From what I can glean from recent articles (for example), it sounds like a rogue unit of FBI agents went way off the reservation after Comey wound down their Clinton investigation, to the point that they cooked up a scheme to undermine the FBI director (waiting three weeks to report the laptop put Comey in a no-win position, with the implicit threat of leaks if he delayed the letter) and worked on behalf of Russia against American democracy.
If James Comey cared sbout his Bureau’s credibility, a different FBI unit would be kicking in their doors right now.
***update***
Ok to clarify I do not mean that anyone has reported that agents are taking orders from Putin. Rather I mean to say that Russia is singularly, deeply committed to Trump to the point of subverting an American election. If you torpedo Clinton from a privileged position in the DOJ then you are clearly subverting democracy. That part is pretty cut and dried. You would also be serving Russia’s nefarious behavior in this election, whether you explicitly mean to or not. I was being over-cute with language to emphasize the point when frankly (if I interpret the direction of reporting correctly) the basic Hatch act stuff would be plenty to get a trial started.
…in retrospect I would say ‘alongside’ rather than ‘on behalf of’. Different people, same immediate goal. Blogging from your phone while pissed off can produce inelegant results. But I’ll leave the original so that comments left pre-clarification still make sense.
***update 2***
As Josh pointed out at the link and Kevin Drum observed as well, we have basically two hypotheses: either James Comey delayed the story for maximum effect or else some agents put him in this position by not reporting this laptop up the chain until the last minute. Reporting suggests the rogue agents idea, but more than that I just think we know enough about Comey to feel pretty confident that he would not willingly set the election on fire like this. It would be too easy to discover after the fact that he knowingly cooked the grenade. It would ruin him. If that is the case, James Comey really needs the rogue agents hypothesis to pick up steam. I think ‘need’ might not be strong enough a word. If he can persuade people that a group of bad actors maneuvered him into an impossible position, that might restore some confidence in his leadership and the Bureau in general. Some.
One of my governing maxims is that incentives drive behavior. At least equal to nature and nurture you have this intangible web of rewards and punishments that surround and guide everyone. The director of the FBI has a profound incentive to burn the guys who embarrassed him. You could call it an existential need. That could have an interesting effect on the direction this story takes.
Punchy
The FBI worked on behalf of the Russians? Is that what you’re saying? Because if yes, thats one fucked up hypothesis. Cant get behind it, cant envision it in any form.
redshirt
How deep does this rabbit hole go?
Gvg
Link goes to TPM and doesn’t support your hypothesis, in fact it’s just another “we can’t understand why he did it”. I don’t think it’s what you meant to link.
Joel
Yeah, not seeing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg here.
Lyrebird
That’s an excellent article; I also appreciated what Josh M posted from one of his readers:
Check out the full story…
MisterForkbeard
@Punchy: Right – not that I disagree with the “rogue FBI agents” who are trying to screw Hillary, but I don’t see any evidence of Russian involvement yet unless we posit the following:
1) These agents are also working on/know about the Russia/Trump connection the FBI is investigating.
2) Knowing that, they still decide to attack Hillary and back implicitly back Trump.
That’s all I’ve got.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Punchy: Not the entire FBI, but one or two agents, yes, that’s believable. A lot of those wingnuts have been so conditioned by the Right Wing Media over the years to react to the correct code words that all it takes is the Russians figuring out who is vulnerable.
Lyrebird
@Punchy: I dunno, I didn’t think Tim’s saying they’re wittingly working for the Russians, just that they in their Clinton-baiting might achieve ends that suit Russian interests.
ETA: Ah good see Tim’s update…
Rand Careaga
I have a slightly different Russian angle to put forth: Stalin, back in the day, was in the habit of shaking up his secret police every few years, sacking the senior echelons and shooting the chief. He might have been on to something there.
Timurid
I’m pretty sure Comey and/or the ‘rogue agents’ don’t care about Russia one way or the other. The people and things they really want to help are, in no particular order, the Republican Party, Republican Congressional candidates, Donald Trump and white supremacy.
Not that electing Trump will help Russia. If Putin’s crazy plan somehow works, he’ll be regretting it. In a big way. And quickly.
hovercraft
@Punchy:
Working on behalf of the Russians in the sense that they are working to get Putin’s puppet elected, not that they are FSB moles. So even if it’s not the primary goal to be pawns of Putin, the end result is the same. In other words they are useful idiots, so partisan they are willing to compromise the security of the country to satisfy they political beliefs.
ETA: thanks for the clarification Tim. We were all set for a giant foodfight. Killjoy.
PeakVT
I guess this is a good sign because FBI agents wouldn’t be wasting time on endlessly harassing Clinton unless all other crime had been identified and prosecuted. Right?
On second thought I’m going to keep on locking my doors at night.
gene108
Hanging out with non-Balloon Juice readers, I think some damage has been done, with Comey’s letter.
People get busy on the weekends and the last thing they read about on Friday, waiting for quitting time, is more suspicious e-mails were found.
Why Comey maybe at fault is a bit complicated. But Clinton e-mails bad is easy to digest.
Though I think as polarized as the electorate is it will not have an impact on the Presidential race, but I can see folks splitting the ballot to keep Republicans in Congress as “check” on Hillary.
Mnemosyne
@Punchy:
Robert Hanssen was an FBI agent who worked for the Soviets for decades, so it’s not unprecedented. This is mostly hyperbole on Tim’s part, but I wouldn’t be totally shocked to find out there are a few FBI agents who have been similarly suborned.
amk
Can we just stick with hatch act and not veer off into wingnutzesque CT’s?
amk
@gene108: Many ‘moderate’ repubs might vote for her and for the party for down tickets as a check any way. I don’t see any dems doing that. So, in reality, “the damage”, as perpetrated here is minuscule.
WaterGirl
Tim, what you described in the update was pretty much what I thought you were saying in your original post.
Emerald
@amk: Indeed. The cake is baked.
Also too, we’ve got more than a week to go. A week is like a year in politics. Fasten your seat belts. Ought to be an interesting next few days.
gene108
I do find the lack of attention paid to Russia possibly tampering with our elections to be a bit surprising.
Though when I think about it, I realize the media does not care that much about the Democrats and probably figures they have it coming from interefering with the will of the people, in this center-right nation, by standing in the way of Republican’s rightful control of the Presidency.
Peale
He’s so not the guy she thought she married, that’s for sure.
Greenergood
Meanwhile my mom has been ranting all night that Hillary should’ve been woken up in the middle of the night by CIA officers and taken out into the street in handcuffs in her pyjamas and humiliated because she is a witch and a crook. Thankfully I only have another two weeks with my mom before I escape back to where I live away from her … At least my vote will cancel out her vote …
Peale
@gene108: the lack of attention paid to anything about trump except his sexual assaults and tweets is unnerving.
Mike J
@Peale: I haven’t noticed much coverage about his sexual assaults. The media seems much more upset about the word he used.
Percysowner
I’m really getting tired of poor, put upon, naive James Comey who because of no fault of his own suddenly and inexplicably found himself forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to issue the world’s most ambiguous statement that just happened to make Hillary Clinton look bad. Why it’s just like after the investigation of the emails finished where he said that there was no criminal wrong doing but then was forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, by his delicate conscience to tell the world that Hillary, while not a criminal, was a dangerously negligent human being, practically unfit for her prior office. Some say it was because he was playing partisan politics. Don’t they understand that an uppity Democratic woman must be chastised by an upstanding Republican man when she makes a mistake? We must all understand that an ambitious, intelligent Democratic woman must be put in her place and a Republican must be elected in her stead. Why won’t we feel his pain? Why won’t we see that he was being the good daddy the U.S. needs?
Fuck him!
Major Major Major Major
@Greenergood: Well, at least she doesn’t think Hillary should be dragged out into the street and shot.
NotMax
@Greenergood
She’ll be marching down a street, all right.
Pennsylvania Avenue on Jan. 20.
Major Major Major Major
@Percysowner: He’s like Paul Ryan and his ever so very against his will killing of poor people.
The Other Bob
Does anyone else sometimes get the feeling that Hydra has infected our government? Where is Captain American when you need him?
Villago Delenda Est
@Percysowner: If he didn’t want to cause any trouble, well, then he shouldn’t have done something that would cause trouble.
I know this is preschool level socialization, but some of these assholes seem to have been on a juice box bender that day in preschool.
? Martin
This is nothing more than the GOP using Congressional investigations to harass everyone into doing their partisan bidding. Russia is more than happy to pile onto an existing domestic propaganda/witchhunt effort.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Bob: He’s out at the movies catching up on all his pop culture references. Agent Coulson encouraged him to do it so the audience would be spared the need to have references explained to him all the time.
Tim F.
@? Martin: We expect Congress and its committees to act politically. Elected officials are political by definition. Career officials at federal agencies are a whole other animal. We have profound norms against them getting involved in party politics. We have laws against it. You could fairly say that the entire system of government is at risk if career officials violate these norms too often and too egregiously.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
I don’t think we know that at all. His initial presentation when he used not recommending prosecution as an excuse to badmouth Clinton makes it plain he really hates her guts and wants to torpedo her. His history supports that theory. Whether or not there are elements in the FBI or congress who also wanted him to do this, ‘because he wanted to’ is a completely supported explanation.
Aleta
Has there been a single Trump email hacked by the Russians (or a guy on a bed) ? Or exposed by Wikileaks?
TheMightyTrowel
@The Other Bob: The ice he was frozen in melted due to climate change and a polar bear ate him
Tim F.
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: Assuming that hypothesis 1 is true rather than hypothesis 2, it leads to the same place. Republican and Democratic DOJ veterans have almost unanimously called for his head. Imagining for a second that he worked with the Clinton hit squad (or whatever you call it) to mess with the election, Comey has just as profound an incentive to make it look like they played him into sending the letter when he did. The more those agents look like a bunch of hardened bad actors the better an argument he can make to stay a member of civilized society.
It just happens that the rogue agents story would be an extremely useful counter to the current emails BS stories. Imagine if all those emails turned out to be duplicates. Would that make the front page? Of course not. The absence of a story is not a story. A sleeper cell of lawless Republicans inside the FBI, that would run on page one.
Lizzy L
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: Agree. Either Comey has it in for Clinton — not necessarily personally, but certainly politically — or he’s easily manipulated, or his integrity has been entirely compromised by his fear of looking bad in the eyes of Republicans, or some combination of all of these things. Fuckhim. This whole thing is reprehensible, and possibly illegal, as has been pointed out.
Josh Marshall is doing some good work.
WarMunchkin
How does this improve confidence in his leadership? If anything, he showed that he’s easily cowed by political interests and doesn’t merit the position of FBI director.
jl
Nothing I have heard or read prompts me to question my initial reaction on Comey: prissy self-righteous crummy little chickenshit. I guess with more info, we can get to the issue of whether he is inept or has become corrupt. None of the GOP leadership, elected or otherwise is worth a damn. What happens when you have a bunch of hypocritical jackasses either running cons and grifts, or sad sack chickenshits standing around pretending it isn’t happening. Disgusting.
I don’t care if some of poow widdle nobwel Mr. Comey’s agency has ‘gone rogue’. Awwww… pooohr widdle Comey, boo hoo. Hey, I thought those serious daddy GOPers were the steely spined real men who could handle that. But, no. Comey did some good during the Bush administration, but now he is just a standard issue mediocre meretricious ass screwing up, aka, a Republican official.
Harry Reid wrote a great letter. I hope to find out what Trump dirt the FBI has been sitting on.
Tim F.
@WarMunchkin: If he exposes them and they face real penalties for their actions, people will conclude that Comey is not one of them. Right now that would be a step up for him.
jl
I see Clinton and Kaine are really pressing Comey to clear up the outrageous BS he shat out.
I don’t really think Comey can respond in a way that will make him look good. It’s either going to be
‘I don’t know shit, but I sent the letter anyway, because I am stupid’
Or
‘Well, golly gee, all my GOPer buddies were looking at me funny ’cause i wasn’t trying to throw the election. I mean.. c’mon.. I’m not really as bad a crooked bully as they are.. really…. It was JUST ONE LITTLE LETTER…”
petesh
“existential need”? Professionally and personally, you betcha. But meanwhile Comey has an ultimate boss, who is still in office; who could call the leading candidates and inform them that he would take the heat for his own poor appointment; he would fire the incumbent, effective immediately; and appoint an interim leader, with the replacement to be named by the next President, whoever that is. Yes, Donald, you could attempt to reappoint Comey if you like, but he’d need the Senate’s consent. Yes, Hillary, you could name an alternative, who would also need the Senate’s consent. Welcome to the big leagues.
piratedan
It should be an awesome last week for ads. Some of the anti-Hillary ones are doozies… essentially blaming her for the failed middle east policy that has created not only a nuclear weaponized Iran (false), the creation of IS (false) and the Syrian Civil War (false) and lays to bed the four martyrs of Benghazi (family wishes be damned) essentially stating that if she’s elected, it’s Armageddon just around the corner. The local ads are also telling, the one for CD 2 is essentially indicating that Matt Heinz (local Physician running against McSally) is violating his Hippocratic Oath because of his support for the ACA. and that a vote for him brings back the dreaded Nancy Pelosi.
If there’s a piece of oppo stuff to show up against Trump, it should be a doozy (as if he wasn’t a dumpster fire of a candidate as it stands), who knows, he mat be caught Live in bed with a dead girl and a guy. At this point, it pains me to say, I will doubt I will be shocked.
NotMax
Subject to change but while am angered by what Comey did and how he went about it, am more angry at Chaffetz’ naked opportunism and the almost sure odds that it will be rewarded.
WarMunchkin
@NotMax: Wasn’t Chaffetz running for Speaker before Ryan got the nod? if Ryan doesn’t get renewed in next session, it’ll probably be Chaffetz.
jl
Interesting post and link on another aspect of this new Clinton email crappola BS that I wondered about. How is the FBI not violating Constitution and statute in a wild ass illegal ransacking of devices and whatnot? I mean, shit. The emails are not from HRC or to HRC. They appear to be from or to Abedin and were on or went through State Dept. at some time. So, fucking, what?
What does this have to do with HRC? Why was it advertised as having to with HRC? Why is not part of the investigation into Abedin’s emails. And if the FBI has no fricken clue what is in them, on what basis do they get a search warrant? Fuck all, I guess anybody who ever got an email over a period of over 4 years from anyone in the State Dept can have their crap ransacked. Maybe Abedin wrote something to your brother and laws’s third cousin twice removed, and you got an annual Christmas letter from your BiL with a happy X-mas story from his cousin. You involved in the greatest national security HRC crime of all time? Hey, maybe so. Comey will write a fucking letter to Congress. If you are lucky, it might have your name on it.
The 4th Amendment Problems Presented by the Latest Clinton Snipe Hunt
[ 23 ] October 31, 2016 | Scott Lemieux
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/10/the-4th-amendment-problems-presented-by-the-latest-clinton-snipe-hunt
Comey needs to be fired the day after the election, IMHO.
Edit: anyway, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind is that we are getting into Whitewater witch hunt ransack everything everywhere BS, and damn thing will never end. Fire the crummy little chickenshit Comey the day after the election. This asshole GOPer has lost any ability he ever had. Either he is too weak to stand the years of pressue from his brother and sister thugs in the GOP, or he has become incompetent, or he has become corrupt.
Mary G
I don’t have any idea if rogue agents sat on this shit and fed it to poor noble conscientious Comey at the last minute or if he is in on the scam completely. The result is the same. He’s either a ratfucker or a spectacularly bad personnel manager.
As I understand it, they have allegedly have the device and haven’t read the emails, but metadata say that they went thru Hillary’s server. They just might be personal emails a woman wrote to her husband using her account on Hillary.com. “Anthony, pick up my drycleaning.” Anthony, we need milk.” “Anthony, you shit, stop taking pictures of your dick all the time.”
They have read them and know they are a nothingburger, but by the time that’s officially found out, Hillary will still have been elected, but this will sway enough votes to keep the Senate and House in Republican hands. Mission Accomplished. And the Russians could either helped the plot along with a mole in the FBI or have known nothing about it and just be laughing their asses off on the sidelines.
jl
@Mary G: In one way or another, we are not sure what way, Comey has gotten his sad crummy little chickenshit ass into Ryan and McConnell territory.
piratedan
@Mary G: even if there’s a faction within the FBI that suffers from CDS (and I’m sure there is one), what judge gave them the go ahead to execute the warrant? Especially with all of the crap that soon followed the Friday fiasco… what judge, looking at the timeline, chain of events, understanding of what is taking place in context of all of this shit going on, says, “well, maybe there’s something too this… after all, you’ve been so successful so far in showing any kind of results, lets keep this dog and pony show going”….
I’d like to know, which esteemed jurist went ahead and said that this story intrigued them and wanted to sign up for this newsletter?
jl
@piratedan: Last I heard, they haven’t gotten any warrant yet. That is why they don’t know fuck all what those emails are about at all. This is total absolute outrageous BS. You know it has to be because a GOPer hack is running the incompetent and/or corrupt shit show.
Ol’ Harry is right next door to my state, maybe I’ll call his office to congratulate him on his letter and ask if he plans to demand Comey be fired as soon as the election is over. And if not, why not?
Edit: OK, just now I see a story on Google news aggregater says warrant issued, I guess yesterday PM or sometime today. Anyway, when the ass Comey wrote the letter trying to influence the election, there was no warrant, and they had no clue if the letters contained BS national security classified bureaucracy nothingburger BS, or it was grocery shopping lists. Total BS.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
Not direct oppo stuff, but the cover of the October 31 issue of the New Yorker is titled “Significant Others.” It shows two alternative drawings of the presidential inauguration.
The top drawing shows Hillary taking the oath with husband Bill Clinton holding a Bible.
Below that is an alternative reality with Donald Trump reciting the oath of office. Holding his Bible is his BFF Vladimir Putin.
Mary G
@piratedan: Oh, we can’t tell you that, we never discuss investigations in progress. That’s what pisses me off the most. He shouldn’t have said what he said in July and he shouldn’t have written to Chavetz this week.
Geoduck
@Aleta: I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to learn that Trump never even writes e-mail.
@piratedan: I’d say at this point we have to have the warrant issued. If it hadn’t happened yet, and I was in the official Hillary camp, I’d be calling for it ASAP.
James E Powell
@Percysowner:
With you all the way. I can’t believe that supposedly smart people – Josh Marshall foremost – are giving Comey any benefit of the doubt. He’s been in Washington a very long time. He knows the established procedure of non-interference. He deliberately ignored it.
jl
Actually, day after the election, Obama should fire every GOPer he appointed in his administration.
“What, sadly, I have found is that there are only a few types of people who are GOPers these days, and none of them are able to meet the demands of appointive office in the federal government, or, actually any kind of paying job at all that I can see. We have con people and swindlers, thugs, bigots, nutcases, and apparently the GOPers I chose to appoint in order to try to reach out to those types of people I just mentioned, most of them in Congress, and as I was saying, apparently the GOPers I chose to appoint, incompetent crummy little chickenshits.
Aleta
No matter kind of person he was in the past, I think Comey has now become the kind of person who is corrupted by deluded righteousness. I think he is dangerous, and I don’t expect him to try to slide out of his mistake. Or to follow the suggestions of his peers and say clearly that nothing against Clinton has been found.
He showed his dangerousness when he held his own news conference to publicize his opinions. His peers have politely called that inappropriate or unprecedented, but they are are now writing these strong editorials and letters because they are afraid of what he is doing. To me what’s unprecedented is that they are publicly calling him out. Their attempt to use the press to get his attention shows how serious they think this is.
sukabi
Any way you look at it, rogue agents, or Comey inserting himself politically into the election, Comey is ultimately responsible for this mess.
jl
@sukabi: I’ve been reading links to articles analyzing Comey’s sad ass BS at Josh Marshall’s twitter feed. Some of them suggest Comey went public because that was the only way he could get a warrant. Going public made it a ‘matter of public interest’ instead of randomly ransacking shit all over the place hoping something would turn up.
If that is true, then Obama should fire the sniveling self-righteous and hypocritical crummy little chickenshit Comey right damn now.
The GOP is completely corrupt, full of assholes of various types. It needs to be obliterated completely (I mean politically, with legal votes in free and fair elections, of course). But Obama can start firing all the useless, dangerous and incompetent GOP chickenshits he appointed asap.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Gee, you’re getting shrill on us jl. Must have had your Ovaltine this morning.
Geoduck
@jl:
Nope. Cold brutal politics says that Comey’s untouchable on the firing front until after the election. The morning of Nov. 9, however, he may very well find himself on the carpet in the Oval Office.
sukabi
@jl: whatever his excuses or motivations were he’s proven himself unfit for the job, unable or unwilling to actually lead, incapable of keeping his personal political views from influencing investigations…and yes he should be fired.
fuckwit
I vaguely remember a General in Afghanistan being quoted in some article talking shit about his CINC. Within a week, Obama had called him back to DC, met with him, listened to his side of the story, then sacked his insubordinate ass.
I also remember a different General who was made famous by Shrub, and found himself in a Cabinet position Obama’s administration, who got caught fucking around on his wife with a reporter to whom he had leaked classified information. Not even days passed before Obama sacked his ass too.
If he can do that, he can fire Comey now. And let the Hatch Act investigation happen afterwards.
Mary G
I love how our woman is fighting back:
Eric Holder started it, apparently.
Steeplejack
Christ, that reveals exactly the opposite: a manager apparently blindsided by rogue factions within his organization, completely unable to get them under control and reacting wildly in hopes of achieving damage control (mainly for himself). That works to destroy any confidence people might have had in him.
Mary G
@Steeplejack: I agree, he appears to lack judgment and management skills and has done his reputation, which was pretty stellar before Friday, a serious blow. He should report the rogue agents to the Inspector General and then resign.
Steeplejack
@Mary G:
I also don’t buy the trope being tossed around—by Josh Marshall, among others, although he seems to be backing away from that as more information comes out—that Comey is some sort of straight-shootin’ white-hat lawman who is unfortunately a political naïf. You don’t get to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (2002–03) and the No. 2 man in the Department of Justice (2003–05) without a keen sense of the political nuances. Hell, anyone who watches Law and Order reruns knows that.
Oh, forgot to mention: he was deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee in 1996. Anybody remember that little witch hunt?
opium4themasses
They seem pretty gung-ho on Clinton and/or staffers. They have an e-mail detailing a similar risk from Colin Powell but no word on an investigation even starting.
sukabi
@Steeplejack: a bit of history, a bit of egg on the face, and a bit of an ax to grind…you’d think after 25+ years he’d have gained a bit of perspective….
Gotta be some sort of true believer to hang on to the same twisted mindset for that long.
sherparick
Comey, at a minimum, needs to ask the FBI IG to conduct an investigation into why this matter was presented to him as it was and why the agents involved had not obtained a warrant to inspect Weiner’s computer for State Department related e-mails before briefing him (arguably, the Agents could have thought that they had to brief Comey first before asking for a warrant since the request for a warrant is a public act – although not announced to the world U.S. Magistrate Judge does not issue them in secret (see 5th Amendment, U.S. Constitution)).
sherparick
Reference the Lawyers Guns and Money article here on the chaos “Clinton” name burns in the FBI, I speculate that the agents who have joined the FBI since 2001, a large percentage are listeners and consumers of Right Wing Radio, TV, and Internet sites. That for at least 10 years after 9/11, the training they received in Quantico included speakers giving the most Islamophobic/Deep Conspiracy talks about “Radical Islam” trying to penetrate the U.S. and take over the country (it has even become the theme of a TV show on Fox called “Quantico”). I know young fellows who are in military and TSA agents who come out that milieu and they believe Clinton is guilty of all sorts of crimes (despite being the most investigated person in the country and where it is often stated that prosecutor could get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich Ken Starr never got around to it despite leaking it would for years. So these right-wing agents pick up the stories in the right-wing press and start an “investigation,” which when the career prosecutors see it just cause them to laugh, frustrating the agents who “just know she is guilty). By the way, in a fine example of the Clinton Rules, yesterday on Meet The Press Right-Winger Larry Kudlow repeatedly called Clinton “corrupt” and then took umbrage when one of the other panelists called Trump corrupt. “He has never been convicted of a crime” he whined. And the panel members have also so adopted the Village meme of the Clintons’s as corrupt, that no one shot back at him that neither has Clinton, despite the Starr and E-mail investigations. Further, Trump has had a lot more civil judgements against him in litigation about his fraudulent business practices, discrimination cases, and campaign contributions. Kudlow then started talking about “Cattle Futures,” at which point even Chuck Todd cut him off.
D58826
@Greenergood: I see many of the same rants in Twitter comments. Did I miss the trial? Surely would have been as big an event as OJ’s. Seriously criminal and crook are thrown about quite a bit but no one ever lists what crimes (other being a Clinton) it is that she is supposed to have committed.
sherparick
@opium4themasses: There are the millions of e-mails that the G.W. Bush/Cheney administration did not preserve and no one ever investigated the Bush administration’s use of private server in the Republican National Committee to see if it had classified information on it. http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/george-w-bush-white-house-lost-22-million-emails-497373.html
sherparick
@sherparick: The Democrats briefly looked into this in 2007-08 as part of the U.S. Attorney’s scandal, but never had the bird dog tenacity of the Republicans (I have to give them credit for that) to force the issue in the face of the Village criticism that “they were dividing the country” and not considering we were a “country at war” after 9/11 and finally, that post Watergate, it IOKIYR.
D58826
@Steeplejack: And as US attorney investigated Bill and the Rich pardon. Another dry hole.
D58826
@fuckwit: And let’s not forget Trump’s two hero generals – MacArthur and Patton. Patton was fired after the war ended for running his mouth (again) about the USSR. And MacArthur was fired for insubordination and running his mouth to the press. Great role models
Procopius
Okay, I think you’re just too young and naive.
I don’t know anything about Comey that makes me think he would not willingly set the election on fire. His first announcement certainly seemed designed to do that. Would it be easy to discover after the fact? Maybe. I can’t prove a counterfactual/hypothetical. Even if the evidence was discovered, how’s it going to become widely known? Finally, why would it ruin him? Is Dinesh D’Souza ruined? Is Tom DeLay ruined? The wing-nut welfare system is out there to make sure people who sacrifice themselves for the cause do not suffer. A nice mid-six-figure “emolument” as a “fellow” or “senior fellow” at some “non-profit” for the rest of his life. You need to get more cynical. I gotta admit I like the rogue team of agents theory, too, but if it’s true I don’t believe we’re going to see any doors kicked in, because the people in charge of the wing-nut welfare machine will be protecting them, too, for a good work well done.
I also think that junk about doing Putin’s work is just way overblown. First, I haven’t seen any evidence put forward. Nothing but the opinion of the DNI. What, we rely in mind reading now? Second, it’s irrelevant. Lots of countries try to influence our election every cycle. Putin is not Lex Luthor, for FSM’s sake.
Procopius
@jl:
Almost certainly involvement with mob manipulating construction contracts, materials purchases, and corrupt labor practices. Or are we back to “the Mafia does not exist,” and, “there is no such thing as organized crime.” Man, I hated that old queen (I am not normally homophobic, I have friends who are gay and it doesn’t bother me, but with Hoover it just enrages me).
JR in WV
@D58826:
Sorry to dim your image, but General Patton was killed in a Jeep crash during the way, and was never fired for hitting that damaged GI in the hospital tent.
MacArthur on the other hand was fired for a failure to obey lawful orders while misfighting the Korean War.
retiredeng
I think I’m beginning to figure out what’s actually going on here. It boils down to the intimidation of the FBI (and other departments) by the Republican majority in Congress. Mostly from the house and shit stains like Chaffetz in particular. Remember that the House controls funding and it can be a powerful tool. When politics controls what should be nonpartisan we get crap like this.
Chris
@Rand Careaga:
Poetic justice.
Suffragete City elftx
And also too, Joseph DiGenova is claiming there are FBI agents who refused orders to destroy laptops. This one is making the RW rounds.
And that rascally agent (ha) Burns claiming he was told one time Killary whacked another agent in the back of the head with..wait for it…a Bible..
O the horror!!!
feckless
Appoint a Republican? = Clutch a viper to your chest.
There are no reasonable republicans.
There is only one GOP and Trump is it’s prophet (profit?).
Bipartisanship is poison, the only solution is to drive all Republicans from office (see California).
Elane
Thank you, nice read.
Mary G
Won’t link or quote, because you’re probably sick of my harping on the subject, but both the NYT and Dave Weigel at Wapo wrote articles about how Darrell Issa is struggling. Doug Applegate says “Issa was Trump before Trump.” NYT called him “mini-Trump” in their headline.
?????
Redleg
Rewards and punishments are important in regard to motivation but they aren’t the only things of importance. Rewards and punishments don’t always produce predictable results and require a good deal of monitoring in order to work. Furthermore, incentives tend to work best for jobs and situations that are relatively simple, routine, and well learned. Incentives work less well in situations that are novel, complex, and more uncertain.
Economists have for a long time assumed almost without question the value of “incentives” in promoting certain behaviors but have recently found that the use of incentives is anything but straightforward. They should have asked those of us in organizational psychology and organizational behavior about our research on incentives.
By the way, it’s not an incentive per se for Comey to burn the guys who screwed him. Incentives are externally mediated rewards.