and Comey under fire?
The latest twist in the US election saga bemuses me. The idea that you should keep information which would potentially see a President removed from office from the public until after the election seems wrong.
I know there are arguments to the contrary, some of them good arguments - including that of "innocent until proven guilty" but surely we are talking about more than that here? We are talking abut whether someone is fit to be President of the United States of America...one of the most powerful jobs in the world - if not the most powerful. Yes, you have to be above reproach.
It's a job I'd hate. It's just as well someone is prepared to take it on - but that does not mean the contenders for the office are above the law. If the contender was running for any other position then the information would have been much more closely scrutinised and the stuff of even more headlines. Other people running for other positions find information like this made public long before innocence or guilt is decided. They have to live with "where there's smoke there's fire" and "s/he probably was guilty but they've swept it all under the carpet" and more.
The FBI has clearly made mistakes, one of the biggest being to close the original investigation. Yes, it might still have been hanging over Clinton's head but the media could have ignored the new information until after the election. This way it just wasn't possible.
And in this case it might even have the opposite effect. People might actually go out and vote for her because of it. They might say they are fed up with the way she is being treated.
It is said only about 50% of Americans will bother to vote. What if this causes 51% to vote - and that extra 1% is for her? It could happen.
But if Clinton were to win by just a small margin without people knowing what was going on there would have been even more questions later. This way, if she wins - still more likely than not - and takes over from Obama, then the argument can be, "Yes, we knew but we still voted her in. We wanted her more than we wanted Trump."
The only reason to be concerned would be if the private polling by the Clinton campaign suggests that the voting is much tighter than the pollsters and the media are prepared to admit.
Now that is something to worry about.
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3 comments:
read this from a NYT article.
While Mr. Comey told Congress last month that he would not confirm the existence of any investigation into people associated with Mr. Trump, he said he felt compelled to discuss details of the Clinton investigation because it involved “exceptional circumstances where the public needed information.”
Matthew Miller, a Democrat and former Justice Department spokesman who has criticized Mr. Comey’s handling of the email investigation, said the F.B.I. director should not pick and choose when to follow the guidelines.
“You can’t apply the usual standard to one candidate and an entirely different set of rules for the other,” he said.
my comment- Extremely irresponsible behavior by Comey. As one official says in another WP article... Comey has always thought he was above the rules and policies of the FBI and the Justice Department. Lynch told him not to do this. Anonymous sources report that he said that he was afraid that if he didn't do this now he would get impeached later.
AND he is NOT disclosing ANYTHING about the investigation of the hacking of the Clinton campaign emails by Trump and Russia...
So he put himself above the policies of the Justice Department and the people he swore to protect when he took this position and DECIDED to influence an election. Narcissistic and Selfish CYA decision.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-officials-warned-fbi-that-comeys-decision-to-update-congress-was-not-consistent-with-department-policy/2016/10/29/cb179254-9de7-11e6-b3c9-f662adaa0048_story.html?postshare=8181477796620196&tid=ss_fb-bottom
thats the article
I wouldn't worry too much Southern Gal. As an American I believe this will do Ms Clinton disclosure will do more good than non-disclosure and may actually improve her position. James Henry Flanagan
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