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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Senator Franken Presents: The Reckoning

Senator Franken Presents: The Reckoning

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So, as the two posts beneath detail, Director Comey sent out a letter exonerating Hillary Clinton. Again. The letter was 5% “BTW, that email thing was a nothingburger” and 95% FBI knob-polishing. That’s not fucking good enough. The fact is, millions of people voted under the 100% unnecessary cloud Comey farted out nine days ago.

I’m still confident Clinton will win the presidency and the Democrats will retake the senate, but it will be a much narrower victory because the FBI stuck its schnoz in the election in an outrageous and unprecedented way. Senator Franken thinks we should look into that:

Franken wants to hold hearings to look into Comey’s decision to release the letter in the first place. He also wants hearings to examine the “rogue elements” in the FBI who were pursuing bullshit Clinton Foundation investigations based on a right-wing propaganda piece written by a Breitbart editor and feeding that information to Rudy Giuliani and possibly other Trump campaign operatives.

That’s the best news I’ve heard all day, and it came before Comey issued the “all clear” letter. Seriously, this FBI interference in the election is banana republic shit. It cannot go unaddressed. Thank dog Franken is on the case.

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  1. 1.

    Trentrunner

    Still seething. And glad to see both CNN and MSNBC have decided that the “news” is to watch both parties now flip-flop on their Comey opinions. BOTH SIDES, YOU GUYS!

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    The letter was 10% “BTW, that email thing was a nothingburger” and 95% FBI knob-polishing

    “That’s 105%!”

    ETA: I hope Al drags him.

  4. 4.

    Anonymous At Work

    To all the Democratic Senators at the hearing, the only words I want to hear from you are, “I cede my time to Senator Franken/Warren”. Let’s have a unified 45 minute grilling from one voice. Comey will be able to run out the clock on individual Senators, otherwise.

  10. 10.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    @Kay: Wow. Dog bless the voters that wait hours. It’ll take me 2 minutes on Tuesday. 2 1/2 if I chat with anyone.

  11. 11.

    hovercraft

    Franken wants to hold hearings to look into Comey’s decision to release the letter in the first place. He also wants hearings to examine the “rogue elements” in the FBI who were pursuing bullshit Clinton Foundation investigations based on a right-wing propaganda piece written by a Breitbart editor and feeding that information to Rudy Giuliani and possibly other Trump campaign operatives.

    This should be a priority of the new senate majority.
    The FBI and every other government agency needs to understand that we have policies and traditions of non interference for a reason.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    @hovercraft: Exactly right. I hope they compel that bileous old fraud Giuliani to appear too. His big mouth could get him in a heap of trouble.

  16. 16.

    hovercraft

    @gogol’s wife:
    I’m on msnbc, slightly better, but some of us have to report back to you from the front.
    ETA: It’s now time for MTP Daily with Chuck Todd so I may have spoken too soon.

  18. 18.

    Thornton Hall

    “Unprecedented”

    Apart from Watergate. Are we any closer to realizing that the FBI manipulated the media in service of its own ends?

    Because source vs institutions media is killing democracy.

  19. 19.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:
    Excellent!
    I can not wait for Tuesday, I may be the first in line to vote. Damn you NJ for not having early voting.

  20. 20.

    satby

    Good for Al! And here’s hoping we get a majority for him to get the hearing it deserves. Because McConnell will stonewall any attempt at holding Come and his gang responsible.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @satby:

    Because McConnell will stonewall any attempt at holding Come and his gang responsible.

    That’s part of what disturbs me so much about it- if they succeed in influencing the Senate outcome they’re guaranteeing they’ll never be held accountable.

  23. 23.

    jharp

    Absolutely.

    And start by hauling Rudy Fucking Guiliani’s ass in and asking who the fuck told him Comey was going to release that letter.

  25. 25.

    Judge Crater

    Yes, let’s investigate how confidential FBI information started coming out of Giuliani’s mouth. He is one detestable, proto-fascist low life whose ass needs to get a ‘hey, it’s Giuliani time’ reaming. And maybe they’ll have time to put Chris Christie’s tits in a wringer too.

  26. 26.

    Corner Stone

    Anyone who thinks Trump is going to stop saying at his events that HRC is going to be indicted is fooling themselves.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Thornton Hall: While I don’t disagree with you in almost all cases, I think in this one having good sources within a largely opaque organization is helpful if you’re trying to actually figure out what is going on inside of it.

  30. 30.

    Felonius Monk

    I guess Senator Franken is the only Democrat in the Senate with balls and a brain. Where are the rest of the Dem senators on this issue?

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    @hovercraft:

    This should be a priority of the new senate majority.
    The FBI and every other government agency needs to understand that we have policies and traditions of non interference for a reason.

    Amen! Dem Senators should stick together and drag these klowns just as long and hard as possible…Giuliani, Chaffetz, and every rogue element within the FBI (or anywhere else). Non-interference = one of many norms that needs restoring.

    BTW: heard the news about Comey’s latest “no foul” letter while out canvassing for Clinton late this afternoon with the family. I think it’s safe to say that quite a few families of color and women are fired up, ready to go on Tuesday. The enthusiasm, even amongst occasional voters, is there.

    GOTV!

  33. 33.

    Gindy51

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    “Seizing on a report published by the New York Times earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama joked that Donald Trump’s campaign “had so little confidence in his self-control” that they took away his access to Twitter.” TPM article
    Oh man I bet this one really frosts the Orange man’s cupcake…

  34. 34.

    Corner Stone

    Pete Williams is saying this latest letter means that the issue of HRC’s private server is “resolved” and there is no further action coming on it.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    @Felonius Monk: I’m on a self-imposed TV media blackout for the sake of my sanity, so for all I know, other Dems are proposing the same thing. A friend sent me the Franken clip — that’s the only reason I know about it.

  38. 38.

    Thornton Hall

    @Adam L Silverman: This whole mess got started because Comey feared leaks. That’s the reason for the original public exoneration and even more so the follow up letter. So, once in the rabbit hole, I agree better to get as much of the story as possible.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @Thornton Hall:

    we desperately need to end the practice of treating “well-sourced” as a synonym for “good journalist”.

    I think it’s a sign of what’s gone wrong with contemporary journalism: they focus way too much on process and not enough on outcome. It applies both to what they’re covering and how they do things themselves. In terms of coverage, they love to focus on the political process over policy questions, which is why they don’t seem to notice or care how awful the Republicans’ policies are. In journalism, they focus exclusively on whether they’re dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s to care about whether they’re paying attention to the most important issues or letting themselves get played by sources with axes to grind.

  51. 51.

    Mary G

    @Kay: I’d contribute to getting John Husted out of office. This shit of hours of waiting has got to stop. I have voted my entire life in California and never once waited for anything but chit-chat, or traveled more than a mile at most.

  53. 53.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s more middle of the road “meh” level of pathetic. There’s nothing in there about why Comey felt forced to take the actions he did. Or did I read the wrong article? That they found nothing new at all was expected, and the duplicates were the most likely finding.

  54. 54.

    Mike in NC

    What happened in Florida in 2000 with the Brothers Bush and their minions was definitely Banana Republic shit.

  55. 55.

    bystander

    I was worried about what to watch Tuesday night. Luckily TCM is featuring a live interview with Norman Lloyd before and after a showing of Saboteur. Lloyd has to be the only living actor from that film except for maybe the little girl Bob Cummings grabs at Otto Kruger’s house.

  57. 57.

    SuzieC

    @bystander: That brings up the issue: how do you all plan to watch Election night coverage? Livestream of Kos or 538 with MSNBC on mute in the background?Other suggestions?

  58. 58.

    MisterForkbeard

    @albertZ: I think only if SNL lets his opponent do the same thing. But I can’t see Tom Cotton doing nearly that well. :)

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mike in NC: True. But the FBI wasn’t a player, as far as I know. It was a corrupt state government. And this time, I think the good guys are gonna win, which makes a difference.

  61. 61.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: There are few things that are guaranteed in life but I guarantee you that anyone who graduates from Harvard with a math major is seriously smart. Worked with one and she ran rings around most of the rest of us.

  63. 63.

    piratedan

    the reality that I find most disappointing is that we had a rash of violations of the law before Obama became president and the idea that we should pursue VP Cheney and the folks in the DOJ that sanctioned the torture of terrorists were allowed to walk away because Obama didn’t want to further divide the country and try and restore bipartisanship to the governance of the nation. A previous GOP administration that treated every outside idea s an anathema to its own stated goals and “ideas”.

    So… that was let slide and in their infinite wisdom, the GOP saw this as weakness and instead of mending their ways, we have this shit, where the GOP, in the positions of power that it holds for bipartisan reasons goes out and pisses on that very concept, further weakening our Democracy and making it very hard to trust anyone from the GOP as someone who actually takes the seriousness of governance seriously, much less acknowledge that the Democratic Party and its politicians as something less than American.

    After watching how they treated Obama and how the media handled it as simply politics as usual, I shudder to imagine the shit show that will fall out if the Dems ever actually hold the collective feet of the GOP to the fire. Part of me gleefully wants to watch this take place, but I am also very cognizant about how the media is wired for the GOP and how this might be spun and the effrontery that these asshats get to actually have themselves being portrayed as victims by a very sympathetic media. I wonder if there’s ever any way to make the folks that watch this from home and online to understand how egregiously the GOP has behaved.

  70. 70.

    redshirt

    @SuzieC: This is my first Presidential election without cable, so I’m not sure. I do get CBS/NBC/ABC but I’m not eager to watch any of them.

    Odds are: Here, TPM, Dkos, and general internet. Might spend a good amount of time on Free Republic to savor their sorrow.

  72. 72.

    PPCLI

    @jharp: And please, God, please let Guliani lie about it, so he can get his ass nailed for lying to Congress.
    LOCK HIM UP!!!

  73. 73.

    James E Powell

    @Felonius Monk:

    Where are the rest of the Dem senators on this issue?

    Afraid that the FBI will target and attack them like they did to Hillary Clinton. That’s the whole point of Comey’s July tirade, his October letter. Let everyone know you can destroy them.

  76. 76.

    PPCLI

    @Felonius Monk: Sheldon Whitehouse produced a righteously outraged commentary on the FBI interference. He is a former US Attorney, and with all respect to Franken’s formidable intelligence, it would be good to have someone immersed in the law and in Justice Department expectations and practices leading this charge.

  80. 80.

    Eric U.

    I sure hope Comey is asked if he got any official business emails from the RNC server that Bush used

  81. 81.

    bmoak

    So, who do you think Chaffetz will call in first for a hostile grilling in his endless investigations of HRC’s State Department tenure and the Clinton Foundation: Chelsea Clinton or Citizen Obama?

  85. 85.

    jenn

    I just read a bit ago that Comey replaced the SAC for NYC’s criminal division (in something that has evidently been planned for some time), but I can’t find the source for it anymore. At any rate, that’s a start.

  87. 87.

    drylake

    What a comment on our polity that we now seem to rely on professional comedians like Franken and Colbert to blaze the trail for truth-telling. While it is true that the brilliant licensed (or unlicensed, for that matter) fool set the precedent, I had always assumed the necessity for such fools was limited to the time of authoritarian monarchs.

  89. 89.

    Percysowner

    @piratedan:

    the reality that I find most disappointing is that we had a rash of violations of the law before Obama became president and the idea that we should pursue VP Cheney and the folks in the DOJ that sanctioned the torture of terrorists were allowed to walk away because Obama didn’t want to further divide the country and try and restore bipartisanship to the governance of the nation. A previous GOP administration that treated every outside idea s an anathema to its own stated goals and “ideas”.

    Honestly, In addition to now wanting to divide the country, Obama had to be aware of the dangers of opening the door to prosecuting members of the Executive Branch for actions taken while in office. At least 40% of the Clinton impeachment was payback for the threat to impeach Nixon which drove Nixon from office. I would not want to be the first black President who would retire with the ability for some Republican Prosecutor to decide that it was allowable to bring charges on decisions made during office.

  91. 91.

    Mike in Pasadena

    I think it would be appropriate for Congress to examine all of Comey’s e-mails from June to November 2016.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @drylake: To be fair to Franken, he completely left his comedian persona behind and has been a smart, informed and hardworking legislator. It’s true that the mainstream media has so abdicated its role that guys like Colbert and Stewart had to step into the void and play half-assed journalist to speak truth to power. The same cannot be said of Franken. He’s a serious guy and does not fall back on an “I’m just a comedian” excuse.

  96. 96.

    drylake

    Betty: I think we’re on the same point, just taking slightly different pathways. I meant to say that the fools of old were always highly serious and utterly admirable (as in Lear), but their roles were forced upon them by a despotism that foreclosed other options.

    Brings to mind the NYT in its China reporting yammering on and on about “self-censorship” being the true danger, an important notion that magically disappears off the radar screen once they get back to NY, at least in the institution as a whole, as we have seen this season.

  97. 97.

    Jay Noble

    Anybody notice that it didn’t take “weeks” to figure out there was no there there when they got called out???

  98. 98.

    Tokyokie

    @Thornton Hall:

    @Adam L Silverman: we desperately need to end the practice of treating “well-sourced” as a synonym for “good journalist”.

    99.5% of news happens in public. Sources exist for the sole purpose of selling newspapers.

    No, anonymous sources exist for the purpose of pursuing agendas without the accountability for doing so. Mind you, that often results in newspaper sales, TV viewership, or website clicks. But where journalists are falling down is in respecting the anonymity of the source more than the reliability of the information. When a source knowingly feeds a reporter false information, like the two FBI sources saying Clinton’s indictment was imminent, they should be immediately burned, their anonymity ripped away. This will not result in a precipitous decline in anonymous news sources, but in a falloff of lying anonymous news sources. And I fail to see the downside to that.

  99. 99.

    Tokyokie

    @jharp: My guess is that should Ghouliani be subpoenaed to testify (with the implicit threat of perjury or contempt charges), he will quickly sell out those who fed him the information, because that’s what chickenshits do.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker:

    the FBI wasn’t a player, as far as I know. It was a corrupt state government

    And corrupt Supreme Court justices, all Republican-appointed.

  101. 101.

    Tokyokie

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t think Al has completely left his comedy roots behind. Not that he’s a goofball who belches the national anthem or some such, and as you say, as a senator, he’s hardworking, well informed, and serious as hell. But one of the reasons he’s highly regarded among liberals is his ability to state matters in a way that is illuminating, memorable, and often funny. He brings a professional comedian’s sense of timing to his public statements, although the punch line usually emphasizes his rhetorical point rather than eliciting a laugh. Beats the hell out of right-wing-radio-personalities-turned-pols.

  102. 102.

    Thornton Hall

    @Tokyokie: This is how the confusion survives, because folks like you mount defenses of the press’s vision of itself and where it fails declare, “They are doing it wrong.”

    That is: Press ethics cannot fail, they can only be failed.

    The reality, OTH, is that Watergate was bullshit. It’s just dumb luck that it accidentally turned up the tape recordings. Meanwhile, every good example of source based journalism comes from situations where the government conducted an investigation and then whistleblowers used the press to prevent it from being swept under the rug.

    What good ever came from an anonymous source? As opposed to the leaked results of an investigation.

    Abu Ghraib = military investigation leaked to the press.
    My Lai = Investigation by Ron Ridenhour led to Court Martial of Lt Calley before Sy Hersh got involved.

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