What Was James Comey Thinking? - An exclusive report from inside the FBI. (GQ)

[Ellipsis]

FBI Director James Comey has long been renowned for his integrity and independence. So why did he upend the 2016 election? An exclusive report from inside the FBI.


/snip/

The consequences were immediate and, for Clinton, devastating. Her poll numbers fell. Donald Trump, who had been pushing the "Crooked Hillary" trope for months, proclaimed that his opponent was on the verge of indictment. The warning was mindlessly repeated by an army of Twitter bots, a prominent Fox News personality, and even Rudy Giuliani, who had, like Comey, once been the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The letter had nothing to back it up: There was no new evidence against Clinton. At the time Comey sent it, the FBI didn't even have a warrant to open the new cache of emails. He recognized immediately that the letter was open to misinterpretation, but it didn't matter. Nor did it matter when, about thirty-six hours before the election, he sent a letter reconfirming what he'd said in July: There was no crime, no reason to continue the investigation. In the post-fact world, everyone looked up for a second and then went back to their tweeting.

/snip/


And yet Comey opened up the hood of American politics and tinkered with the engine on the eve of a most consequential election. "He made a terrible, terrible mistake," a senior member of the Washington establishment told me. "He assumed a prosecutorial function. He didn't have to do it, and he shouldn't have."

/snip/

In November, I put a question to Comey through the FBI's chain of command: Why did he feel obliged to tell Congress about the cache of unopened emails at the end of October, before his agents had a warrant to look at them? Comey declined to respond directly, but an FBI official familiar with his thinking explained the gist of the dilemma: The director stood at the fork of two bad roads. Route one: Comey sends the letter to Capitol Hill. A congressman hell-bent on harming Hillary Clinton leaks it. The evidence reveals no crime. Clinton is defeated. Route two: Comey doesn't send the letter. The existence of the emails leaks. Comey is doomed. Another official who works closely with the director put the conundrum in a pithy phrase: "Jim Comey thinks he was handed a shit sandwich."

Kinda fluffy. More:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a51446/what-was-comey-thinking/

[ZoomBubba]

1. I may get flack for this ...

... but I'm not sure Clinton would have won even if Comey didn't pull what he did. Following the debate, those polls were still closer than they should have ever been, especially with Hillary's performance.

[Ellipsis]

2. Nah... Welcome to DU!

[JHan]

7. Except she was on her way to extending her lead beyond the margin of error..

in some polls , this extended to around 11-12 pts.

with margin of error around 2-5.

For any independents and fudging democrats who were casting their doubts aside and gradually leaning towards HRC , the letter would have been a reminder of those doubts.

The week of the letter was also accompanied by a heap of journalism fails. It started with Chafettz who claimed the email investigation was "re-opened" ,via his twitter account , when it was a review of extra emails. The media ran with this narrative for hours, and only after a day or so did the headlines more accurately reflect the vagueness of the letter. On top of that, the damaging leaks from suspect sources claiming Hillary would be indicted and outright lies from the Trump Team and various Trump surrogates about the nature of the emails- one surrogate going so far to claim that Huma was bribed by Hillary.

That week breathed new life into the Trump campaign, with him saying "Maybe the FBI is finally doing their job" . When it was revealed the emails were nothing but duplicates and no indictment would be coming, Trump deftly fell back onto his anti-establishment, "rigged" arguments , motivating supporters and independents who were thinking of giving him a second look.

Even if Comey believed he was delivered a shit sandwich, the way he interjected himself in the email investigation was always questionable, and two weeks before an election? Inexcusable..

[ZoomBubba]

9. But the thing we learned from 2016 ...

... is polls are not reliable. If they were, Hillary would have won a large electoral victory.

We have no real way of knowing if she would have won if Comey had not made his announcement. I kind of lean toward "no, she would've lost anyway" because I honestly didn't see the FBI thing really being a deciding factor for a lot of people.

But again, we have no idea of knowing.

[JHan]

12. Nationwide polls seemed to have been spot on..

Most had her winning the pop vote by 2-3 points.

Her razor thin loss in those states had her within margin of error ( 2-5 points) So while the State polls were sluggish, the key thing is the trajectory - she was on the path towards extending her lead past the margin of error. If she was still within those margins, they could have swung either way.

EDIT: Just to use Brexit to illustrate: the mistake, as with Brexit, was assuming the swing would favor Clinton.

With Brexit , pundits made the mistake assuming the swing would favor remain ( Brexit fell down 48/52 in favor of leave instead)

( and none of this takes into account the voter suppression efforts and other electoral shenanigans/failings)

[shraby]

3. Comey didn't have to pass on the shit sandwich to the rest of us.

[Ellipsis]

4. Exactly. CYA all the way.

[Nay]

14. No, he did not. He could have given it to a few Senators as a top-secret document. That

would have covered his ass. Comey is a lying bastard.

[underpants]

5. GQ

Marking for later read.

[Girard442]

6. Not buying it.

If Comey truly didn't know what he was doing, he's too dumb to come in out of the rain, much less have a career in the FBI.

[brush]

8. Agreed. Don't know if it was a brain freeze or what but that was a dumb move.

Sometimes these people in these top positions just aren't that smart, or try to play dumb.

Shit sandwich my ass. He knew he had no legitimate reason to send that letter since he didn't know what was in the emails.

He did it anyway knowing there was no way it wouldn't influence the election.

Now it's coming out that he found it so important to reveal a bullshit tip about additional Hillary emails, something the FBI knew about for a month, but didn't reveal that the Russians were hacking everything they could to swing the election to Trump.

Now hasn't said a peep since then. He'll pay for it.

[JI7]

13. it was pressure from others in the agency

[Nay]

15. He's the boss!! Fuck pressure! He's in that job to do the right thing, not fold

like a cheap beach chair over some loudmouthed FBI agents who report to him. Jeezus.

[JI7]

18. he is weak and the place is full of right wingers

[haele]

17. Comey had a history with the Clintons. He didn't want to serve in her administration.

Simple as that. Remember, he worked the Whitewater investigation; he was left with egg on his face going after the Clintons for a failed and legal land investment that any yahoo with money to burn would have made.

And he has options with the new power structure, now that he's "made his bones".
He's close enough to retirement; it's not as if he can't transfer to be a COO or a very highly paid advisor in some global security company now. He'll still be invited to all the neo-con parties and meetings he wants to be invited to - and better yet, he can actually be the boss if he wants to.

Leaking those emails was a win-win if he was ready to leave.

Haele

[Iggo]

10. He got exactly the result he was looking for.

Worked like a charm.

[unblock]

11. route three: he sends the letter, clinton wins anyway, then comey is doomed.

the complete b.s. in the logic is that sending the letter doesn't protect him, it's merely a high stakes gamble for his own personal job security.

generally speaking, you don't protect your job by violating *two* departmental policies (first, interfering with an election within 60 days of election day; second, going public with inconclusive information in an ongoing investigation).

if comey way merely concerned about his job, he already covered himself by asking about it and getting told by lynch that it was against policy. it's not at all clear that he would have lost his job had trump won without that letter.


so, either comey's logic, or the entire explanation doesn't really add up.

[book_worm]

16. Comey knew what he was doing. He didn't have to do ths and he did.