Speaker of the House Paul Ryan & other Republicans are spot-on in feeling that while FBI Director James Comey did not bring charges against Secretary Clinton for her use of a private e-mail server for State Department business, he sure did make it sound like he really wanted to, was restrained by the pesky lack of actual evidence that her wrong-doing rose to the level of illegal. He absolved her while giving plenty of wiggle room for Republicans to rightly claim his press conference & announcement called her out for being... Something.
Praise be, former Department of Justice spokesperson Matt Miller summed up his response to the Director's announcement - both text & venue - better than I could:
It's not just unusual, it's unprecedented.
You'll now have people in the middle of a campaign able to say, 'Well, the FBI director said Hillary Clinton was careless.'" That's not the FBI director's job to do, and the rules are set up to prohibit that kind of behavior.
For Jim Comey to come out and make that kind of public statement... is completely inappropriate and arguably violates DOJ and FBI rules.
I think that type of statement is why the FBI director is not supposed to hold press conferences like the one he held today. If you're not going to bring charges you shouldn't insert yourself in the middle of a political campaign the way he did.
If there is to be a judgment that her behavior was careless or inappropriate, that's a judgment for the State Department and Inspector General to make. The FBI's job is to determine whether laws were violated and charges can be brought in court. His determination was that there were no laws violated and he wouldn't recommend charges.
Beyond that, it's really inappropriate for him to be talking about this case any further.
People should know that and there are procedures in place so they can. The State Department Inspector General, for example, has been reviewing this matter, has been reviewing her use of email, but that's not what the FBI exists to do. The FBI exists to bring charges or not...Hillary Clinton certainly shouldn't get any special treatment but she shouldn't get any worse treatment than any other person would get either.
That last part says it all. If she wasn't charged because no reasonable prosecutor would take the case, the most obvious reason is because there was no basis for charges. But that is a strange statement for the Director to make. If I was a Republican, it would sure look like he's saying, "Yeah, but..."
The FBI exists to bring charges or not. It is clear that Director Comey did not find any evidence that would stand up in court, but he chose to indict through innuendo. Mind you, the poor man knew he'd be damned if he did, damned if he didn't. But, as I see it, his choice to treat HRC in such a - openly exonerated, subliminally charged - is impossible to comprehend. We sure do live in weird times.
No comments:
Post a Comment