he’s not rushing to judgement, then it’s his job to take the heat, rather than hanging someone else out to dry.
This idea that Comey just had to tell or it would be leaked - that’s true of every police case against every suspect. And the police decide for themselves when to release the info to their best advantage.
And oh! what a coincidence! Comey released the info when it would be to Republicans best advantage! How about that.
Federal Agents are born with the words, “No comment”, stamped on their tongue. It’s just ludicrous that Comey wants us to believe that this one time, against his hated foe, he’s just helpless to avoid picking up the megaphone.
A simple search should tell if any of the emails were sent to or from Hillary’s infamous server. A simple search would also find words like “classified” or whatever that symbol was, I forget, that was in the middle of the text, that Hillary missed previously in a few emails.
A basic comparison of the email subjects should suffice to show if the emails were copies of stuff that was already in their records.
Ultimately, the emails would have to be examined by hand, of course, but even just waiting for the weekend while the computer nerds ran some basic research would have given him a working understanding about the significance of it all.
Instead, he rushed ahead and dropped just enough tidbits to try and tip the scales.
Many aspects of this bizarre election are certainly unprecedented, but that’s irrelevant to the issue at hand. Did you read the next few paragraphs after the part I quoted? There are decades of precedent where the FBI and the Justice Department hold off from publicizing investigatory information that has potential impact on primaries and elections; Eric Holder issued a specific directive to that effect four years ago, which Comey just brazenly ignored. And the reason for it is clear, as one official put it: “People may think that the public needs to have this information before voting, but the thing is the public doesn’t really get the information. What it gets is an impression that may be false, because they have no way to evaluate it. The public always assumes when it hears that the F.B.I. is investigating that there must be something amiss. But there may be nothing here at all. That’s why you don’t do this.”
Comie was in a tough spot, no question, but it appears that his primary concern was not the pursuit of justice, but a tactical assessment of which way he was less likely to get his ass burned.
If you think this is any kind of a routine case, I don’t know what to tell you. This is akin to asserting that Hoover could have shut down Deep Throat if he really wanted to. When a case is this big, things leak, and Washington bureaucracies are full of people with their own agendas.
Either Comey makes it public and everyone get the same info at the same time, or else an anti-Hillary FBI agent calls Fox News, who reports it, and then we get a day of liberal pundits attacking the report, and then the report is confirmed, and blah blah blah. Once he was informed on Thursday, it was just a matter of time.
Nonsense. He could have dropped it four days before the election, instead of eleven. He could have said she was “a target,” and made sure to use the word “criminal” in the letter. He could have implied it involved state secrets (even if it didn’t). He could have suggested there was perjury (even if there isn’t). If his goal was the intentional infliction of maximum political damage, he’s doing a poor job.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t screwed up; but this is your second baseless assertion of partisan motives on his part in just a few hours.
What is the source of your expertise in these kinds of investigations?
No. Having now done so, I don’t see how it’s relevant. If a congressperson/governor/etc. is being investigated by FBI/DOJ, keeping it quiet until after the election is wise and prudent; worse case scenario, the party investigated wins the election and then gets indicted by the DOJ six months later, and you have a new election.
When the election in question is a *presidential *one, you potentially end up with the target of the investigation being in charge of the agency doing the investigation. If this renewed investigation takes 12 weeks, you could end up with a situation where the FBI director is going to a new Attorney General and recommending that the AG indict the president that just appointed her. Or maybe the newly-elected president pardons herself. Maybe the president orders the FBI not disclose to congress the things the FBI knows about the President. The lines of authority are all crossed up.
The only relevant precedent would be one where a state investigative agency was investigating someone running for governor, or a city PD investigating someone running for mayor. But even there, the state laws and whatnot will have differences from the federal ones, so it would only be a kinda-sorta precedent.
If they are still finding emails she never turned over, isn’t that damning enough? At the very least, we’re electing a President who thinks the FOIA is her enemy, and that’s not good.
I see your point but it makes no sense to me. The only way to interpret it is that in a presidential election, you think it’s OK to have unproven allegations leveled against a candidate, it’s OK to publicize half-baked incomplete investigations, incomplete facts and half-truths and maybe lead the public to suspect things that are completely false, because heaven forbid the candidate might get elected and will then run the place and it will be too late!
No, IMO the integrity of investigations and the accuracy of what the public is informed about is always paramount, whether it’s about a candidate for municipal dog-catcher or a candidate for president, and in a democracy, there are sufficient checks and balances that no one person runs the place. Hell, you just finished telling us that the few half-baked factoids that Comey revealed would have been leaked “within 48 hours”, yet you imagine that evidence of actual presidential criminality would be kept secret indefinitely? How did that work out for Nixon? He tried to get his AG to fire the special prosecutor, only to have the AG refuse and resign, then the deputy AG refused and resigned, and pretty soon Nixon was not only faced with another special prosecutor, but a furiously hostile Congress and public and the inevitability of impeachment.
But that just addresses the worst-case scenario. The most unfortunate thing about this fiasco is that the worst possibilities of serious misconduct have almost certainly all already been investigated, and that it’s extremely improbable that this will lead to anything more than a hill of beans, but the Trumpsters, desperate in the last days of a faltering campaign and with nothing to lose, are spinning it like there’s no tomorrow. Comey has genuinely impacted the election across the board; it just remains to be seen by how much. He may turn out to be a one-man “Swift Boaters” brigade.
You haven’t been following along very closely have you?
Eh. I don’t have a big problem with Comey doing this disclosure, assuming he hasn’t already been sitting on it. It’s a CYA move.
But he’s going to have to talk before the weekend’s over, before he gets leaked to death. He and the FBI just look worse and worse.
Else he’s going to be sitting in a rocking chair on the porch wondering how the fuck it ended up that Hillary’s emails brought HIM down. It’s Clinton magic!
Obama appointed him precisely because of his independence, his integrity, and his willingness to go the extra mile to see the right thing done, as when he stormed into John Ashcroft’s hospital room and became famous.
However, one thing Comey has never been known for is his discretion. He’s got a little bit of Richard Clarke in him. Which was also well known. If only Obama had anticipated that Clinton would be so stupid, he might have made a different choice.
That’s one funny post … I know it wasn’t you that said that, but didn’t Trump say something to the effect that if he shot someone in downtown New York his followers would still be on his side?
I’d think that regardless of who wins the election, he’s not going to be keeping his job now.
You don’t call the director of the FBI a dirty cop and get away with it, like Trump did and some of his other agents.
Comey is just doing his job and his explanation is good enough for me … whatever this is he didn’t want it to become a circus after the election.
Yeah, I would say his career path is going to be either Special Prosecutor or talk show host.
What I meant is that, if Hillary gets elected, she’s under no obligation to reappoint him. And at this point she probably feels like he stabbed her in the back. And if Trump gets elected, he’s not going to leave an Obama appointee in office.
The FBI director doesn’t resign at the beginning of a term though. He’s appointed for a fixed term. 10 years. Which means Comey will serve through Clinton or Trump’s entire administration(well, almost). An FBI director can be fired, but only for cause. He does not just serve at the President’s pleasure as a Cabinet officer does. Comey’s term doesn’t end until 2023.