FILE PHOTO: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking /File Photo
It’s coming. The DOJ watchdog report on James Comey’s public announcements 11 days before the election about Hillary Clinton’s private email server and if the New York FBI leaked the info to hurt her to Trump campaign adviser Rudy Giuliani is coming.
“The report also is expected to address whether active and retired FBI agents in New York leaked information about investigations of the Clinton Foundation charitable organization and the discovery of a trove of Clinton-related emails.
Law enforcement officials previously told Reuters the information was leaked to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an adviser to the Trump campaign who subsequently discussed the contents on Fox News,” Reuters reports.
You might be thinking that this will not be untouched by President Trump, since he has refused to honor the separation between the White House and the DOJ. And you might be right. However, the investigation was launched a week before Trump took office. The department’s inspector general Michael Horowitz launched it.
Comey’s reason for the announcement of the reopening of the investigation into Clinton’s emails days before the election continues to not make sense for me, and I say that with all respect for James Comey. I simply have not heard an explanation that makes sense yet. The only thing I can think of that would be in keeping with his reputation for honor is that New York FBI agents were leaking it already and he wanted to get ahead of the story.
Because in reality, while many have tried to justify this and justify the Republican obsession with Clinton’s emails and claim that it was so different and special it deserved all of this, the truth is:
The George W. Bush admin had their emails routed thru private RNC server. The Bush admin “lost” 22 million emails about Iraq. They failed to store their emails, as required by law. They refused to comply with Congressional subpoena those emails. Clinton’s emails were not about a war she was accused of entering on false premises. In fact the substance of her emails is not the issue, other than their status. So in no reasonable world could these two things be even on equal footing.
So no amount of hysteria over Clinton’s emails makes sense. Indeed, Horowitz’s office is looking into whether such leaks influenced Comey’s decision. Law enforcement sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that at the time a fear of leaks from within his own agency helped prompt Comey to make that public disclosure.
Furthermore, Clinton’s emails are not even on the same planet as Trump’s possible collusion with a hostile foreign country, so why would Comey bring one non-issue up and not the one that is a real issue of national security. This also begs the question of why Comey suggested impeachment is not the answer to the problem of Trump. These are odd things for the former director of the FBI to say and do.
Clinton has maintained that Comey’s investigation into her emails and public disclosure played a part in her loss to Trump.
Of course, the real purpose of this investigation seems to be about Comey’s statements that no charges would be brought against Clinton, but the reported leaks to Trump adviser Guiliani by the NY FBI are also about to be exposed, and for all of the Republicans’ hysteria over leaks, this one, this improper leak that could well have impacted an election, seems to not even bother them.
(Additional reporting by Reuters’ Mark Hosenball)
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