Why We Should All Fear the Right Wing Rot Inside the FBI

If nothing else, FBI Director James Comey's effort to throw the presidential election to Donald Trump has revealed the rot and corruption within the FBI which has seemingly been taken over by rogue alt-right agents.  This development ought to worry anyone who believes in objective law enforcement and fact based criminal investigations - things that are the antithesis of what today's Republican Party stands for.  Indeed, the North Carolina GOP has bragged about who it has disenfranchised many African-American voters this election cycle.   A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the rot and right wing agenda within the FBI.  Here are excerpts:

When a black church burned in Greenville, Mississippi, leaving charred walls and roof and the words “vote Trump” scrawled on the side of the building, local authorities called in the FBI. Its offices in Jackson, the state capitol, and Washington D.C. were put on the case.
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been doing that kind of work for decades. It was the FBI, under pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, that sent scores of agents to Philadelphia, Mississippi in June of 1964 to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, who had themselves been investigating the firebombing of a black church that was to serve as a “freedom school,” in preparation for registering black Mississippians to vote. When the three men were found dead—lynched and discarded in an earthen dam—it was FBI agents who made the discovery, acting on an informant’s tip.
 Americans have, at various times, leaned on the FBI for a measure of justice that local and state police couldn’t be counted on to deliver . . . The events of the past two weeks have made it all but impossible to have much faith in the FBI now. The agency has, through the actions of a minority cell of unknown size, been severely tainted, potentially dragging down the reputations of even the finest agents in its ranks.
 After all, how can we trust the nation’s foremost federal law enforcement agency now that it has become clear that a faction of its agents used a conspiracy theory-hawking political book to launch a partisan probe into a presidential candidate?
 That unprecedented prospect: that federal law enforcement could take it upon themselves to try and swing a national election using allegations gleaned from a partisan hatchet job financially linked to the target’s political opponent, is Third World stuff. It makes the already creepy chants of “lock her up!” at Trump rallies reminiscent of a spiraling coup d’etat in a banana republic, because clearly, some in the FBI want to make those chants come true. And it makes Rudy Giuliani’s assertion, two days before Comey’s vague oppo dump, that the campaign had “a couple of things up our sleeve to turn [the race] around,” an ominous tell indeed.
 Most Americans presume that members of law enforcement tend to be ideologically conservative. But many Americans have watched in alarm as police officers across the country pose with the Republican candidate, even donning red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps with their police uniforms. . . . These officers clearly don’t mind if those they police know that they concur with Trump’s divisive, racially abusive message . . .
 FBI agents are, presumably, drawn from much the same pool as law enforcement generally: mostly white, mostly male, mostly right of center. If the agency is indeed, “Trumpland,” as The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman reports, God help Hillary Clinton. But God help the rest of us well.
 We have entered an unprecedented new age when federal law enforcement demonstrates a willingness to go beyond each agent exercising his or her individual right to vote to massing its investigative powers against an individual for political purposes. That the FBI could become a tool in the arsenal of one party’s presidential candidate, perhaps even coordinating with that candidate through their mutual allies, is the most frightening development in a truly unnerving presidential cycle. It should be unnerving to their fellow FBI agents as well, and to anyone who cares about the agency’s reputation.
 Based on the reports from multiple journalists, including Wayne Barrett, some of Giuliani’s friends in the FBI hate her still. But should they be able to use the badges the public pins on them to try and prevent her from winning a presidential election?
 Whatever the cause, it’s clear that there is a cancer festering inside the nation’s pre-eminent law enforcement agency, and it runs through New York.

The possibility that the director of the FBI is essentially at the mercy of a right-wing faction of his own agents, whose source of investigative material is an offshoot of Breitbart.com, which has direct connections to the Republican candidate, bodes ill for what the agency might do with its power, under either potential president. Would the Breitbart wing of the FBI continue to hunt the new Democratic commander in chief based on the thin gruel ladled out by fever swamp websites? Or would it become the investigative sword wielded by the Republican president against his political enemies, Democrat and Republican, any of whom could face investigation if they displeased him and his fans? Either way, the result would not be democracy. It would be authoritarian tyranny of a downright Putinesque kind.
 Something is rotten inside the FBI. Americans have good reason to be afraid, and angry.

There needs to be a thorough investigation by new, independent investigators and people need to be fired and, ideally, lose their retirement benefits as well - starting with the firing of James Comey.  The FBI must remain non-partisan and those who has worked to make it otherwise have to go. 

FBI Clears Hillary Clinton Again

Donald Trump supporters will be crying in their beer and cheap moonshine again over the news that, after a review of the e-mails that Trump tool James Comey made such a big deal about a week ago Friday, the FBI found no criminality on the part of Hillary Clinton.  Of course, if Comey had not been playing political games and trying to throw the presidential election to Donald Trump, he would have reviewed the new e-mails and ONLY AFTER doing so, would he have advised Congress of the new e-mails and that they did not change the FBI's prior position that there was no basis for any criminal charges.   Sadly, I suspect Comey is now trying to save his own sorry ass. As I have asked before, when is he going to be investigated - and hopefully, prosecuted - for violating the Hatch Act?  The Washington Post has details on Comey's big fail and self-preservation attempt.  Here are excerpts:

FBI Director James B. Comey notified key members of Congress Sunday afternoon that after reviewing newly discovered Hillary Clinton emails the agency stands by its original findings against recommending charges.

Comey wrote that investigators had worked “around the clock” to review all the emails found on a device used by former congressman Anthony Weiner that had been sent to or from Clinton and that “we have not changed our conclusions expressed in July.”

The conclusion from Comey provided one more twist to the 2016 presidential race and cleared away a major distraction for Clinton and her team just two days before the election.

Prior to his Oct. 28 announcement, Clinton had opened a significant lead over Republican Donald Trump in most public polling following a string of strong debate performances. But the polls tightened considerably as Clinton’s email practices once again took center stage.

Comey had come under fire for inserting the FBI into the campaign’s final days with the announcement. Department of Justice policy discourages the agency from taking steps in days before an election, to avoid the perception that the FBI is trying to the influence the outcome of the vote.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment beyond Comey’s letter. A Department of Justice spokesman said only that the department and FBI had “dedicated all necessary resources to conduct this review expeditiously.” 

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted in response: “We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited. Now Director Comey has confirmed it .”

The three-paragraph letter was sent to the chairman of the Homeland Security, Judiciary, Appropriations and Oversight and Government Reform and was copied to the ranking members of those committees. Comey said the FBI had performed an “extraordinary amount of high quality work” to conduct the review.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee said the announcement “affirms and vindicates” the FBI’s decision from July. “Over the past week, Republicans have engaged in wild speculation and launched unsubstantiated accusations, but the FBI has determined—yet again—that they are without merit. Now it is time for the American people to go forward base,” he said.

Boston Globe James Comey Should Resign

Trump supporter Comey and Clinton

As noted in a number of posts, I believe that FBI Director James Comey should resign - and if he will not resign, then he needs to be fired.  He has likely violated the Hatch Act, sought to throw the presidential election to Donald Trump and has sat on and kept from the American public information about possible Trump ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin.  The man is certainly not concerned with the best interests of the public or the country.  Now, the Boston Globe has joined the chorus of those demanding that Comey resign.  Here are highlights from the paper's editorial:

James Comey really messed up.

The FBI director did not commit some garden-variety mistake. This is not an “oops” moment. For reasons that have more to do with protecting himself from dishonest Republican attacks, Comey committed an overtly egregious and political act that roiled the nation’s politics 11 days before Election Day — and undermined public trust in the nation’s criminal justice institutions.

And he needs to go.

[I]t is now increasingly clear that Comey was holding a dud. What he did know is that e-mails from Clinton’s assistant, Huma Abedin, had been found on the computer of her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. The problem is, that’s all he knew. There was no evidence that the e-mails were from Clinton, contained classified material, or had any investigative value.

The paucity of new information is bad enough, but what’s most troubling about this episode is that Comey violated a long-standing Justice Department precedent discouraging action on a criminal investigation 60 days before an election, because such disclosures risk undermining the political process.

Why didn’t Comey wait until after the election to tell Congress — or at least wait until agents had a chance to review the e-mails? The answer, unfortunately, has everything to do with Comey and little to do with what’s good for the country.

As best that can be gleaned from the now torrent of leaks emanating from FBI headquarters, Comey was concerned that news about the e-mails would become public, which might lead to accusations from Republicans that the FBI was covering up evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton.

Ironically, we know now that FBI agents have been aware of the e-mails for weeks — and yet, somehow, the information didn’t leak out. But for Comey that was too big a personal risk to take.

While some Democratic partisans would like to believe that Comey, a Republican, is trying to tip the election to Trump, in reality the answer is more clear-cut: He’s covering his own posterior.

All of this began back in July, at Comey’s now fateful press conference in which he personally announced that there would be no prosecution of Clinton — even though the decision to prosecute was not his to make. That was bad enough, but then he made matters far worse by editorializing about the case.

Comey’s dubious description at the time — of Clinton’s handling of classified information as “extremely careless” — was prejudicial and inappropriate. But what makes it worse is that he did this, almost certainly, to inoculate himself and the FBI from inevitable GOP attacks asserting that he was not recommending charges against Clinton for political reasons. It speaks to how harmful the GOP’s assertions of an FBI cover-up have been, but that is no defense. Comey has a responsibility to ignore politics in this case. Instead he’s allowed it to dictate his actions.

Now he has doubled down with this latest abuse of power and, in the process, cast undue — and unfair — suspicion on Clinton.

Comey has cast a cloud over this interminable election. His actions run the very real risk of affecting its outcome.

Whatever the result on Election Day, Comey’s path forward is clearer.

He can’t un-ring the bill, since any step to clean up the damage could lead Republicans to believe a cover-up is afoot.

Having fundamentally undermined confidence in the justice system — and abused his power as FBI director — the only way he can repair it is by resigning his office.

I still want to see him prosecuted under the Hatch Act, especially if Clinton wins next Tuesday.  An example needs to be made.

Comey Sought to Keep Russian Hacker Efforts Undisclosed

A Trump - Putin accomplice?

I have in the past expressed my concerns about Donald trump's ties to Russia and Russian efforts to influence this year's presidential election.  Now, it seems that Russia may have another accomplice in high places: FBI Director James Comey.  Yes, it reads like something out of a James Rollins novel, but how else to explain Comey's efforts to convince President Obama not to publicly announce Russian hacking efforts, yet Comey's seemingly deliberate effort to throw the election to Donald Trump through his announcement on reopening the Clinton e-mail investigation.  The Washington Post looks at this disturbing news.  My question is why is Comey still in his position at the FBI? Here are article highlights:

FBI Director James B. Comey advised against the Obama administration publicly accusing Russia of hacking political organizations on the grounds that it would make the administration appear unduly partisan too close to the Nov. 8 election, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

But he supported the administration’s formal denunciation last month as long as it did not have the FBI’s name on it, they said. Comey was sensitive not only to his agency appearing to influence the election but also to seeming biased while it was conducting an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

Comey’ s concern about election timing has some officials scratching their heads in light of his decision last week to notify Congress — 11 days before the election — that the FBI was planning to review newly discovered emails in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server.

“It’s really hard to square” the two, said one official, who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal discussions.

The news of the DNC hack broke in June, with cybersecurity experts who responded to the breach concluding it was the work of Russian government hackers. FBI investigators at the time privately said that was their conclusion, too. A series of other breaches soon came to light, including of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which the FBI privately said were carried out by the Russians.

Something does not jibe with Comey's conduct.  Again, why has he not been fired and why is he not under investigation?

Is the FBI Hiding Information on Trump's Possible Ties to Russia?

On Friday FBI Director James Comey took it upon himself to release a letter fanning new flames into the Republican witch hunt over Hillary Clinton's e-mails.  In doing so, Comey seemingly violated federal law as well as long standing policies and procedures.  In fact, Richard Painter, the chief White House Ethics Lawyer in the Bush Administration from 2005-2007, was so outraged that he filed a Complaint against Comey with the Office Of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics. In particular, Painter explains why Comey’s inexplicable actions this week may warrant prosecution for abuse of power under the Hatch Act.  Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid has echoed Painter's concerns.   More significantly, Reid also made clear that the FBI has been sitting on information that suggests that Donald Trump may be involved in solicitations from Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government.  The Washington Post has details on both of Reid's statements.  Adding concern to Reid's statements is an article in Mother Jones that indicated that the FBI has credible evidence on a possible Russian intelligence attempt to develop a secret relationship with Trump and/or cultivate him as an asset.  Despite the seriousness of these allegations, Comey has remained utterly silent.   Sloppy usage of e-mail warrants an announcement to the public in Comey's world view, possible covert operations by Trump and/or his advisers doesn't.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post (some from Mother Jones will follow):

In a letter to FBI Director James B. Comey on Sunday night, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) says Comey may have broken the law.

And that's not even the most brazen claim in the letter — not by a long shot.

In the course of arguing that Comey's disclosure that the FBI is looking into new Hillary Clinton investigation emails may have violated the Hatch Act, Reid slips in an extremely bold claim about the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

Reid is saying that he has been told the FBI has evidence of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And he's not just saying this information came from mysterious and unnamed national security officials; he's saying Comey himself has left him with this impression.

Yes, Reid can be a loose canon on occasion.  But this time, he may be directly on target.  Here are highlights from Mother Jones that look very damning to Trump, some of his inner circle, and, of course, Comey:

Reid's missive set off a burst of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere. What was he referring to regarding the Republican presidential nominee? At the end of August, Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the "connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign," and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. Last month, Yahoo News reported that US intelligence officials were probing the links between Page and senior Russian officials. 

On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief. But Reid's recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jonesthat in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

An FBI spokeswoman says, "Normally, we don't talk about whether we are investigating anything." But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.
In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul.

[W]hen he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him."

[I]n August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer comments. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."

According to several national security experts, there is widespread concern in the US intelligence community that Russian intelligence, via hacks, is aiming to undermine the presidential election—to embarrass the United States and delegitimize its democratic elections. And the hacks appear to have been designed to benefit Trump. 

In the letter Reid sent to Comey on Sunday, he pointed out that months ago he had asked the FBI director to release information on Trump's possible Russia ties. Since then, according to a Reid spokesman, Reid has been briefed several times. The spokesman adds, "He is confident that he knows enough to be extremely alarmed."

I suspect that some of my Republican friends supporting Trump will merely scoff, but perhaps they should invest in a Rosetta Stone language course and brush up on Russian. Some of these same people scoffed when I predicted in 2003 that the Iraq War would be a disaster and unleash unanticipated consequences - consequences we are still plagued by today.  Should Trump win the White House, I predict that America will experience an unmitigated disaster.