On The Eve Of Comey's Book Tour, Remembering His "Tragic Mistake"

While we await the arrival of former FBI Director James Comey's book next week, David Leonhard reminds us of the terrible cost this country's paying for Comey's biggest mistake.

... He was the F.B.I. director overseeing the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. He and his team decided that she had not done anything that warranted criminal charges. And he knew that Republicans would blast him as a coward who was trying to curry favor with the likely future president. 

So he decided to go public with his explanation for not charging Clinton and to criticize her harshly. He then doubled down, releasing a public update on the investigation 11 days before the election, even as other Justice officials urged him not to. Department policy dictates that investigators aren’t supposed to talk publicly about why they are not bringing charges. They especially don’t do so when they could affect an election. 

Comey, however, decided that he knew better than everyone else. He was the righteous Jim Comey, after all. He was going to speak truth to power. He was also, not incidentally, going to protect his own fearless image. He developed a series of rationales, suggesting that he really had no choice. They remain unpersuasive. When doing the right thing meant staying quiet and taking some lumps, Comey chose not to. 

His tragic mistake matters because of the giant consequences for the country. He helped elect the most dangerous, unfit American president of our lifetimes. No matter how brave Comey has since been, no matter how honorable his full career, he can never undo that damage. 

As he takes over the spotlight again, I’ll be thinking about the human lessons as well the political ones. Comey has greater strengths than most people. But for all of us, there is a fine line between strength and hubris. (our emphasis)

Comey can't, of course, go back in time and undo the damage. Perhaps, though, it's serving as a needed lesson going forward for law enforcement investigating the Trump/ Putin crime family, in the sense that conducting a by- the- book investigation (as Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his A- team of investigators and prosecutors have been doing) means you adhere to the law, follow the evidence, keep your head down and your mouth shut.

Please take a moment more and read the entire op/ ed.

The "Damn E-Mails" And The Damn Media

Matthew Yglesias delves into the media's coverage of the Clinton e-mail SCANDAL! nothingburger and how the media has badly served our country (again).  He concludes that the media has promoted "a bullshit scandal amidst a serious election":

Network newscasts have, remarkably, dedicated more airtime to coverage of Clinton’s emails than to all policy issues combined. 

Cable news has been, if anything, worse, and many prestige outlets have joined the pileup. One malign result of obsessive email coverage is that the public is left totally unaware of the policy stakes in the election. Another is that the constant vague recitations of the phrase ‘‘Clinton email scandal’’ have firmly implanted the notion that there is something scandalous about anything involving Hillary Clinton and email, including her campaign manager getting hacked or the revelation that one of her aides sometimes checked mail on her husband’s computer. 

But none of this is true. Clinton broke no laws according to the FBI itself. Her setup gave her no power to evade federal transparency laws beyond what anyone who has a personal email account of any kind has. Her stated explanation for her conduct is entirely believable, fits the facts perfectly, and is entirely plausible to anyone who doesn't simply start with the assumption that she's guilty of something. 

Given [former Secretary Colin] Powell’s conduct, Clinton wasn't even breaking with an informal precedent. The very worst you can say is that, faced with an annoying government IT policy, she used her stature to find a personal workaround rather than a systemic fix that would work for everyone. To spend so much time on such a trivial matter would be absurd in a city council race, much less a presidential election. To do so in circumstances when it advances the electoral prospects of a rival who has shattered all precedents in terms of lacking transparency or basic honesty is infinitely more scandalous than anything related to the server itself.  (our emphasis)

Of all the malign elements in this election year (neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump, white supremacists, misogyny and sexual assault, xenophobia, etc., etc.), the role of the corporate media in enabling the rise and (perhaps) succession to power of the most unfit, unqualified, compromised, plainly evil candidate ever to be nominated by a major party ranks near the very top of the list.  That they often knew better and yet allowed their mercenary desire for ratings and revenue to subsume any sense of duty to their alleged profession, their country or the truth, makes this among the worst betrayals of this or any other political season.  Damn them all.

BONUS:



(h/t Washington Monthly)

Putin's Useful Idiot, Cont.

Somewhat lost in all the understandable focus on the ugly, misogynist "Trump tapes" is the mounting evidence that Russian despot Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin's government is trying to meddle in our elections, presumably to benefit fellow neo- fascist authoritarian Donald "Rump" Trump. Newsweek's top notch reporter Kurt Eichenwald has the latest piece of evidence that involves the ever- viler Putin cats paw WikiLeaks, another Russian- government controlled propaganda mouthpiece (the Sputnik news service), and of course our hero Rump:

I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir Putin—and, somehow, Donald Trump—seem to believe. And that should raise concerns about not only Moscow’s attempts to manipulate this election but also how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters. 

An email from Blumenthal—a confidant of Hillary Clinton and a man, second only to George Soros, at the center of conservative conspiracy theories—turned up in the recent document dump by WikiLeaks. At a time when American intelligence believes Russian hackers are trying to interfere with the presidential election, records have been fed recently to WikiLeaks out of multiple organizations of the Democratic Party, raising concerns that the self-proclaimed whistleblower group has become a tool of Putin’s government. But now that I have been brought into the whole mess—and transformed into Blumenthal—there is even more proof that the Russians are not only orchestrating this act of cyberwar but also really, really dumb.

Rather than excerpt more of Eichenwald's entertaining takedown of this "really, really dumb" exercise in pro- Rump Russian ratf*cking, please go read the entire piece.  You can be sure that Rump will continue to use this discredited piece of election- jiggering bullshit (as he just did in Pennsylvania) because his knuckle- dragging audiences don't know any better, and they don't care.  But, for the rest of us, is there any doubt remaining why Putin would want Rump in the Oval Office?  If you were trying to weaken and sabotage the United States at home and abroad, wouldn't you want a "President Rump" with his tiny brain and tiny fingers causing havoc?

BONUS:  Robert Farley has another take on Russian meddling, as does Charles Pierce.

(Image:  We don't want to see or hear the tape of that encounter.)

Our Broken Media, Cont.: Flog That Narrative!

number of times Trump's tax returns were mentioned? 0

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 28, 2016

See also, below.

Today's Cartoon

(click on image to enlarge)


(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

It won't keep them from trying, though.

FBI Director Comey Explodes Two False Narratives, Then Explodes

Today's continuation of the multi- year Hillary Clinton Republican witch hunt, in which FBI Director James Comey was called to testify to a House inquisition committee why, oh why, the FBI didn't recommend burning at the stake charging Ms. Clinton over her handling of State Department e-mails, contained two damaging moments -- er, for the overreaching Republicans (h/t Media Matters).

On "gross negligence" not being an issue here:

... I do not see evidence that is sufficient to establish that Secretary Clinton or those with whom she was corresponding both talked about classified information on email and knew when they did it they were doing something that was against the law. So given that assessment of the facts, my understanding of the law, my conclusion was and remains no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case. No reasonable prosecutor would bring the second case in 100 years focused on gross negligence. And so I know that's been a source of some confusion for folks. That's just the way it is. I know the Department of Justice, I know no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case. I know a lot of my former friends are out there saying where they would. I wonder where they were the last 40 years, because I'd like to see the cases they brought on gross negligence. Nobody would, nobody did.  (our emphasis)

We wonder if that's clear enough, or should Director Comey submit that information in coloring book form for the Republican members.

On the matter of e-mails being marked "classified," contrary to Ms. Clinton's recollection, Comey responds to questioning by Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA):

REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT: All right, you were asked about markings on a few documents. I have the manual here, Marking Classified National Security Information, and I don't think you were given a full chance to talk about those three documents with the little c's on them. Were they properly documented? Were they properly marked according to the manual? 

JAMES COMEY: No. 

CARTWRIGHT: According to the manual -- and I ask unanimous consent to enter this into the record, Mr. Chairman -- according to the manual, if you're going to classify something, there has to be a header on the document, right? 

COMEY: Correct. 

CARTWRIGHT: Was there a header on the three documents that we've discussed today that had the little c in the text someplace? 

COMEY: No, there were three emails, the c was in the body, in the text, but there was no header on the email or in the text. 

CARTWRIGHT: So, if Secretary Clinton really were an expert at what's classified and what's not classified, and were following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that? 

COMEY: That would be a reasonable inference.  (our emphasis)

So, contrary to some sloppy, ill- informed "reporting" =cough= Mrs. Alan Greenspan =cough=, Ms. Clinton would not have been aware that these e-mails contained classified information since they did not have the proper "classified" header, contrary to national security guidelines.  (Two other e-mails, it turns out, were improperly marked "classified," but hey, no harm no foul amirite?!)

Finally, here's Comey reacting to smarmy insinuations by man- with- a- bad- rug Rep. John "Weaselheaded F*cknugget" Mica (R- FL) that he was in collusion with the White House or other political players before coming to the conclusion not to recommend prosecution:



Now, these Republican assholes plan to pursue a "referral" to the FBI to see if they can find something in Ms. Clinton's Benghazi!!! testimony that they can use to drag this nonsense out until November (and beyond), because they want their neo- fascist demagogue to be elected.  That stain won't go away so easily.

BONUS:  Director Comey also has to answer to questions of abuse of power himself (h/t P.E.C.).

Tweets Of The Day: Media Imbalance

As we noted yesterday in the wake of the FBI's findings on Secretary Clinton's State Department e-mails, the "mainstream media" will be on a mission to plumb those findings and drag out and exaggerate every jot and tittle that can do damage to Ms. Clinton.  Meanwhile, an existential threat to American democracy looms.  But balance!

Balanced MSM take: On the one hand, Trump is a wildly unqualified racist demagogue. On the other, Clinton was sloppy with emails.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 5, 2016

Meanwhile, at "the most trusted name in news," they need more cowbell!

CNN is hiring yet another Trump toady because 3 weren't enough. Who watches this shit? Not me. https://t.co/J81DR4Zd8q

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) July 5, 2016

FBI: Not Recommending Clinton Email Charges

Just now:

After Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI for more than three hours Saturday morning, FBI Director James Comey has announced that he is referring the case to the Department of Justice for a decision. However, in what he characterized as an “unusual statement in at least a couple of ways,” Comey concluded that “we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.” 

Comey detailed the ”painstaking undertaking requiring thousands of hours of effort” involved in investigating Clinton’s email servers to see if emails had contained classified material. In 30,000 emails Clinton turned over, 110 emails contained information that was classified at the time, while 2,000 were up-classified. The FBI also recovered further emails, of which three have been determined to have been classified at the time. “We found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted.” 

Comey characterized Clinton and her colleagues as not having intentionally broken any laws but said that they were “extremely careless” in their email practices involving classified information. The FBI found “no direct evidence” that Clinton’s email servers were hacked. 

Prosecutors will make the decision about whether charges are appropriate on handling of classified material, but the FBI’s recommendation is that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Looking at past cases, “We cannot find a case that would support bringing charges.”  (our emphasis)

Lots of warranted criticism of the carelessness but, as most rational observers have long predicted, no charges are likely now that the investigation has concluded.  Let's see if we can get through the rest of the campaign without any more unforced Clinton errors.

BONUS:  As recently as 2 days ago, this dead- ender in need of medication was predicting an indictment.  Haha HA!

BONUS II:   Gotta rub it in:

HA Goodman rn pic.twitter.com/V8sWW0JSBU

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 5, 2016

No Top-Secret Information In Clinton Emails

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Politic-ho:

The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top-secret information, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

After a review, intelligence agencies concluded that the two emails did not include highly classified intelligence secrets, the source said. Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an ongoing FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email setup.

As sure as the sun rises in the east (a fact perhaps not acknowledged by Republicans) this will be reported in the right- wing media, and attacked by riders in the Republican clown car bus and Benghazi!!!  fetishists as a coverup/ whitewash/ conspiracy (see post below).  Get the Congressional hearings scheduled!  101st Krackpot Keyboarders, battle stations!

Today's Cartoon - The Quest For The Hillary Clinton Holy E-Grail

(click on image to enlarge)

(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

Among the Republicans' most active co-conspirators in the campaign to take down Hillary Clinton is the "liberal" once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle (another being the also "liberal" New York Times).  While both papers' editorial boards eventually might endorse a Democrat, or progressive policies, their reporting staffs are definitely Republican- wired, and when it comes to Hillary Clinton, their wires are always over- heating:

[Charles Pierce] Take, for example, this Washington Post story about Tuesday's e-mail dump. Right from the headline, you know you've entered the universe operating by the Clinton rules.

"Clinton, using private server, wrote and sent e-mails now deemed classified"

[Charles Pierce] And the sensible among us ask, OK, so what? Some clerk in the intelligence community, for reasons that may involve a simple turf war, has classified something ex post facto that was not classified when HRC was handling it. Maybe some schmuck at a cubicle in Langley is doing some discreet ratfcking. Maybe the intelligence community is simply an irredeemable clusterfck. (That's where my money is.) In any case, this is a headline about nothing.

"Although government officials deemed the e-mails classified after Clinton left office…"

[Charles Pierce] OK, so there's no story here. Let's all get a beer.

"… they could complicate her efforts to move beyond the political fallout from the controversy."

[Charles Pierce] They "could" do that. Since there is now a lucrative cottage industry dedicated to "complicating" HRC's campaign, I'd say it was likely. Hell, there are people who would use what her grandmother had for lunch one day in 1933 to "complicate" her efforts. There is no news here.

Keep in mind the Bezos Bugle and the Times both took a plunge into Clinton Conspiracy Crackpottery when they made a deal with right wing rube fleecer Peter Schweizer, to take excerpts from his debunked "expose" of the Clintons, "Clinton Cash."  The only money trail the sleuthing reporters found in that exercise was the trail leading from the bank accounts of the Bugle and Times back to Schweizer's pocket.   Rubes fleeced;  Mission Accomplished.

So. Must. Find. Something.  We're sure with the help of their Republican "sources," these intrepid tribunes of the people will come up with a lot of bogus trash and non-news in the next year.  All the swill that's unfit to print.

The Panic In Noodle Park*

As desperate Republicans and their handmaidens in the media flog the Clinton email non-scandal, and resultant "panic" among "some Democrats," Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution gives us a little perspective:

The hypocrisy in this case is also pretty rich, because the use of outside email accounts is a pretty standard and open secret in government at almost all levels, from local to national.  The former and current Republican governors now attacking Clinton — Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal — have all dealt with similar controversies, as did Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

And during the George W. Bush administration, some 88 senior officials in the Bush White House were discovered to have used non-governmental email accounts to conduct government business and evade transparency requirements; email from more than 50 of those officials — amounting to somewhere between 5 million and 20 million emails — somehow disappeared and most were never recovered. Nobody was prosecuted for it.

One more point: There’s no evidence that Clinton’s email system was ever compromised, and as we’ve seen from recent hacks, keeping her emails on a “protected” government server would not exactly have been a guarantee of secrecy from prying foreign eyes. That doesn’t excuse her decision, but it’s nonetheless true.  (our emphasis)

Whether it's Whitewater, or Benghazi!!!, or the Clinton Foundation, or this, Clinton-haters have always been engaged in throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.  Sometimes, as Bookman notes, unforced errors by the Clinton operation compound the situation.  But mostly it's a lot of noise generated by Republicans with the avid assistance of puerile Clinton-hating "journalists" who love a good horse race, to hell with the implications for our country.

The Beltway Boyz love to write about "Democrats in panic mode" (never offering any names, because sources!).  We fully believe that there are spineless, hand-wringing Democrats (=cough= Schumer =cough=), and Democrats who are shilling for one candidate or another.  But for every "Democrat in panic mode," we bet there are 50 Democrats who still wouldn't trade places with wrong- side- of- history Republicans and their catastrophic clown show.

* Apologies to Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, and James Mills.

BONUS:  Nate Cohn would also like to inject some reality into the equation.

Poll: Hillary Clinton Seen More Favorably Now Than Before Republican And Media Attacks

Do tell:

Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have initially weathered a barrage of news about her use of a private email account when she was secretary of state and the practices of her family’s foundation, an indication that she is starting her second presidential bid with an unusual durability among Democratic voters.

Americans now view Mrs. Clinton more favorably and more see her as a strong leader than they did earlier in the year, despite weeks of scrutiny about her ethics, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. And nearly nine in 10 Democrats say the nation is ready to elect a woman president.  (our emphasis)

No doubt this will only spur Republicans and their media enablers (=cough= Lizard Cillizza =cough= Ruth(less) Marcus =cough=) to even greater heights of non-scandal mongering.  But as much as they flogged the private email account non-scandal, who's talking about that now?  We believe the same will be true with the Clinton Foundation non-scandal, except that the negative media coverage is encouraging donors to back off, to the detriment of people around the world who benefit from the Foundation's charities.  Nice work, dicks.

Here's a clue for the media:  most people have become inured to this.  They had eight years of Republicans and the media trying to impugn and impeach the Clintons.  People have observed and lived with the Clintons for nearly 25 years, and guess what:  they've made up their minds about them already.  More importantly, they see the cruel, reactionary policies and feather-weight alternatives on the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party side, and they're sentient enough to know what's important and what's not, unlike your "mainstream media."

Hillary Clinton Needs To Work On Her Crap Deflector

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has some worthy observations and good advice in the wake of the "scandal"-driven media's obsession with picking every scab with the name "Clinton" on it:

But those who say the episode is about Clinton’s alleged sense of entitlement have it wrong. This actually speaks to her hard-earned paranoia about what her opponents — and the media, which in her view so often play ball with them — are willing to do to destroy her. Her mistrust may be understandable in light of the past, but it is profoundly counterproductive. 

It would be naive to suggest that being more open with the media always works in favor of the transparent politician. Clinton can highlight the fact that her much-praised answer-every-question news conference on Whitewater in 1994 failed to shut down the story. She also turned out to be right that no good would come the Clintons’ way from naming a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. [snip] 

... To survive the next 20 months until Election Day, she will have to find her way toward a less viscerally antagonistic view of media scrutiny that distinguishes between partisan muggings and the sorts of questions all presidential candidates inevitably confront. 

It may be true that recent days showed she has enemies and harsh critics not only among Republicans but also in mainstream media circles. But focusing solely on them will only encourage her to delay responding to legitimate inquiries and to write off advisers who counsel her toward a less-hostile approach to scrutiny. 

Just reading the once great Washington Post's Bezos Bugle's coverage and analysis of the "scandal" gives you a pretty good sense of how the narrative the Republicans ("Benghazi!!!") and their willing cohorts in the media (note the accompanying photo with the Lizard Cillizza article) will be reinforced whenever possible in the next 20 months.  And that's just one outlet of many.  It's not going to be pretty, and that's why Dionne is right on the mark that Clinton needs to adopt a different approach to deflecting the inevitable crap that's headed her way.

While the Republicans continue to play the media like a cheap violin, you also have the usual spineless Democrats wringing their hands and speaking on- and- off- the- record with the Jimmy Olsens of the Beltway Village.  While it's a given that many in the Democratic Party and it's hangers-on in the consulting world are preternaturally skittish or are simply feeling left out, they need to remember the environment in which all of this is happening.  Republicans, having nothing but a fully-loaded clown car of prospective nominees, are doing what they do best:  trying to cut down the presumptive Democratic nominee as much as possible (and, yes, she will be the nominee if she wants it). Democrats need to get into their 2016 campaign mode fast because the Republicans (and their media megaphones) are already well into it.

BONUS:  Paul Waldman says it all right here:

While the Clintons bear responsibility for getting many of those scandals going with questionable decision-making or behavior, it's also true that the mainstream media made huge mistakes during that period by treating every Republican charge, no matter how ludicrous, as though it was worthy of a full-scale investigation splashed across the front page. Again and again, they reacted to the most thinly justified accusations as though the next Watergate or Iran-Contra was at hand, and when it turned out that there was no corruption or illegality to be found, they simply moved on to the next faux-scandal, presented no less breathlessly. 

That past — and journalists' failures to reckon with it — are still affecting coverage today. When this email story broke, how many journalists said it was important because it "plays into a narrative" of Hillary Clinton as scandal-tainted? I must have heard it a dozen times just in the past week. 

Here's a tip for my fellow scribes and opinionators: If you find yourself justifying blanket coverage of an issue because it "plays into a narrative," stop right there. That's a way of saying that you can't come up with an actual, substantive reason this is important or newsworthy, just that it bears some superficial but probably meaningless similarity to something that happened at some point in the past. It's the updated version of "out there" — during the Clinton years, reporters would say they had no choice but to devote attention to some scurrilous charge, whether there was evidence for it or not, because someone had made the charge and therefore it was "out there." (our emphasis)

Today's Cartoon Twofer - Get Out The Knives

(click on images to enlarge)

(Jim Morin, The Miami Herald)

(Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

When those honest, ready to govern Republicans come for a knife fight, Democrats need to bring their "guns."

Hillary Clinton's E-Mails: More Grist For The Scandal-Driven Media

When you start seeing the puerile "mainstream media" tossing around terms like "bombshell" and "scandal," you can generally bet it's an Obama- or Clinton-bashing tale.

The latest kerfuffle is over the fact that Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail account when she was Secretary of State.  Unforced error?  Obviously.  Legal?  Probably so.  "Scandal worthy?" Benghazi!!! Let's start with Jon Stewart's take on the matter:

The Daily Show
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O.K.  Fair enough.  In fact, we would heartily endorse Digby's "disclaimer" about the media's latest "pseudo-scandal" (with our emphasis):

I am going to issue the standard disclaimer that if Clinton did something real bring it on.  But this is a patented pseudo-scandal planted by the Benghazi bullshit squad and I'm not jumping on the bandwagon. 

If somebody wants to do an expose of Clinton's cozy relationship with Wall Street, her hawkish foreign policy or her penchant for nonsensical bipartisan cant, that's perfectly fair.  In fact, it's necessary. I think a hardcore investigation into the Clinton Foundation and all its opaque financial dealings is absolutely in bounds. But when they start recycling rightwing Benghazi crapola, referencing Whitewater,talking about her "calculating Machiavellian character"  and don't even have a clue about what it is she's supposed to have done wrong, just that it doesn't "pass the smell test", I'm going to be ornery. This is the Village in all its glory and I'm sad to say that a new generation of Villagers is just as willing to chase the shiny object for the Dark Ops wingnuts as their forebears. 

This is the scandal-driven media at its absolute worst... again... fed by a Republican smear machine that is pulling out all the stops to rough up Clinton.

Hey, you want a real scandal?  How about how the media has ignored or played down the greatest political story of the last 50 years:  the radicalization of the Republican Party.  They can still take a cue from Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, who identified the problem in April 2012 (spoiler alert: "the Republicans are the problem") and offered this advice to the media:

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?

(Ed. note: Of course, if the Beltway Village actually followed that advice, it would depopulate the Sunday talking heads shows of both politicians and pundits.)  We're sure the media will hop on that just as it did 3 years (and a lot of insanity) ago, after they finish flogging "e-mailgate."

BONUS:  Ed Kilgore helpfully reminds us that there are also reasons some Democratic Party hacks have to keep this "scandal" going.  Good read.