The Peculiar Case Of James Comey

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I’ve had a lot of fun watching both the right and the left make complete bafoons out of themselves defending-shaming-defending Comey back and forth and everywhere between.

There’s one that I can come up with that makes some sense.

For context, Comey had a long standing relationship with the FBI and credibility on both the right and left as well as a great reputation from both sides of being smart, tough, honorable, and credible. He was hired by Bush and his 10 year contract was renewed under Obama. There’s nothing blatantly partisan about him that would get in the way of him being objective. There’s no evidence of him being partisan in the past.

So with that context, let me lay out a scenario that puts his actions into perspective:
1)Comey believed that Hillary was guilty, but they weren’t going to indict, either because they didn’t believe they had sufficient evidence to conclusively deliver a guilty verdict and prove intent…(say with 90% confidence interval as successful conviction rate of people tried is consistently in the 80-95 percentile). Or more likely, the crimes weren’t sufficient enough to literally de-legitimize an election and undermine a democracy.
Note:It wasn’t his job to determine whether or not Hillary should be put on trial. Nor was it FBI policy to publicly comment on an ongoing investigation.

2)Comey held a press conference after blandly sinister Attorney General Loretta Lynch (from now on referred to as BS for her nickname Blandly Sinister) met privately with Bill Clinton in a way that intended on hiding that meeting from the press. Comey had a press conference and essentially protected Attorney General Loretta Lynch from making the decision.

Had he not, questions about the functionality of the republic would come under play. Had he said nothing, the american people wouldn’t know the extent of Hillary’s wrongdoings. He wasn’t going to let her get away with it without letting the people know.

3)Having said that, this is a presidential candidate we’re talking about. And so he wasn’t going to sit idlely, even if it was policy not to talk about it. So he took a hit to his personal character by basically publicly saying what the FBI found, (specifically on a 4th of July weekend when ratings are the lowest) and then saying they weren’t really going to recommend pursuing the manners at this time regarding mishandling classified information. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t still gather information about Hillary (I have a feeling the real issue at hand is the Clinton Foundation).

4)If you are moving to prosecute you want the best odds possible and the most serious crime possible. You aren’t going to risk the FBI’s reputation, nor let someone get hit with only a minor offense if there’s more at stake. You gather all the evidence for ALL crimes, and you try to get as many as possible to stick.

5)His intent was NOT to influence an election, but provide valuable information relevant to the qualification of the candidate.

So here’s some more information:

1)IF Comey indicts Hillary (or at least in essence by recommending trial). AND IF BS Lynch doesn’t follow suit, the credibility of government is in question.

2)IF Comey indicts Hillary AND BS does follow through, the democrats have no candidate, or at least not one represented by the people, and they already had their primary. The election is not credible to the people, Trump either wins by default, or someone not properly vetted through the primary process wins.

If Comey says she’s totally innocent or says nothing, he’s concealing information of the public.

So Comey intentionally picks a date where he will have the least influence over the result, delivers all the reasons Hillary should be in jail but says the FBI can’t prove intent so we are not looking to put her on trial at this time.

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Now of course everyone on the left love Comey for basically saying end of discussion. Everyone on the right says.. you have all this on her and you aren’t at least going to put her on trial? WTF?

Well it’s not over yet.

Somehow a Weiner who has a first name, this time it’s A-N-T-H-O-N-Y may again change the course of politics. Apparently Hillary had all sorts of emails on his device and many of them went to Huma Abedin (which shouldn’t have). How it got there probably isn’t known, but it seems at least someone was reckless with information. After additional investigation, the FBI basically made the determination that they again couldn’t prove intent. Someone could make the case that Hillary was hacked, that she claims ignorance about setting up the private server and having bad security or that if she’s guilty it implicates half of Washington for contacting Hillary via email. It’s a decent case against her, but not worth undermining an election over.

So Comey probably at the most impactful time possible this time basically says “by the way, we have a lot more on Hillary, her closest aid, her recklessness with classified information and carelessness at best, bad intentions, and so on.”

Well now the republicans were thrilled and suddenly Comey has respect again and the democrats suddenly think Comey is this evil partisan hack after praising him for integrity.

You can’t spell Comedy without COMEY, and as soon as they added ANthony Weiner, the D was there to make it comedy.

(It’s the reaction by the people that determines it to be comedy, not Comey’s actions themselves)

Well of course, 3 days before the election Comey sends on final “switcheroo” (allegedly) in there which basically reiterated his original position on “secretary Clinton” (not presidential elect Hillary).

Dear Messrs. Chairmen: 

I write to supplement my October 28, 2016 letter that notified you the FBI would be taking additional investigative steps with respect to former Secretary of State Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation. During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.

I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.

Sincerely yours, 
James B. Comey
Director

Bold Emphasis Mine.

Note the language. How easy would it be to say “We found nothing damaging”. Or “we absolve Hillary of her crimes”. Instead he carefully worded this to essentially reiterate the initial position. It was SPUN as an “innocent verdict” or “Comey finally comes around”. But the actual letter itself was a reiteration.

Remember his initial position. They didn’t have enough yet to proceed with a trial at the moment specifically for mishandeling classified information. They said nothing in July about the Clinton Foundation which the IRS began investigation into in July, and the FBI is presumably investigating as well.

So Comey is attempting to reiterate the information which is publicly searchable on the internet for voters. He doesn’t want to influence the election.. but he does want to make sure relevant information is accessible.

So if Clinton is elected and later impeached, or if you find that because it happened before she was elected that you can’t impeach her and you are saying to yourself, “Why didn’t anyone warn me about this”… someone did. He warned you with great cost to his professional career, wonderful reputation and “persecution” by the “court of public opinion”, in a way that didn’t undermine the democracy or credibility of the election. In fact, he warned you 3 separate times. He probably is hoping people do the right thing and knows there is potentially great risk to the credibility if Clinton wins (AND ALSO is later found guilty), but he respects the nature of the constitutional framing too much to interfere too directly.

Comey warned us all, he still makes sure the people have a choice. The best chance people have of seeing Hillary face justice is by voting for the alternative.

 

Scott Adams presented this idea here. In my mind he was a little off the second time. It’s possible there was something disqualifying IN the emails (related to foundation), but for me the disqualifying part is that Hillary is not worthy of having the nation’s secrets. The headliner is the carelessness (at best) to let people around he that are so comprimisable.

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