"James Comey's Fear of Everyone Except Democrats Helped Donald Trump Upset Hillary Clinton" [View all]

[emulatorloo]

James Comey’s Fear of Everyone—Except Democrats—Helped Donald Trump Upset Hillary Clinton
Comey thought a lot about the rabid Republican zealots he could offend by doing his job and enforcing the law, and not at all about the Democrats he trusted would be docile and play by the rules.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/24/james-comey-s-fear-of-everyone-except-democrats-helped-donald-trump-upset-hillary-clinton.html

We see in three instances that he feared the wrath of the Republicans. One, if he didn’t break precedent and speak harshly of Clinton while officially exonerating her last summer. So he spoke harshly. Two, if he didn’t announce in late October that the investigation was reopened. So he announced the investigation (which, as we learned too late, again amounted to nothing) was reopened.

And three, if the Republicans in Congress decided post-election to include him and the bureau in its inevitable Clinton witch hunts. So he beat them to the witch hunt, and finally said she was clear just as she drowned. The article doesn’t say this, but surely Comey also feared GOP wrath if he did confirm before the election that Donald Trump was under investigation too, which he finally confirmed last month.

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But nowhere does the article say that Comey feared how Democrats would react if he raked Clinton over the rhetorical coals without bringing charges. Of course he didn’t! Democrats don’t scare anybody.

As I recall things, some Democrats expressed some outrage, but it was scattered, nothing like what the Republicans would have done had the shoe been on the other foot. It took the efforts of Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman for Eric Holder, to crystallize for people the contention that what Comey did was in fact outrageous. Miller called it an “abuse of power,” and he was right—and I confess that even I didn’t see things that way until I read Miller’s writings about it.

Much more at link.

I'm terrible at doing short excerpts, full articles is well worth reading.

It is commentary on the piece about Comey in the NYT the other day. But it connects the dots that the NYT did not connect.