Memo To Comey: Keep Your Damn Hands Off Our Elections – OpEd
By Mike Whitney
Without a shred of evidence and against the expressed wishes of his superiors at the Department of Justice, the head of the nationâs most prestigious law enforcement agency announced the reopening of an investigation into the mishandling of classified material by Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. The surprise announcement was delivered last Friday by FBI Director James Comey who knew that the action would create a cloud of suspicion around Clinton that could directly effect the outcome of the election.
Recent surveys suggest that that indeed has been the case, and that Hillary is now neck in neck with GOP contender Donald Trump going into the home-stretch of the bitterly contested campaign.
By inserting himself into the democratic process, Comey has ignored traditional protocols for postponing such announcements 60-days prior to an election, shrugged off the counsel of his bosses at the DOJ, and tilted the election in Trumpâs favor. His action is as close to a coup dâĂ©tat as anything weâve seen in the U.S. since the Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots in Florida in 2000 handing the election to George W. Bush.
It is not the job of the FBI to inform Congress about ongoing investigations. Comeyâs job is to gather information and evidence that is pertinent to the case and present it to the DOJ where the decision to convene a grand jury is ultimately made. Comey is a renegade, a lone wolf who arbitrarily decided to abandon normal bureaucratic procedures in order to torpedo Clintonâs prospects for election. The widespread belief that Comey is a âgood man who made a bad decisionâ is nonsense. He is an extremely intelligent and competent attorney with a keen grasp of Beltway politics. He knew what he was doing and he did it anyway. Itâs absurd to make excuses for him.
In a carefully-crafted statement designed to deflect attention from his flagrant election tampering, Comey said this to his fellow agents:
âWe donât ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed,â Comey said. âI also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.â (CNN)
Letâs take a minute and parse this statement. First: âWe donât ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations.â
True, because it is not the FBIâs job to do so. The FBIâs job is to dig up evidence and refer it to the Justice Department. Comey is not the Attorney General although he has arbitrarily assumed her duties and authority.
Second: âI also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.â
âSupplement the recordâ?
Thatâs a pretty suggestive statement, donât you think? When someone says theyâre going to supplement the record, you naturally assume that theyâre going to add important details to what the public already knows. Obviously, those details are not going to be flattering to Hillary or thereâd be no reason to reopen the case. So the public is left with the impression Comey is going to produce damning information that could lead to an indictment of Hillary sometime in the future.
This is precisely why normal protocols require that no new investigations be announced 60 days before an election. Why?
Because the public invariably assumes that âinvestigationâ equals âguiltâ. In other words, âThe FBI wouldnât be investigating Hillary unless they had some dirt on her. Therefore, Iâd better not waste my vote on Hillary.â
This is the logic upon which Comeyâs dirty trick rests. He knows the effect his announcement will have because he is law enforcements version of Karl Rove, a bone fide partisan whoâs mastered the dark art of political sabotage.
And just in case Comeyâs announcement didnât produce the desired effect (by destroying Hillaryâs chances for victory),  a former assistant director at the FBI, Tom Fuentes, appeared on CNN shortly after the announcement was made with more explicit information. Hereâs a clip from the interview:
âThe FBI has an intensive investigation ongoing into the Clinton Foundation,â Fuentes said Saturday, citing current and former senior FBI officials as sourcesâŠ
According to the CNN report, officials with the FBI and Justice Department met in Washington earlier this year to discuss opening an investigation into possible conflicts of interest between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton State Department.â
(âFormer FBI Official: FBI Has An âIntensive Investigationâ Ongoing Into Clinton Foundationâ, Daily Caller)
Okay. So weâre no longer dealing with just classified emails. The FBI expanded its investigation and is now wading through the real sewage, the pay-to-play corruption scandal that surrounds that vast reservoir of illicit contributions known as the Clinton Foundation. In other words, the FBI is on to something big,  really BIG. I can almost see them dragging poor Hillary off to the hoosegow in leg irons and shackles. Isnât that the impression the above quote is supposed to produce? Hereâs more from Fuentes:
âSeveral FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys offices pushed for the investigation after receiving a tip from a bank about suspicious donations to the Clinton Foundation from a foreign donor, according to the reportâŠ.â (Daily Caller)
âForeign donorsâ, âsuspicious donationsâ, smoky rooms, bundles of money. It all fits, doesnât it? Itâs all designed to increase suspicion and make Hillary look like a crook which, coincidentally, is the relentless mantra of the Trump campaign. Funny how the FBI and Trump appear to be reading from the same script, isnât it? Itâs almost like it was planned that way.
But what about the timing of all this? Is it really a coincidence or are Comey and Fuentes part of a one-two punch from the Trump campaign?
And, more important, what does the FBI actually have on Hillary? According to Fuentes:
âWhen the team looking at the Weiner computers went to the team of investigators who worked on the Clinton email case, and showed the emails to them earlier in the week, they said, âThis is really significant. We need to take this to the Director.â (2:05 to 2:23 video)
Repeat: âThis is significantâ.
Whatâs significant? Neither Comey nor Fuentes nor the more than year-long investigation has uncovered anything, unless you think the ridiculous rehash of the 15-year old Marc Rich investigation (which popped up on the FBI website this week) is  ânew newsâ that should alter the course of the election. This is pathetic. If they have something, show us. Otherwise, Ferme ta bouche.
Check this out from Thursdayâs Wall Street Journal:
âAs 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first. âŠ
The public-integrity prosecutors werenât impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar with the discussion said. âThe message was, âWeâre done here,â â a person familiar with the matter said.
Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding or disobeying their instructions.
Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message to all the offices involved to âstand down,ââ a person familiar with the matter saidâŠ.
As prosecutors rebuffed their requests to proceed more overtly, those Justice Department officials became more annoyed that the investigators didnât seem to understand or care about the instructions issued by their own bosses and prosecutors to act discreetly.
In subsequent conversations with the Justice Department, Mr. Capers told officials in Washington that the FBI agents on the case âwonât let it go,â these people said.â (Wall Street Journal)
Can you see whatâs going on here? Thereâs a nest of rogue agents running wild at the FBI whoâve been giving the DOJ the finger while they conduct their witch hunt on Hillary. And what have they achieved?
Nothing! So far, they have nothing.
Now, Iâm not a fan of Madame Clinton either, in fact I wouldnât vote for her if they rubbed me down with bacon grease and stuck me in a bear cage, but, câmon now, do we really want rogue cops and self righteous bureaucrats inserting themselves into our elections and picking the winners?
Thatâs bullshit.
If the FBI has some solid proof of wrongdoing that will put Hillary behind bars for good, than I say, âBravoâ. But until then, they should keep their damn hands off our elections!
Hillary Clinton is not immune to prosecution because she is a presidential candidate.