This Spade Really IS Being Called a Spade. Surprisingly.
THE F.B.I. is currently investigating the hacking of Americans’ computers by foreign governments. Russia is a prime suspect. Imagine a possible connection between a candidate for president in the United States and the Russian computer hacking. Imagine the candidate has business dealings in Russia, and has publicly encouraged the Russians to hack the email of his opponent and her associates.
It would not be surprising for the F.B.I. to include this candidate and his campaign staff in its confidential investigation of Russian computer hacking.
But it would be highly improper, and an abuse of power, for the F.B.I. to conduct such an investigation in the public eye, particularly on the eve of the election. It would be an abuse of power for the director of the F.B.I., absent compelling circumstances, to notify members of Congress from the party opposing the candidate that the candidate or his associates were under investigation. It would be an abuse of power if F.B.I. agents went so far as to obtain a search warrant and raid the candidate’s office tower, hauling out boxes of documents and computers in front of television cameras.
The F.B.I.’s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election.
That is why the F.B.I. presumably would keep those aspects of an investigation confidential until after the election. The usual penalty for a violation is termination of federal employment.
And that is why, on Saturday, I filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics. I have spent much of my career working on government ethics and lawyers’ ethics, including two and a half years as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, and I never thought that the F.B.I. could be dragged into a political circus surrounding one of its investigations. Until this week.
— On Clinton Emails, Did the F.B.I. Director Abuse His Power?, Richard W. Painter, New York Times, today
Actually, the idea that materials gathered in a governmental investigation resolved without prosecution should, in the name of transparency, be made known in summary form when relevant for the guidance of voters is quite frightening.
— Comey’s mistaken quest for transparency, Donald B. Ayer, Washington Post, today
When I chose the title for this post on Friday, I didn’t expect that people who actually matter—a lot of them, as there are by now—would outright say this. I’m very happy to have been proved wrong.
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UPDATE: Cool. (PDF document.) Also, a cool comment on it at the end of this article. There’s an incredibly strong consensus that Comey abused his office. Didn’t expect that. But it’s happened.
Added 10/30 at 7:13 p.m.
As well as a fair amount of dissension within the FBI about Comey’s actions; that is, opposing them.
You know what is the scariest and most absurd part of Comey’s offered reasons? That he was afraid he would be accused of a cover-up.
So he’s saying one of two things: Either he himself thinks that not releasing raw information learned through a search warrant, the significance of which his agency does not yet know because it needs a new search warrant to learn more, amounts to a cover-up. Or he himself knows it does not, but is so cowed by the prospect that some political forces will erroneously call it that, that he releases raw information learned through a search warrant.
That alone should cause Obama to fire him. Does Comey also think it’s a cover-up to withhold from the public information learned through grand jury testimony? Does he think that OTHER law enforcement agencies should announce to the public raw information learned through a search warrant?
And does this definition of cover-up apply only just before an election, to information about a candidate? He did say, after all–stunningly; this IS the FBI director, remember–that his very purpose was to “inform” the public about new, utterly raw information about a candidate (for president, no less) obtained through law enforcement policy powers.
Where exactly does he think this use of police investigatory power ends?
I think Obama needs to make clear that it ends well before where Comey has now said it ends. And he needs to do that NOW, not after the election.
Something about informing the public before the election–as Comey himself would say.
Firing Comey now would be an incredible explosion that would probably result in articles of impeachment being filed before the election. It isn’t going to happen.