Crocodile Tears
Let’s get one thing straight. The Russians hacked the 2016 election. They may have altered actual votes. They definitely altered social media and magnified our differences (and continue to do so.) We have not “paid them back” for their actions.
But, the proximate cause of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss was the actions of the FBI. The polling results are clear. Before the famous “Comey Letter” of October 28th, Clinton was surviving the storms of Wikileaks’ released emails. Trump was struggling with the impact of the “Access Hollywood” tape. Comey’s letter, reopening the investigation into the Clinton emails, flipped the polling. She never recovered.
It’s odd that President Trump has taken such hatred towards Comey, McCabe, Storzk and the rest of the FBI. I understand his resentment of Mueller; but those other guys are the REASON he got elected. Pay-backs are a bitch, I guess.
So “Dems,” let’s not cry “crocodile tears” for the “gallant heroes” of the FBI. James Comey, as much of a Boy Scout as he appears, is the reason we are living with Trump in the first place. Had he left his black and white Boy Scout world, he could have found a gray answer that didn’t require him to alter the US democratic process. If he had followed the black and white rules of his own Department of Justice, he would have kept his letter “shut.” He felt that there was a greater moral calling, and he changed history.
And Andrew McCabe today reigns as the role model for the modern FBI agent. Intelligent, ambitious, willing to deal with the nuances of intelligence work, McCabe made the decision to allow the “Weiner Computer” crisis to sit on his desk for three weeks. It was only at the last minute that he determined that something had to be done (the Comey letter.) This was perhaps to head off the internal politics of leaks from the New York FBI office, whose members were using Rudy Guiliani to get their information to Fox News.
Absolutely, Attorney General Jeff Sessions knifed McCabe in the back last night. Whether the internal investigation showed wrong-doing or not, clearly the “due process” that should be afforded to all employees was not followed. What should have been weeks if not months of deliberations, hearings, and discussions; got done in four hours.
Sessions likely did so in an effort to keep his own job. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t really need an excuse to fire Sessions, but one would be nice. Sessions followed the clear dictates of his President (“…who will bring me the head of that wretched priest…”) making sure that McCabe can’t get full benefit of the twenty some years with the Bureau.
It’s petty. It’s vindictive. It’s everything we think about the Trump Administration, from firing by tweet to close advisors who become “volunteers who hardly helped.” And it probably damages the Bureau, putting agents on notice that theirs is a most political world. Mueller better back up his files.
But let’s not cry crocodile tears for McCabe, Comey and the rest. Whatever their intentions in October of 2016, when they revealed the Clinton investigation but hid the Trump investigation, they made their “big boy” decisions. They altered the course of American history. They stuck us with this President.
I think one element of this saga that warrants more conversation is nations interfering with each others electoral processes. This includes the US as a former head of the CIA said yes we do in fact intervene in elections around the world but its OK when we do it because we are the “good guys”. In Putin’s interview with Megyn Kelly he says when they asked the US government about electoral interference they didn’t even bother to deny it. In my view the Russian annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine was a response to their preferred Ukrainian president being ousted (with covert US $ etc…) in a soft revolution for the current Western leaning president. Their amped up interference in the 2016 Presidential election is another result. The radicalized GOP knowing this process is ongoing and not taking any steps to contain Russian interference is yet another example, like extreme gerrymandering, suppression of voting (Ohio’s own Secretary of State Jon A. Husted is a poster boy of said policies) of a political party that will do anything up to and including conspiring with foreign adversaries to win elections.
More to what this particular post relates to. For sure watching life long rocked ribbed Republican’s like Comey, McCabe and even Mueller now being accused of being the leftiest of lefties to ever have lefted (secret Hillary supporters alllll along) because, apparently, they won’t help Trump hide his conspiracy with Russia is really funny in a sad way but yet another indication we have passed through the looking glass, GOP loves the Russians and hates the FBI and this is Stupid Watergate!
Though I’m not certain what the actual involvement in Ukraine was (Manafort and his crew were on the Russian side of the fight) I agree that when we started edging into other elections, we should have been ready for someone to return the favor. Now here we are, and we have little done in preparation for 2018.
I know this will be an issue of contention, but I feel like the election of President Obama really pushed some people over the edge. The Republican plan to maintain power through gerrymandering (since 2010) has been very effective, and caused us a lot of the problems we have now. There is no middle ground (for example, in the Ohio State Legislature) because gerrymandered districts are so overwhelmingly one sided that the race is often to see how far on the fringe a candidate can get. We now have a state legislator from Miamisburg, near Dayton, who thinks eighteen year olds should be able to carry guns in school. I think he’s WON the race to the right!!!!!!!!
Pennsylvania is moving back to the center, let’s hope Ohio and other states can find their way too.
In defense of Comey and the FBI, they were in a no-win position. It was an election year. They had substantial suspicions (but little hard evidence) that Russians were aiding the Trump campaign. And their current administration was Democratic. The perception of White House influence to bury the potential new evidence against Clinton would incinerate the only untainted campaign heading into elections.
Could they just investigate the Weiner emails behind the scenes? – no, because the NY FBI office would leak that info and point to FBI collusion to elect Clinton. That would taint the FBI leadership’s reputation for years.
For the sake of the integrity of the US Intelligence Community, they *had* to make that announcement. It was ugly, if was unfortunate, it had terrible consequences, and boy, I bet it was really, really hard.
But it was the righter thing to do.