“Before Election Day” is setting the bar too low. How about by close of business today?
Mr. Comey? Tick… tick… tick…
"Director Comey broke with these fundamental principles,” Holder wrote. “I fear he has unintentionally and negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI. And he has allowed—again without improper motive—misinformation to be spread by partisans with less pure intentions.”
Sorry Mr. holder, This was absolutely intentional, and deliberately designed to give ammunition to those who would undermine public trust. Call it like it is - you have no reason to waffle on this.
MEMO
From: DT Make America yada yada…
To: James Comey, FBI
Check’s in the mail. It will be from Trump Foundation, and id’s as “charitable contribution.” It’s post dated to 11-9-16, so please wait until then to deposit it.
Quote of the Day from a NYT letter writer
“Comey appears to have been “extremely careless” in his handling of Clinton’s emails.”
I keep reading propaganda trying to make me believe Comey is a man of integrity.
Words are cheap.
The letter he (?) wrote was clearly partisan in nature, and with all due respect to the wonderful Mr. Holder, I’ll believe my eyes and ears first.
The FBI appears to be a partisan Republican operation.
This is how these media “narratives” operate. It has somehow been established that Comey is a “man of integrity,” so that idea is now maintained in the face of all evidence to the contrary. His handling of the email thing has been nakedly partisan throughout, but nonetheless we are supposed to understand his moves as a serious of well-intended but unfortunate miscalculations. (And even if he is operating out of self-interest rather than an explicit desire to undermine Hillary that STILL completely undermines his alleged integrity.)
This is a pattern among Rumpublicans, everywhere, at every level, going all the way back to Nixon and before. Basically, law enforcement and the judiciary are reduced to partisan team players, whose job it is to interpret or disregard what’s necessary to move the political football. We saw it so flagrantly in Watergate that not even most Republicans could stomach it yet.
But it obviously has grown on them. Antonin Scalia not only ruled however his friends needed him to rule, he telegraphed which cases judicial activists should file, where, and how, to have the best chance of winning. Alberto Gonzales fired US Attorneys for insufficient voter fraud prosecutions, and the fact that none existed was no excuse. Currently, Indiana state troopers might as well be live tweeting their so-called investigations of voter fraud. Here in my neck of the woods, we have unashamed Rumpublican Sean Duffy (WI), publicly taking credit for demanding forensic audits of a Native American tribe in the district. Never mind that he has no authority to demand any such thing; the whole point is to concern troll the tribe, while whipping up suspicions among the base of white men. It’s the same sort of concern trolling for African Americans and other non-whites that keeps oozing out of The Rump campaign. It’s sickening and it won’t stop until they’re all defeated. every. last. one.
J. Edgar Hoover is smiling up from Hell, saving a place for Mr. Comey…
“I fear he has unintentionally and negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI.
Unintentionally? I think Holder gives Comey too much credit or he knows more about Comey’s intelligence or lack thereof than we do.
There’s no good way forward on this. The FBI probe changes the subject to “Clinton’s emails” for the remainder of the campaign. If they dig something out of those emails, it’s a “gotcha” moment for Clinton but she’s been denied due process; if they don’t, it’s the taint of a pending “gotcha.” The only way to “right” this, is to either clear her – and there’s no time to do that – or release a statement about pending investigations of Trump’s conduct. And while that might seem “fair” (in a tit-for-tat way) it introduces a level of mud-slinging which can only devolve from there. Does this seem cogent?
Director Comey: The expiration date on terms being generously used to describe you such as “integrity,” “honor,” 'unintentional error," “without improper motive” is Tuesday 11/01. If a complete report and explanation is not provided by 5:00 p.m. EST on 11/01, you will forever be known as the FBI Director who was the worst, most inept, and who brought more disgrace and disrepute upon the agency than any other person in the history of the nation. And if you won’t push for more information to correct your wrong, hopefully others in the DOJ and FBI will come through.
My opinion, humble that it be, is that this is actually having a boomerang effect and the heat is turning on Comey and the FBI to explain what the hell this so called investigation is all about. And the public is just damn fed up with the email scandal that goes on and on and watching the news Friday night you can feel the joy in the reporters voices that once again we can predict a horse race of an election. Now come Monday morning, well, the media is looking a bit foolish and the Republicans are quite so bullish and nothing really has changed about the election, except, except, now Hillary can blast away at the government strong arm, the FBI, taking one of Donald’s main talking points about a rigged and corrupt election/government.
"And he has allowed—again without improper motive—misinformation to be spread by partisans with less pure intentions.”
I’m in no mood to listen right now, and all my processing power is being used trying to imagine how Comey actually could unshit this bed, but I would love for Marshall to include in his book an explanation of these sub-atomic distinctions people keep making between a man who wants to influence the election and a man who only doesn’t want to not influence the election.
Oops, I meant “the Republicans aren’t quite so bullish.”
This. ^^^^^
Sadly, its not the media that is entirely to blame on this one. The entire system has a clear interest in maintaining the notion that the FBI, and its director, must have high integrity and be above political partisanship. Thus, Holder’s op-ed for example, maintains the same fiction.
The media’s “fault”, and IMO, Josh is doing the same thing, is to fall into their inherent belief that the system works, and so surely Comey would not take such a step to break it out of something so petty as political partisanship. Because if that were true, there can be no trust in anything the FBI does.
We’ve seen this play out all campaign long as various reporters and media outlets have tried to “normalize” Trump, because surely no major political party could nominate someone so incredibly far outside of America’s norm…the system won’t allow that.
Its the same phenomna we see when people start interviewing the neighbors, friends and families of some mass murderer. “He seemed like such a nice guy, so quiet”. People want to believe that they live in “normal” communities and such aberrations can’t happen.
But they do. And Comey is such an aberration of the “Integrity” of the FBI. You are absolutely correct, that there is nothing in this man’s past that lends credence to the notion that he has always been a man of impeccable integrity. There is quite a bit of evidence pointing to him being a man who has carefully cultivated his reputation…aka covered his ass…with an eye to advancing his career, be it in law enforcement, republican circles and quite possibly an eventual political run.
And always, ALWAYS a major hard on for taking down the Clintons…the ultimate feather in the cap for any right winger eyeing a political career.
The only integrity, IMO, we have seen from Comey, is what the “system” has forced upon his behavior. And by releasing his letter, as well as his off the rails presser in July, he has shown that he is quite willing to even break free of those shackles, if he perceives potential gain and minimized personal risk.
This is from the Electoral Vote website, to-day:
[A Third of All Voters Less Likely to Support Clinton Due to FBI Announcement
A new WaPo/ABC News poll shows that for 63% of voters, the FBI announcement about Hillary Clinton’s emails makes no difference in how they will vote. However, for 34%, they are less likely to vote for Clinton, and for 2% they are more likely to vote for Clinton. Only 1% have no opinion, a surprisingly low number.]
I do not know the internals of this poll.
Of course. Isn’t it comical that the very word “emails”, or the phrase “thousands of emails” has conditioned people to think of vast conspiracies.
Wouldn’t those be Trump voters anyway?