Comey’s choice
Today there’s a lot more news about FBI director James Comey’s announcement of the discovery of more Hillary Clinton emails that require further investigation.
What we know now—some of it from undisclosed sources—is that the emails appear to have been discovered during the Anthony Weiner investigation, on Huma Abedin’s computer, seized as part of that investigation. We don’t know their content, or whether they actually implicate Hillary and if so what the offense is.
And we probably won’t know till after the election.
That makes for a strange and ambiguous situation. Comey has been heavily criticized for releasing this information right before the election (by Hillary supporters I bet would not be at all critical if it implicated Donald Trump). But Comey was required to disclose further developments in the case by his previous testimony before Congress:
Why did FBI Director James Comey shock Washington on Friday with an announcement that the FBI “has learned of the existence of emails” related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and what does it mean?
The truth is Comey didn’t have a choice. Because the new information followed his sworn testimony about the case, Comey was obligated by Department of Justice rules to keep the relevant committees apprised…
Comey’s letter to congressional committee chairs doesn’t say his agents have discovered new witnesses or documents suggesting a criminal act occurred. Rather, he only suggests that evidence that has not yet been examined needs to be reviewed because it is relevant to the case.
There’s also a political dimension. Had Comey not told Congress and it emerged after the election that new materials had come into its possession, the director and his entire agency’s credibility might have been questioned.
Not that they haven’t been questioned already, big time. I guess, though, that they might have been further questioned—which is happening anyway.
Yesterday I wrote that I don’t think this news of further emails will matter much. I still don’t think it will matter much, although I know a lot of people disagree with me. But it’s just too general and hazy; there’s no smoking gun, and Hillary supporters will have no trouble whatsoever shrugging it off.
The Hillary supporters I know (and I know a lot of them) are for the most part not flaming leftists or anywhere near it. Many of them are not even especially keen on her. But most of them consider Donald Trump completely and utterly unacceptable in every way, and would not vote for him even if Hillary had tortured and killed a puppy on live TV, cackling maniacally all the while.
In a way, these people are the exact flip side of the people on the right who excuse every single bad thing about Trump because they believe Hillary is some form of devil in human guise, “Stalin in a pantsuit,” etc.. Many Hillary supporters believe something equivalent in its awfulness about Donald Trump. So something as relatively small as this has no chance whatsoever of changing their minds.
I don’t know whether the following reaction of Clinton’s means she agrees with me, or whether it was just bravado on her part. I’m sure she’s at least worried by the news:
Clinton laughed when…a reporter asked her if Comey’s letter would “sink” the campaign.
I continue to see this election as a tragedy.
If Mrs. Clinton is worried, we might suppose that’s in large measure due to her own better knowledge (than ours) of what’s not only present in Abedin’s computer files, but far more that Mrs. Clinton perfectly well understands what it is that she has wittingly done wrong, and further what has transpired out of our sight as a consequence of her decisions to deceive. No? She has perhaps the best grasp of anyone what would come to pass should all her machinations come to light. Which in turn neatly explains her pains to keep all in the dark.
That’s a runaround on my part, then. But it only begins with Mrs. Clinton’s decision to give everyone the runaround. And she knows this best of all.
This matter really became a bazaar..
You got a women did email from her personal email and FBI that agency looking after US security keep looking for it?
what that meant to all this fuss of emails and things just sick and tired of news and media to level of sickness that we got Kim Kardashian a star of nation, a S* her news every where on TV on Shows on newspaper finally making news in Paris, she is very worried been Raped!!!
excuse me what that word means or to do with a women like her.
So you Got Hillary and Trump no other choices, chose or loose.
If Neo is correct,and this will make no difference in the election, then HRC is the next president. BUT, as I just read other places, if the FBI investigation does find the new emails (some say they are the 33,000 deleted emails) to contain new evidence, then a constitutional crisis is in the making. We would have a situation where a president-elect could be under indictment. The Electoral College now takes on a whole new dimension from its modern form as a rubber stamp.
physicsguy:
Yes, “interesting times” indeed.
If by some strange chance she’s impeached/convicted, though (which I doubt, by the way), that would merely mean we’d have President Kaine.
physicsguy:
As for the Electoral College, I don’t think the revelations would come out in time for that to be a factor.
It may be useful to start comparing this to Watergate, and to look at the timeline of events in that scandal, from several decades ago. The theory may be that one can keep a few things secret, but not everything can be covered up forever.
And it’s not just FBI Director Comey who has a role now in what is going on; the U.S. Congress still has existing powers to investigate anything, and furthermore there are today independent operators like Wikileaks. Some very interesting revelations may still come out.
The electoral college votes on Dec. 19th this year. Twenty-five states have laws that require the electors to vote for the person who received the popular vote majority in that state.
So, it appears to me that you’re right on two counts Neo. Any revelations to come both wouldn’t come in time and even if they did it wouldn’t make any difference in 25 states.
A very interesting development indeed. What an end to 2016 we’re in for.
Obama has a history of substituting executive orders for laws. I wonder what effect that might have?
Investigations, as we have seen before, are not speedy affairs. So this will have no impact on the election. Comey did great damage to his reputation when it was obvious he should have made a referral to Lynch, even knowing she would not indict. I see this as Comey attempting to get back some of what he lost in July.
Clinton Laughed? Well turnabout is fair play…
Please share if you enjoy!
Tragedy — as in Macbeth?
A problem with her hands? Stains ? Blood stains ?
Lady Macbeth ought to have used Bit Bleach.
&&&&&
There was a time of innocence.
A time when I thought a captured Press only existed in Nazism, Bolshevism, Maoism….
My bad !
Trump is vulgar, boorish.
Hillary is treacherous, criminal, — Boss Tweed in a pants suit.
Two funnies and a serious:
https://earloftaint.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/weiner.jpg
http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2016/10/Tech-fix.jpeg
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/what-goes-around-comes-around.php
blert:
As I’ve written many many times, Trump supporters seem to have a habit of trivializing and mischaracterizing the objections of non-Trump supporters. I wrote a comment to “meh” earlier on Saturday that said as much; I refer you to it if you haven’t seen it.
But seriously, why do you do this? Why do so many Trump supporters do this? I certainly don’t object to Trump because he is merely “vulgar, boorish.” Would that that were all he was, it would be a great relief.
I’ve written literally hundreds of posts on Trump’s propensity for tyranny, retribution, his profound and potentially extremely dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance in foreign affairs (and many other affairs as well), his juvenile character and lack of judgment and impulse control, his narcissism, his constant and pathological lying and his con man personality, and his big government liberalism in many areas. That’s just some of it, but if you’re read this blog (and you are a regular here, so I’m assuming you have) you would know that my objections to Trump are far far more profound than vulgarity and boorishness, and that is also true of 99% (perhaps 100%) of the commenters here.
In fact, the only reason he has not done as much as Hillary Clinton in terms of being “Boss Tweed” is that he hasn’t been in government. Once he gets there, there is no reason to imagine he would be the least bit better.
All last spring and into summer, James Comey’s FBI investigated Hillary Clinton. We know from subsequent reports that she lied through her teeth to the investigators, as well as making statements (“I thought the ‘C’ marking next to a paragraph was an alphabetical designation”) that would be laughable, were it not for the fact that she was laughing at the FBI, at the rule of law, and indirectly, laughing at each and every one of us.
James Comey laid out in great detail the case against Clinton, only to seemingly contradict himself by not recommending legal action (e.g., grand jury). We know about Bill Clinton meeting with the Attorney General at the airport days before Comey’s report to the nation. We also know about those various lists of people who, over time, have crossed the Clintons and are now no longer counted among the living.
For me, which is all I can speak for, I’m guessing Comey has seen at least one of those lists as well. And so last July, he did out of self-preservation what was expected of him.
And now this Weiner-Abedin evidence falls into his lap; what do we make of it? Once again, for me, which is all I can speak for, I think Comey has been beside himself since July, utterly galled and disgusted by what he felt he had to do to save his skin. The reopening of the case won’t amount to much: I know that and everyone, including James Comey, knows that.
But this latest turn of events is too good for Comey to pass up (speculates M J R), particularly given reports of rumblings of rage and disgust from levels underneath the FBI directorship. I speculate that reopening the case is a way that Comey can express his disgust, his rage, at his impotence, as well as at Clinton’s in-your-face flouting of justice; that it’s a pathetic way for Comey to get even with the Clinton machine for ruining his (and the FBI’s) good name.
Your mileage may vary . . .
And now this Weiner-Abedin evidence falls into his lap; what do we make of it?
—————–
Unfortunately, we don’t really know enough. It’s entirely possible that the entire point of the investigation is to determine whether Huma Abedin should get a perjury charge, and there’s nothing here that can be run back to Hillary (based on what the DoJ already declined to prosecute). But we probably won’t know anything further about this until after the new president is sworn in.
34% takes a three way race. The latest FBI action may be the trigger that causes a Hillary collapse.
The only ticket that can stop Trump is Johnson/Weld, and Hillary has set the stage for an LP surge by focusing almost entirely on how unacceptable Trump is.
If she slips a lot in the next few days, will the MSM start promoting Johnson/Weld as the non-Trump savior.
These are strange times, it can happen.
Neo. Trump is not an Alinskyite would tyrant determined to ruin the nation. His closest aides are not connected to the Muslim brotherhood. He does not get billions from enemies of the US. He’s the lesser. He might get even progressives to wonder about unchecked Fed government power. That would be neat.
Bret Baier on twitter this morning:
The mention of Mr. Weiner’s cooperation apparently ties to other stories (I’ve seen one at Yahoo by Michael Issakoff) which claim that as of Sat. night the FBI had no warrant to look at the e-mails on the target computer, and was in “negotiations” with the DoJ how “best” (ha! best!) to proceed on that question. Baier’s implication seems to be this: that if Mr. Weiner (the co-owner of the laptop) permits, then the FBI does not need a warrant to peruse the e-mails at all. Oh what, does this then imply that the wider story has run into another blind alley cast up by other sources informing Mr. Issakoff? Nah. Surely not.
Richard Aubrey:
Actually, Trump is an Alinskyite; he’s a natural Alinskyite, whether he’s formally studied Alinsky or not. I wrote about it here.
He is also everything I wrote in my comment here. We have no idea what he really wants to do with the country, other than gain power. I don’t believe a word a con man says.
But let’s say his motives are good, just for the sake of argument. He is in way over his head, and understands very little about the geopolitical situation. I do not trust his judgment at all, and I do not trust him to pick good advisors or to listen to them if he does pick them.
No, his closest aides are not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (I assume you’re referring to Abedin; I don’t think there’s anyone else among Hillary’s “closest aides” who fits that description, nor do I think that Hillary is actually in league with the Muslim Brotherhood). Some of Trump’s closest aides are in league with the white supremacist parts of the alt-right.
And if you’re actually serious about the statement that Trump “might get even progressives to wonder about unchecked Fed government power,” I think you’re seriously naive. They already wonder about “unchecked Fed government power” if it’s wielded by the right; no need to foster that sentiment. Trump will only make them ever more certain that they are the ones needing to have “unchecked Fed Government power,” in order to check the likes of Trump and his minions.
If Trump becomes president, I hope that I’m underestimating him. He has almost nowhere to go but up in my estimation.
Blert – “Trump’s propensity for tyranny, retribution, his profound and potentially extremely dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance in foreign affairs (and many other affairs as well), his juvenile character and lack of judgment and impulse control, his narcissism, his constant and pathological lying and his con man personality, and his big government liberalism in many areas. That’s just some of it,”
The reasons we’ve focused on what you call the trivial case against Trump is that that is what you hear most in the news and most of the anti-Trump crowd.
You’v listed a number of what are to you non-trivial cases against Trump and I’d like to say we’ve considered them as well and haven’t found then to be as bad as you think they are. Some examples:
Propensity for tyranny – This is a common trait among business owners but it doesn’t prevent them from compromising when necessary to be successful.
Retribution – He doesn’t seem to have an abnormal amount of this to us. What you call retribution can often be just refusing to do business with a person or company that has treated you unfairly in your mind.
Ignorance – We don’t think he’s ignorant except in the ways of politics and we consider that a plus. He’s certainly well educated and shows no signs of being unable to learn what he will need as president. Also, he has a history of hiring smart people he can trust and trusting them.
Arrogance, juvenile character, narcissism, con man personality & impulse control – are personality traits that is very common to politicians and successful businessmen. Unless they rise to the level that they prevent him from being successful, they fall into the trivial category in this election. We certainly think he’s much better on all of them than Clinton.
Big government liberalism – This is laughable to call his this when compared to Clinton. Compared to her he’s Reagan. As I’ve said in the past, he’s neither liberal nor conservative; he’s a pragmatarian and will go either way depending on his judgement as to what will work in the given situation. We gave up the chance to get a committed conservative during the primaries.
Pathological lying – I assume you’re referring to bragging and spinning things to his end, and even then he does it only in furtherance of his goal. That’s not pathological. We’ve seen no tendency to lie for no reason. Clinton, on the other hand, seems truly pathological. She has shown a tendency to lie even when the truth would serve her better.
So you see, we don’t just dismiss the things you consider serious. We just have a different take on them than you do. Remember the saying – I’m firm, she’s stubborn and he’s pigheaded.
We interpret his failings in the best light and you seem to interpret them in the worst. That’s fine but don’t say we haven’t considered them.
Think of Trump as a stomach flu, awful but it will pass or at least the mortality is low, whereas Hillary, because of her culture of corruption, is stomach cancer. In short both make one sick but only one is certain death.
That said, it is an effort for me to see Trump for all his ramblings as anything other than a loud mouthed clown.
Bob – Nicely put in both cases.
It can be a daunting prospect to think how to fashion Trump as an Alinskyite — though the clearest path is certainly through a unity or at least similarity of a matter of what we call technique. Trump’s aims alike to Alinsky’s aims? Well, not so much in any particular sense — apart from the general idea that power is the end — owing to Saul Alinsky’s particular dedication to empowering the “have nots” over the “haves” (these are Saul’s terms as I understand them).
The bisecting question in the diaeresis is necessarily the question “Power for what?” These aims (the “for what?”) of Alinsky are not at all Donald Trump’s aims, so far as we can see. I do not attempt to set down Trump’s aims here, beyond his seeking power for power’s sake — owing to my profession of ignorance of Trump’s aims. I cannot know those now (and this is indeed the fundamental political problem with Trump) — he alone can demonstrate them over time with action. When it comes to that, many people may discover that they would have preferred to never have been subject to learning of them.
But we do see that Saul Alinsky learned a great deal and took a great deal from Niccolo Machiavelli by way of technique — for again, Machiavelli’s aims are not congruent with Alinsky’s aims. Indeed, in large measure, as Machiavelli’s aims were long ago achieved successfully, these achievements were in Alinsky’s day precisely what Alinsky sought to overthrow, and this by using Machiavelli’s techniques against him.
So in this sense, on grounds of technique, we come to reckon Trump as an Alinskyite in the same fashion as we come to reckon Alinsky as a Machiavellian.
Does this imply then that derivatively Trump is a Machiavellian (again, on grounds of technique: we do not assert they hold the same ends; on the contrary, we deny they hold the same ends)?
If so, then most probably we’ll have to come to terms with the idea that Donald Trump is the most ignorant follower of Niccolo Machiavelli who has ever lived.
I don’t see Trump on a quest for power except insofar as it leads to him being a ‘big shot.’ It appears to me that’s his goal. He wants the approval, even the adoration, of others.
Clinton seems to be on a quest for power. She has never seemed to care about approval of others, only that they do as she commands.
It seems to me that there’s a difference between seeking approval and seeking control but I’ll leave that to the professional psychologists. Neo………..?
sdferr:
Trump is both an Alinksyite AND a Machiavellian.
Yeah neo, I’m saying, though with appended limitations, like, y’know, the shittiest one who ever lived.
Irv Greenberg:
I’m not a psychologist; that’s a specific term for someone with an MA or PhD in psychology.
But I can tell you most definitely I see Trump as on a quest for power and drunk with power, and having no respect for the checks and balances that would bind him if he’s in power.
I have fully documented why I believe this, and if you aren’t familiar with my reasons for saying so there’s little I can say now about it except to reiterate it is based on his previous actions and his own statements, as well as his personality.
I also recall an interview with him some decades ago (I’ve read a biography of him and many many interviews of him over the years, but I don’t recall which interview this was) where he said point blank that money didn’t really interest him. What interested him was power. He was very specific and upfront about it back then.
Bob from Virginia; Irv Greenberg:
Why should I see “Trump as a stomach flu, Hillary as stomach cancer”? I see them both as equally fatal, and believe me I’ve studied the guy in great great depth, both now and in his past statements.
I do not see him as a loud mouthed clown at all, and I think those who do so are seriously underestimating him. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Neo – It just appears to me that the word ‘power’ means something entirely different to Trump than to Clinton. There are lots of different kinds of power, some are benign and some are malevolent. I judge his type of power to be less of a threat to the country than her type. That’s what I was trying to say.
Irv Greenberg:
You seem to have a habit of setting up strawmen and arguing against them. You haven’t just done this one time; you have done this quite a bit, and you just did it again.
It’s either unconscious and unintentional, or it’s purposeful.
In your comment you wrote:
No, it’s not. That’s the strawman you’re setting up. I don’t focus on them here, and you are writing on this blog. Other commenters who are anti-Trump on this blog don’t focus on them either. I read a lot of blogs and comments elsewhere that are anti-Trump, as well as periodicals such as National Review that are against him, and I see very few of these objections that are of a trivial nature. Very few. You are simply incorrect about this.
You also wrote:
“Don’t say we haven’t considered them”? But I did not say that you yourself had not considered them. So that’s another strange strawman of yours. What I said was (and I said it quite clearly) that you characterize the people who object to Trump in ways that ignore those non-trivial objections of theirs, not that you yourself had never considered those objections of theirs.
Here was my comment. Nowhere in it do I suggest that you, or other people mounting the same arguments that trivialize the objections of Trump critiques, were not aware of those objections and had not considered them themselves (although you don’t agree with those arguments, of course). I wrote [emphasis mine]:
I think that is crystal clear.
Irv Greenberg:
Yes, you are indeed free to ignore the danger signs that I believe are crystal clear with Trump—who has never been in power and has therefore never had the opportunity to give political vent to them.
If Trump becomes president, I hope you are correct. I see no reason to think so at this point, however.
Neo – Sorry again. Too often I speak in general terms I guess. I certainly didn’t intend to use the ‘strawman’ fallacy. I am familiar with it and would never use it intentionally. I have always considered it a dishonest way to debate.
It seems to me there’s been in the mainstream media a focus on things like, what were called under Clinton, bimbo eruptions and Trump’s crass personality traits and very little focus on policy. What I meant was that often Trump supporters are responding to that even if it wasn’t the exact point.
In the comments section of this blog there is a certain amount of that type of criticism mixed in with the serious. Perhaps because of the focus on it in the mainstream media we have a tendency to see it everywhere. Again, sorry for that.
At any rate, all I was trying to do was answer the comment to the effect that pro-Trumpers so often trivialize and mischaracterize others’ objections. I tried to do it by taking the things listed and answering them one by one from a pro Trump point of view.
I was trying to say that we see these characteristics/traits in a different light. What many see as threatening to the country we see as not so threatening or easily thwarted. It’s not an attempt to trivialize objections, it’s an evaluation of them from a different point of view.
I’m sure many of my pro Trump arguments seems trivial to you in light of your evaluation of how serious your points are. It doesn’t mean we take them lightly, it means we have evaluated them and find them not as persuasive.
When we are accused of trivializing the objections it says to me you don’t think we take them seriously. I can assure you that is not the case.
Irv Greenberg:
I believe that you are well-intentioned. Nevertheless you use strawmen quite a bit. I think you need to take more care in reading what other people are actually saying, and more care in trying to tailor your responses to it.
And I never suggested you or others don’t take the more serious arguments of the Trump opponents seriously, although you do dismiss them and/or disagree with them. My focus here, and in many other posts and comments, is on the fact that you (and many others) continue to trivialize or mischaractize those objections of Trump critics and/or fail to even mention them when you (and others) are setting up what I consider a falsely simple dichotomy between Clinton and Trump.
The objections to both are very serious, and it’s insulting to Trump opponents to pretend that they are objecting merely because they don’t like Trump’s language, or style, or boorishness, or for other relatively minor reasons, particularly when the more serious objections have been outlined over and over again.
I don’t know why Trump supporters so often do that. But I’ve noticed it over and over. One theory I have is that it’s easier that way—easier to make the choice between Hillary and Trump seem easier by making the objections of other people to Trump seem much more trivial than they are.
Neo – To us the dichotomy between Trump and Clinton is real because we evaluate them entirely differently than you do. It’s only a false dichotomy if your point of view is correct and there is very little real difference in how they will affect the future of the country. Calling it a false dichotomy assumes your position is correct and ours isn’t.
In my earlier post I was trying to answer the criticism of us trivializing by answering the ones you listed from our point of view. In the future I will try to avoid comments that make it seem like anti-Trump arguments are only the trivial ones, but I reserve the right to evaluate the non-trivial ones as less important than the presenter thinks they are.
Irv Greenberg:
As Reagan might say, there you go again.
Take a look at what I actually wrote [emphasis mine]:
You wrote in reply:
Take a look again at what I wrote. (1) I was talking about the dichotomy you use when you talk about Trump opponents’ objections (2) I didn’t say a “false dichotomy,” I said a “falsely SIMPLE dichotomy,” meaning you describe the choice for Trump’s opponents as more simple than they actually are. (3) I was careful to use the phrase “what I CONSIDER a falsely simple dichotomy,” making it clear through the phrase “what I consider” that I was stating my opinion only.
Evidently Obama refuses to criticize Comey or his actions, saying that he’s a man of integrity (per his spokesman). Perhaps Jarrett told Comey to go ahead and renew the investigation?
“Can no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
JuliB, Sean Davis wrote of another possibility (worth considering, I think) to account for the White House’s conflicted stance on Comey (conflicted, that is, with other prominent Democrats): Here’s The Real Reason Obama Won’t Throw FBI Director James Comey Under The Bus