A dirty trick that won’t change the outcome - Katrina vanden Heuvel

[Bill USA]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-dirty-trick-that-wont-change-the-outcome/2016/11/01/0b94b1de-9fc0-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html

Boo. Last week, FBI Director James B. Comey decided to scare up this election’s October surprise, writing to inform 16 congressional committee chairs and ranking members that the FBI had discovered emails in an unrelated investigation that potentially could be linked to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Subsequent leaks led the New York Times to report that the emails were found on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-New York congressman and estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and “surrogate daughter.”

Frenzy ensued. Donald Trump immediately embraced the agency he had excoriated; the Clinton campaign attacked Comey directly. The New York Post called it the “stroking gun.” “Could Anthony Weiner’s E-Mails Cost Hillary Her Job?” asked the ever-hyperbolic Larry Kudlow. Livid Democrats opted for Kremlin-baiting. Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, a Clinton surrogate, tweeted that Comey, a Republican, “put himself on the same side as [Vladimir] Putin.” Senate leader Harry Reid charged that Comey had “explosive information” about “coordination” between Donald Trump and “the Russian government.”

Early polls suggested that most Americans would not be influenced by the news, but some might. In a race that was already tightening — as both major candidates firmed up their support in their own parties — partisans on both sides escalated the spitball volleys.

Let’s be clear. Comey’s astounding act was a deplorable and reckless dereliction of duty. He spurned Justice Department objections and ignored long-standing guidelines that the Justice Department or the FBI not release information about investigations within 60 days of an election. “There’s a longstanding policy of not doing anything that could influence an election,” George J. Terwilliger III, former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, told the New York Times on Saturday. “Those guidelines exist for a reason. Sometimes, that makes for hard decisions. But bypassing them has consequences.”
(more)

[chelsea0011]

1. After HRC becomes POTUS, I will get a thrill when Obama kicks his ass out of FBI Director

[rurallib]

2. Here is hoping that his ffotnote in history is as a laughing stock

[world wide wally]

3. The FBI needs a major housecleaning.

We need some kind of undercover policing in the war against terrorism.
Repeal and Replace the fucking FBI

[BlueMTexpat]

4. This ...

“Those guidelines exist for a reason. Sometimes, that makes for hard decisions. But bypassing them has consequences.”

Let Comey and any FBI leakers to the Trump campaign feel the full effect of those consequences!