The New Transparency in Government Will Make America Great Again. Believe Me. [Links repaired, 11/5 at 11:29 a.m.]
The people familiar with the investigation said that senior officials had been informed weeks earlier that a computer belonging to former congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, contained emails potentially pertinent to the Clinton investigation. Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, shared the computer with her husband, from whom she is now separated.
….
It is unclear what FBI agents have learned since discovering the emails in early October. But officials say they gained enough information from the email metadata to take the next step, seeking a warrant to review the actual emails. That legal step prompted Comey’s letter to Congress, which has made him a central figure during the stretch run of the presidential campaign.
“He needed to make an informed decision, knowing that once he made that decision, he was taking it to another level,” an official with knowledge of the decision-making process said.
— FBI leaders knew about new emails for weeks before Comey letter, Sari Horwitz, Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, Nov. 2 at 7:37 p.m.
When it was revealed last Friday that there had been a Comey recount and Clinton lost, Solomon turned into Torquemada. But, of course, Comey had no choice. How could he have sat on a trove of 650,000 newly discovered emails and kept that knowledge suppressed until after the election?
— Final days, awful choice, Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, today
The Horwitz and Yakashima article was published online not just by the Washington Post and in its print edition yesterday, but also (apparently) by other newspapers. The link for it that I’m using is to the Chicago Tribune website. Presumably, it appeared also in yesterday’s print edition, along with all the good stuff about the Cubs’ 10th inning Series victory.
I pause here to say to the Cubs on behalf of my late, lifelong-Cubs-fan relatives: Thanks.
But along with that big sports story, there was this: The three paragraphs I quote above contain two profound misstatements—the error in the first of those paragraphs the apparent result of a quick, (I believe) verbatim, copy-and-paste by these journalists from the original, breaking story on Comey’s letter to Congress and quickly afterward, his email to FBI employees.
The letter in which Comey actually said he had sent the letter partly because he wanted to influence voters’ vote choices by providing them with the information in the letter—a fact that has received little press attention and none, to my knowledge, from Clinton and down-ballot Democrats.
Information, during early voting in more than 20 states and absentee voting in every state, and 11 days from the election itself, that Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, shared the computer with her husband, from whom she is now separated.
Information that Comey sent the letter to Congress after a search warrant was obtained and agents had had time to learn information about the metadata—inferentially including the approximate number of emails involved.
The first of those representations is almost certainly wrong, the second unequivocally wrong.
And Krauthammer, a nationally syndicated columnist, is unequivocally wrong, about two things: That, of course, Comey had no choice. And that all, or even remotely close to all, of the 650,000 emails on Weiner’s personal computer were emails between Abedin and Clinton. The claim is logically absurd, and the leaks from the FBI since Friday estimate that about 30,000 of them are to or from Abedin.
The Washington Post’s story on the emails issue today does not repeat those errors. But neither does it expressly correct its report from the day before, and say that it is a correction. It should do this, online today and in print in Sunday’s paper.
Also widely reported over a period of several days, by many, many news organizations, was that Abedin had received a subpoena for all electronic devices she had used to send or receive emails about State Dept. matters, or to or from Clinton. Yesterday, it was reported that that, too, is false.
The news outlets that reported the misinformation should prominently correct it.
But my immediate point is this: Every one of these errors by the journalists who made them—with the exception of Krauthammer’s—was absolutely understandable as inference from Comey’s two public messages on Friday.
But the larger point is that Comey told all the world that law enforcement prosecutorial powers of raw information- and evidence-gathering via the various means available only to law enforcement—including search warrants, grand jury testimony, informants, and plea bargaining deals—are now available to the public if a law enforcement officials or rank-and-file employees opt for transparency. At least if a partisan legislative body has subpoenaed a law enforcement investigative-agency official about an ongoing or closed investigation, and in answering a query during his or her testimony, promises real-time release of any further information or evidence, even before it is known what, if anything at all, the information means that is relevant.
Presumably, this applies in investigations of pretty much anyone or anything. Irrespective of its political potential. But a rule of thumb is that, the closer to an election, and the less known about what the information actually is and whether it is relevant to anything other than political smear, and the higher the office of the candidate at issue, the freer law enforcement officials and rank-and-file employees are to make it known to the public.
As Krauthammer and Comey both say: Of course.
Hope y’all agree. Cuz this is a genie that may be impossible to put back in the bottle.
But I do wonder about this: Isn’t it conservatives—Republicans—who are always raising shouting, “Separation of Powers! Separation of Powers!”
Guess that, too, is no longer true. Right?
The U.S. is already, de facto, a police state. The election next Tuesday is a plebiscite on ratifying that status.
You have some broken links. Looks like you preface the real links with “angrybearblog.com/2016/11 “:
“http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2016/11/%20http://www.mediamatters.org/video/2016/11/02/cnn-adviser-fbi-director-agrees-obama-comey-s-letter-was-incomplete-and-innuendo/214264”
Aaaaargh. Thanks, Warren. Just repaired them.
Meet Donald Trump’s Top FBI Fanboy
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/03/meet-donald-trump-s-top-fbi-fanboy.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/04/maths_defuses_clinton_fbi_mega_bombshell_claim/
Some reasonably good perspective on this from security companies in terms of the volume of messages and the speed at which they could be processed.
Also interesting factoid: the private server in question processed 62,320 emails, and of those 30,490 were already provided by Clinton’s lawyers as being relevant to her official duties.
Trump
Putin
Wikileaks
Jill Stein
FBI “agents”
Put it together people. The Neocons want a war with Iran and the Bush’s won’t come out and play. This is what its all about.
Actually what it’s really about is the politization of the FBI which has been true since J. Edgar Hoover and is still true under james Comey.
There’s a difference, though, between Hoover and Gray and Freeh and (maybe) Mueller, on the one hand, and what’s happening now.
In all the earlier instances, it was the director himself who was ordering the political stuff. In Gray’s instance, actually, it was Nixon who ordered Gray to burn the docs (or whatever it was; I don’t remember).
What’s happening now seems to be coming not from Comey but instead by cabals of agents within the NYC and Washington, DC offices that are trying to force Comey’s hand, and succeeded by threatening him–literally extorting him–with threats of leaks. And in the Bret Baier incident, one NYC agent actually feeding two outright lies.
There are two things about this should get major, major attention in the news media and from Clinton’s high-profile surrogates today, tomorrow and Monday: One is Comey’s pushing this outright lie that he was obligated to “inform” Congress and voters, before the election, about the “new” emails, because he had “testified under oath” that he would spew raw, uncertain information to them should the FBI discover any.
Jack, how completely asinine did that strike you? This claim, which Comey used in the first few hours after he sent that letter, until people in the FBI itself told him he needed to stop making an outright-false claim of law–prompting him to send that email to FBI employees late that afternoon–that “testified under oath” means anything other than, “These are the tangible facts, as they occurred or as they exist right now”?
The transformation of the FBI into a government investigative arm and innuendo and false or partial information arm of the Republican Party during elections is a profound matter. And the decision by the FBI director to announce that federal and state law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies should be “transparent” by announcing raw, unformed, and uncertain information about candidates for public office on the eve of elections so that voters will know about it when they vote is serious banana republic stuff.
The second-last link in the post, one of the broken ones, which I just repaired, is to an op-ed from Thursday by Washington Post columnist Charles Lane, titled “Here’s how you destroy a democratic republic.” Lane is a conservative; not an extreme one but definitely a conservative and a Republican.
The transformation of the FBI into a government investigative arm and innuendo and false or partial information arm of the Republican Party during elections is a profound matter. And the decision by the FBI director to announce that federal and state law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies should be “transparent” by announcing raw, unformed, and uncertain information about candidates for public office on the eve of elections so that voters will know about it when they vote is serious banana republic stuff.
JackD:
The intelligence services have a well established reputation of pretty much every new president not trusting them, and creating a new agency or a new structure for reporting.
It could be that the FBI is overdue for a reorganization or sidelining.
Bev – You’ve been repeating yourself for ten days now. How many blogs does it take to say the same thing? We got your message – Comey is BAD and Hillary is GOOD. We shall see who is the fool soon enough.
Before Christmas the facts will come out. Your girl Hillary is a lying sack of shit. She had Donna Brazille giver her the debate questions so she could beat Bernie Sanders. There is nothing that this woman would stop at.
Will you ever fess up to inventing lies about this? Will you ever admit that you were flat out wrong wrong to support a crook? Time will tell. But I have a few dozen screen saves of your lies. I will remind you when the facts come out.
bk:
The only liar in this election who has not faced up to a congressional investigation is Trump. With the Clintons there has been one blow job proven so far and the special prosecutor on Bill has been found to have covered up a Rape at Baylor. 8 reports and seven investigations on HRC and Repubs have yet to establish anything credible in which to convict. We now have rogue groups making up stories. HRC is going to win and the loser here are going to be Trump and the Republican party. $200 million spent???
Krasting, there are two lies embedded in this single sentence:
“She had Donna Brazille giver her the debate questions so she could beat Bernie Sanders.”
First of all, she didn’t have Brazille give her a question, it was volunteered. Secondly, it wasn’t debate “questions,” it was one question.
Smarter trolls, please.
It was two debate questions, for two consecutive debates last March. But at this point it’s utterly irrelevant. Usher in Trump, and therefore control of the entire panoply of federal agency heads, the Supreme Court, the lower federal benches–cuz Donna Brazile did something unethical?
Or instead vote to make Bernie Sanders the head of a key Senate Committee, the Senate votes to make that matter, a president who will sign the legislation, and Supreme Court and lower federal bench that won’t strike down the legislation? Among other things?
How dumb does Krasting think we are?
Joel According to Politico Brazile gave Clinton questions for the debate AND for a town hall meeting.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/cnn-severs-ties-with-donna-brazile-230534
Does it matter if happened just once? No. She should be disqualified for the one time she played dirty in a debate.
Run – I agree that HRC will win this election. She will have at least 270 electoral votes. I’m not so sure she will get the popular vote however.
But will she be inaugurated? I’m not convinced. The crap against her is going to come out of the woodwork in the weeks after this election.
I doubt that she will make it two years if she does take office. She has lied to Congress. That is a ticket out of the White House.
bk:
Clinton will have well over 300 electoral votes and garner the popular vote. Clinton is up by 5 and 6%. In Trump language, that is “Yuge.”
After 7
REPUBLICAN
investigations, you and the rest of the Republicans have not been able to prove intent or bring charges. The latest has been something known since September and smacks of political intent when brought up a couple of days ago. HRC will withstand it and Repubs again will have to slink around stonewalling the first woman president the same as they did the first black man to inhabit The Big White House. A bunch or bigots and misogynists.
The most Republicans have proved on either Clinton is one blow job. And what is Ken Starr of Bill Clinton fame doing today? Fending off charges of covering up a rape at Baylor. Where is Newt today? Telling Trump he is an idiot for bringing up Bill Clinton. Repubs have a slimy presidential candidate who has been caught red handed doing many things far worst than what either Clinton have been accused of and proven to have done.
This will be an over whelming defeat of the
Republicans
something which has been in the cards for a long time. Michigan will slam the Repubs hard again 57% to 43% even with gerrymandered districts. The US Senate will most likely be even at the worst and the House will add some more Dems. That was the most Republican lies have been able to save.
A Quote via Princeton Election Consortium Sam Wang: “It is totally over. If Trump wins more than 240 electoral votes, I will eat a bug.” https://twitter.com/nicolas_veron/
So HRC took a cool mil from Qatar. Are you people really ok with this? This sleaze runs deep. It has for years.
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/576566
The Clinton Foundation (a charitable foundation, not connected with the Clinton campaign or Hillary’s personal bank account) accepted a donation for an American ally. Do you have a problem with that.
Yes, the sleaze runs deep. Your sleaze. It has for years.
Smarter trolls, please.
“She has lied to Congress.”
LOL! Congressman (especially GOP Congressmen) lie all the time. If that’s not a ticket out of Congress, it won’t be a ticket out of the WH for HRC, who looks to win in a landslide.
Smarter trolls, please.
“According to Politico Brazile gave Clinton questions for the debate AND for a town hall meeting.”
Right. And you said debate “questions.” But only one question was for a debate, by your own admission, Krasting. Which is why I called you out for lying. Because you did.
But you suffer from CDS, so you can’t help yourself.
“So HRC took a cool mil from Qatar. ”
No, Krasting. HRC didn’t take any money from Qatar. The money was donated to the Clinton foundation. Why do you continue to lie about HRC?
Oh, and last time I checked, Qatar is a US ally. Since when was it a problem for a US ally to donate money to a US charity?
Smarter trolls, please.
It seems to be true that the FBI, from director to agents, tends to have a right wing point of view. Perhaps Comey is being pushed by his agents but that’s far from clear. His right wing roots include sanctioning of torture, despite his “rescue” of the Attorney General on his sick bed and sanctioning of universal surveillance. I see no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest we allow him to be the stand up guy he claims to be and therefore responsible for his actions.
Yeah, no doubt at all where Comey resides on the political-ideology spectrum. I think it’s funny that he goes around saying that he doesn’t care a whit about politics, but he donated to McCain’s AND Romney’s campaigns.
One thing this all has exposed is the need to diversify the FBI. Politically and racially.
And now it all goes away because there is nothing there.
Not necessarily. I just posted on that.