Crocodile Tears<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s 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 \u201cpaid them back\u201d for their actions.<\/p>\n
But, the proximate cause of Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 loss was the actions of the FBI. The polling results are clear. Before the famous \u201cComey Letter\u201d of October 28th<\/sup>, Clinton was surviving the storms of Wikileaks\u2019 released emails. Trump was struggling with the impact of the \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape. Comey\u2019s letter, reopening the investigation into the Clinton emails, flipped the polling. She never recovered.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n So \u201cDems,\u201d let\u2019s not cry \u201ccrocodile tears\u201d for the \u201cgallant heroes\u201d 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\u2019t 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 \u201cshut.\u201d He felt that there was a greater moral calling, and he changed history.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cWeiner Computer\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Absolutely, Attorney General Jeff Sessions knifed McCabe in the back last night. Whether the internal investigation showed wrong-doing or not, clearly the \u201cdue process\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Sessions likely did so in an effort to keep his own job. Trump has made it clear that he doesn\u2019t really need an excuse to fire Sessions, but one would be nice. Sessions followed the clear dictates of his President (“\u2026who will bring me the head of that wretched priest\u2026”) making sure that McCabe can\u2019t get full benefit of the twenty some years with the Bureau.<\/p>\n It\u2019s petty. It\u2019s vindictive. It\u2019s everything we think about the Trump Administration, from firing by tweet to close advisors who become \u201cvolunteers who hardly helped.\u201d And it probably damages the Bureau, putting agents on notice that theirs is a most political world. Mueller better back up his files.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s 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 \u201cbig boy\u201d decisions. They altered the course of American history. They stuck us with this President.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"