MSNBC's Maddow perfectly nails how the right wing duped Comey

[Arkansas Granny]

into hurting Hillary Clinton — and why it could happen again

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday night zeroed in on a key fact about former FBI Director James Comey’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails that has gone largely overlooked in the new Department of Justice inspector general report.

As she pointed out, the report finds that James Comey’s decision to release a letter announcing the reopening of the email investigation days before the election — an action that plausibly swung the election to Donald Trump — he made a crucial calculation.

“The inspector general finds that James Comey just didn’t care if he might be seen as acting in a way that might hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” she said. “But he really, really, really cared and he took great extraordinary action to avoid appearing like he might be helping Hillary Clinton in any way. that’s how he weighed those two consequences.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/msnbcs-maddow-perfectly-nails-right-wing-duped-comey-hurting-hillary-clinton-happen/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Hekate]

1. Rachel did a great job

[Le Gaucher]

2. Will this make the casual Democratic voter get off their asses and vote?

Its the only thing that matters.

I went around hanging door tags on Democratic households till my ankles started aching.. but many people just dont care to Vote.

[JI7]

10. People who are paying attention to this are not casual voter types

Casual voters most likely are not paying much attention to this.

[gademocrat7]

3. I appreciate Rachel Maddow

Her political analysis on the IG report was excellent.

[OnDoutside]

4. Yes she did, but not just Comey. It's still working.

[malaise]

5. Rachel nailed it

but remember Comey is a ReTHUG!

[Mc Mike]

6. Heads-repugs win. Tails-normals lose.

[Vinca]

7. That was an interesting segment. It never occurred to me that might be the motive behind the

sabotage of Hillary's campaign by Comey.

[ewagner]

18. Thanks to Rachael...

the ever-so-subtle tactic of bullying the law enforcement agencies into taking actions that will help GOP candidates and hurt dems is now in the open..

It needs to be hammered home to the less enthusiastic voters so they can see this tactic and act to counter act it.

To Rachael:

[docgee]

8. Same thing they did to the news with the 'liberal media' bullshit.

[Hortensis]

9. That's Comey's story. I respect Rachel and don't

doubt government was feeling intense pressure from the right wing. It's oppressed and suppressed scientific research, education from preschool to university levels, corrupted law enforcement and judicial practices, corrupted the media, and corrupted most Christian religious groups. Of course government officials are pressured from the right to do wrong, often intensely.

But this report cannot and does not explain all actions by Comey's FBI under the official conclusion that Comey's actions were ill considered and insubordinate but well intentioned.

A number of details won't fit this story line at all. Like the FBI's suppression of a NYT report on October 31 about the FBI's investigation of Trump-Russia. The FBI's total silence on Trump's possible collusion with a hostile foreign government through the entire campaign wasn't enough for the FBI. Under pressure from the FBI and higher-ups at the NYT, over the protests of the journalists their story was rewritten to give the strong impression that the FBI hadn't found anything of significance. New, FBI-approved headline:

Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia
October 31, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/.../fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html

Nine days before the election, the NYT buried the lead that the FBI was actively investigating the connections and activities between Trump and Russia in a line in paragraph 10. At the FBI's behest, while both institutions, the FBI and NYT, were dragging Clinton's name through the mud.

[Honeycombe8]

14. The reason the FBI didn't "report" on the Russia investigation to the public was...

was because it wasn't directly involved with one of the candidates. It was not an investigation of Trump, while hte email investigation was an investigation of Clinton. Also, the Russia investigation wasn't officially public, while the Clinton one was, and in fact, had had hearings held by Congress about it.

Obama knew all about the Russia investigation, and even HE chose not to speak about it.

[Hortensis]

17. That's quite a standard right-wing explanation.

You may want to expand your reading. Don't just swallow right-wing excuses. From the very beginning Comey's colleagues in justice departments across the nation were shocked and worried by his highly unusual and unethical behaviors.

How could anyone here argue that deliberately keeping the electorate ignorant about possible collusion between a presidential candidate and hostile foreign government was appropriate? We have a highly authoritarian conservative neighbor who talks that way, but even most of our other conservative friends worry about government deceiving the people. NOT at all okay.

[Hortensis]

21. Comey to Brennan and Clapper way before his later actions.

Link to tweet

Comey also refused to sign onto the October 7 letter to congress from Clapper and Jeh Johnson of DHS officially warning about Russia's active measures to interfere in our election. He said it would involve him in politics.

Then, a couple weeks closer to election day, he sent his own highly politically involved, highly publicized letter letter to congress reporting he was reopening the phony, completely politically motivated email investigation, with a second highly politically involved, highly publicized letter just before the election saying never mind, nothing found (yet).

[Bluepinky]

11. The Republicans complain about liberal bias so that FBI and media will adjust their reporting

to be tougher on Democrats/easier on Republicans (to “prove” there’s no liberal bias). They cater to Republicans because Republicans whine so loudly.
That’s why they always do the “both sides” crap too, so they can show how fair they are (even if the Repub position is crazy and without merit).
Comey was a jerk to fall for it, he went against FBI protocol to show how tough he was on Democrats so the Repubs wouldn’t whine later that he was easier on Democrats. He catered to bullies and did exactly what they wanted him to do. He knew how wrong he was later on but instead of owning up to his massive judgment failure, he wrote a book trying to justify his actions.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. For years the RW laid the background for the psyops. Summer 2016 very fertile. Don't forget Giuliani

Giuliani had (has?) a bunch of rogue FBI agents and NYPD who threatened to make the "evidence" public unless Comey acted.

Here is the word cloud June 17 - Sept 18, 2016 from Gallup polling:

[dhol82]

15. Yeah, how come no word at all about the Giuliani/NY FBI cabal?

There definitely something there

[Honeycombe8]

13. This is an example of how it pays for politicians to be aggressive in their own interests.

The Republicans were very aggressive and accusatory with the FBI, while the Democratic politicians, as is so often the case, were more reasonable & measured in their speech. More respectful, you could say.

The Republicans' aggressiveness paid off. It may have made Comey become more concerned about not appearing to favor Clinton (since his decision previously was NOT to recommend criminal charges against her), while Comey had no fears about the Democrats.

There's a lesson here for the Democratic Party leaders. But then again, the Dems had no reason to be accusatory with the FBI, since the FBI had made a decision in Clinton's favor.

I really wish our leaders would be more forceful and less measured in their speech sometimes. I appreciate that they ARE more reasonable people. But there are times, when faced with aggressive a**holes, you have to fight back aggressively.

[Johnny2X2X]

16. Trumpsters see this as a big Trump win

Know that the IG report is being used by Faux and Right Wing media as a huge win for Trump.

The IG report is entirely a report about how the FBI helped Trump, not hurt him, but no one on the Right will bother to read it, and they're portraying it as the FBI was out to get Trump and help Hillary. Facts do not matter to these propagandists.

[empedocles]

19. from a very 'politically incorrect' perspective

Comey is in a very exposed, real world situation. Ambivalence, ambiguity, transparency, nuanced, conscientious, confusing, self examining [whoa!], but more honest Comey world.
So naturally he is attacked from all sides, every which way, totally pilloried, - by the heavily polarized. of all sorts. One could get the overall, superficial, impression he is 'the' wrongful character in this giant political parade.

[stuffmatters]

20. Mitch pulled exactly the same bullying, mind fk on Obama Aug '16

Mitch menaced Obama into silence on Intelligence revelations of Trump Russia in that Aug '16 meeting with Brennan.

[Gothmog]

22. Rachel did a great job on this issue

Link to tweet