Regarding FBI Director Comey’s assessment of — Hillary Clinton’s email carelessness

© 2016 Peter Free

07 July 2016

 

Was this not his place to amble?

FBI Director James Comey had this to say about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

 

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system . . . .

[E]ven if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

[W]e assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.

© 2016 Gregory Krieg, FBI boss Comey’s 7 most damning lines on Clinton, CNN Politics (05 July 2016) (extracts)

 

Was Director Comey speaking out of procedural turn?

Some thoughtful sources have indicated that — from  a process perspective — Director Comey had no business making prosecutorial judgments from his police pulpit. That job more properly belonged to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. This is so, even after Lynch’s presumed independence was tainted by Bill Clinton’s (seminally stained) presence a few days prior.

Similarly, some were dismayed at Comey’s public thrashing of Clinton after holding her criminally blameless. Usually, police agencies do not slap someone’s behavior around, after indicating that they have no interest in making a criminal case. Arguably, Comey breached these ethics.

 

That said — it is difficult for me to see anything wrong in Director Comey’s performance

Below are two alternative justifications for the FBI director’s candor.

First, he may have been asked to do what he did. Indirectly so by the President.  Assume that the Obama Administration reasoned like this:

 

Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s presumed legal independence had been cleverly compromised by Crooked Hillary’s husband, Ballsy Bill.

Why not have the presumably incorruptible FBI Director announce the Administration’s non-enforcement of the same law(s) that it has so vehemently prosecuted against lesser people?

By allowing Comey (a Republican) to slam Hillary (a Democrat), the Director’s arguably procedurally out of place intervention would seem fair-minded.

 

Second, alternatively hypothesize that Comey knew the Administration was going to dillydally in dealing with allegedly Crooked Hillary. Perhaps until the November election was over.

No competent government agency director would want his Bureau to look as if it were dragging its feet for political reasons. In this scenario (presumably), Comey elected to get out in front of the wagon and tell the public what his people were thinking.

That way he could maintain public trust under circumstances in which this Administration and others have so regularly squandered it.

As for calling Hillary Clinton the equivalent of a careless dope, that too can be justified under the goal of preserving Bureau credibility.

In this aspect, “everyone” knows that both Clintons are manipulative, self-serving, short-sighted and constantly lying people. Hillary’s performance with regard to her (personal server) State Department emails was casually reckless. For the Director to overlook this quality, while simultaneously explaining the instances in which she was careless about national security would not make much sense. Again, Bureau integrity was arguably at stake.

 

The moral? — James Comey looks like a competent department head in this one

In other contexts, I detest Director Comey’s obvious disregard for the Fourth Amendment. But here I appreciate his timely intervention into yet another of the Obama Administration’s self-created messes.

Having said that, I do not excuse the double standard that the United States displays toward high ranking versus low ranking intelligence leakers. Slimy people with status skate and prosper. Honorable people lacking influence go to prison.