COMEY’S “ILLEGAL” ACTIONS AND DEMOCRACY

While Trump and the GOP establishment rub their hands with glee, all hell has broken loose and descended on FBI Director James Comey’s head. This follows his “illegal” intervention on the Clinton e mails issue, which had the effect of reigniting the smoldering 2016 Trump campaign. Not since the infamous Edgar J. Hoover, has an FBI Director interfered in the American democratic process. The impact of what Comey effected cannot be rationalized with some simplistic explanation or minimized. By his ill conceived illegal actions he could influence who could become the next President of the United States. 

In addition, Comey is being accused of being partisan by failing to inform the public that there is an investigation into Trump's involvement with the Russians in their attempt to influence the Presidential elections.

There is a growing consensus that Comey acted against the law. Complaints have officially been laid against him for violating the Hatch act which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Previous Attorney Generals have criticized him as well a 100 former prosecutors. In the teeth of the bedlam Comey, five weeks after the FBI had possession of Weiner’s computer and ten days before the Presidential election, applied for court permission, to examine  Clinton aide Abiden’s e mails which were found to be on the computer. What a crock! By his own arguments these cannot add to his previous insanely drawn out investigation into Clinton’s e mails. His only hope is that in a day or two he clears Hillary. Even then he would have grossly overstepped his authority.

Comey had to have known that his actions would impact on the election as the policy he defied was specifically enacted to prevent interference in the democratic process.

COMEY’S CONSTITUENCY IS THE GOP LEADERS NOT THE AMERICAN SOCIETY

As all this unfolds the FBI Director’s obsequious alliance with the Republican Congressional House Leadership becomes more and more obvious. His public announcement in July that he was not recommending a Clinton indictment was also unprecedented. It was an explanation to the Republican Congressional Leadership why a Clinton indictment was untenable and would irreparably damage his judicial reputation. As he explained, at the time, the legal tenets that made an indictment impossible was the obvious lack of intent of Clinton to compromise American security. Furthermore, all Clinton’s contacts had security clearances. 

Nothing has changed since then. How her aide’s e mails could then conceivably be such a risk to society to warrant him influencing the election of the leader most powerful country in the Western world heavens only knows. Not only was his action unlawful, he, had to be aware of the consequences; namely that one of the candidates, who happened to be the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, whole campaign is based on the fact that his opponent is the most crooked candidate in the world and central to his charge relates to the e mail issue that Comey has resurrected.

Again, in his extraordinary public explanation of his decision he threw a sop to the Republican Congressional leadership. He, an unelected public servant, gratuitously insulted the elected Democratic Presidential nominee by introducing a non legal criticism of Clinton that she had been “careless”. Who was Comey, a public servant to politically editorialize on the behavior of an elected nominee? So what many thought was a pro Clinton statement was in fact not. He was merely laying out the facts as to why he couldn’t prosecute her to those that had demanded it. 

Now as an encore Comey writes to these self same Republican Congressional leaders informing them that he is continuing to investigate Clinton’s e mails. In so doing he violates yet another cardinal pillar of judicial enquiry; not to comment on an ongoing investigation. 

It is painfully obvious that Comey believes he is not answerable to the American public but rather to Republican Congressional leaders.

CHARGE LAID BY BUSH ETHICIST

Richard Painter the chief ethicist in the George Walker Bush Whitehouse between 2005 and 2007 has filed a complaint against James Comey with the Federal Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics. He with a number of others have filed complaints under the Hatch Act. In a New York Times op ed piece Painter maintained that, “We cannot allow FBI or Justice Department Officials to unnecessarily publicize pending investigations concerning candidates of either party while an election is underway.” He continued, “This is an abuse of power. Allowing such a precedent to stand will invite more, and even worse abuses in the future.”

Georgetown University lawyer David Vladeck argues that Comey has abused his power but is uncertain whether this contravenes the Hatch Act. He contended, referring to the FBI Director’s initial statement that Clinton had been careless, that, “Prosecutors had no right to characterize the behavior of someone not charged with a crime. It is grossly inappropriate for a prosecutor to fan political flames when there is no basis to even suggest any unlawful conduct”

HATCH ACT AND COMEY

The Hatch Act is named after Orrin Hatch the Utah Republican Senator. It was enacted to prevent public officials from engaging in political activity. One of its provisions states that the official must abstain from “any active part” in political campaigns. The Hatch Act has withstood attempts to repeal it on a number of occasions the Supreme Court having declined to intervene.

The question is not whether Comey abused his power by his two public announcements, that fact is obvious, it is whether with he broke the law or not. One need not remind a lawyer of the experience of Comey, that “intent” is extremely important factor in accessing whether a law has been transgressed or not. Now it is obvious that Comey spent time weighing up the pros and cons prior to publicly announcing an investigation to the Republican Congressional Leaders. This is evidenced by the memo he sent to Departmental members where he outlined the argument for his action and the alleged angst he was experiencing. In addition the FBI Chief was informed by his superiors including the Attorney General and her Deputy in the Justice Department that issuing this statement was against their internal policies, which were in sync with the Hatch Act. These included not making any announcements or decisions that could affect an election within sixty days of the voting date. 

So it is obvious that Comey did “knowingly and with malice of forethought” defy Justice Department protocols and in so doing broke the law. If any evidence is needed that by his actions he has influenced this election he need just pick up a newspaper, log onto the internet or turn on the TV. (Interestingly enough Comey was far more sensitive to the importance of this law in relation to Trump and the Russians).

Now why did he knowingly break the law? While it is not necessary to provide a motive for Comey’s actions, the inescapable conclusion is that Comey has priorities other than serving the democratic needs of this country. He apparently is unaware that only in banana republics that non elected civil servants, whether they be in the army or not, influence power changes illegally. 

WHAT ABOUT TRUMP AND RUSSIA?

Put another way if Comey is now in the mode of breaking the Hatch Act why is he not briefing Congress on whether he is or isn’t investigating Trump’s admitted involvement in inciting the Russians to hack the e mails of Clinton?

In fact it is alleged that he is showing partisan leaning towards Trump. Unbelievably, in the light of Comey's behavior on the Clinton issue, Comey refused to sign onto the security finding that Russia was meddling in the American election. His argument was, that it was too near to the November election!

Harry Reid has let the cat out of the bag. He informed Comey in a letter that, "He possesses explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his advisors and the Russian Government".

At best Comey is not taking Trump’s public request to the Russians to hack seriously? If so why not? Then what about corroboratory evidence of Trump’s support of Putin personally and policy wise? There are scores of reports that Russian money is flowing into Trump coffers. His son incidentally has confessed that Trump has  “disproportionate” business interests in Russia. 

Trump has supported Putin’s invasions of Crimea and Ukraine and has ignored the fact that Russia is on the opposite side of American troops in Syria. His support of Russia is in the teeth of America’s sanctions against Russia for its imperialistic land grabs. Then he does not support American allies in NATO and is prepared to leave them to Russia’s imperialistic tender mercies if they don’t pay enough. Finally, his previous campaign chairman Paul Manafort had to resign because of the scandal of his lobbying for pro Russian interests. This a pretty strong prima facie case to investigate Russian connected Trump in the light of the fact that the Intelligence Agencies have labelled Russia as the culprit of the hacking. 

Trump is treading treasonous territory with the Russians. So why is Comey not updating us on whether there is an investigation or not into the Russian cyber attacks on American Democracy and the possible link to Trump and his campaign? They have to be more important than whether Hillary Clinton used a private server or not. This is the question Harry Reid has officially asked Comey. 

Interestingly enough, this matter which really impacts on American security, was not an agenda item in the meeting with the Republican Congressional Leaders that grilled Comey on his initial Clinton finding. They apparently couldn’t care less about American security. Clinton is their number one agenda item as Obama was before her. To hell with the country's legislative agenda and its security.

Comey's behavior is ad idem with that of the Republican Congressional Leaders; they are determined to prevent a Hillary Clinton Presidency.

DAMAGE IS  ALREADY DONE

Having hashed out all this egregious behavior it cannot be undone. The damage is irreversible. Kellyanne Conway and Trump are all awash with their smears. Trump has been maintaining on the stump that the FBI would have never reopened the investigation unless there was evidence of the most egregious criminal activity. The ABC poll initiated this weekend reported that one third of Americans stated that as a result of Comey’s decision they are less likely to vote for Clinton. The Polls are tightening…

As an aside this will not save the Republican Party. Even, in the still unlikely event, that Trump gets elected his agenda is totally at odds with theirs. The Party will break up even more rapidly as he will be the public persona of it. They will not have four years to repair the gash in the boat. So Jay H. Ell don’t know why they are joining the party supporting the illegal partisan behavior of a public servant. It is not in their  interests.