A rogue element
Nate Silver points out an aspect I would love to know more about. (I don’t suppose we ever will.)
Stephanopoulos doesn't quite pose the "why not wait?" question directly to Comey, but Comey's thinking seems to have been influenced by concerns that pro-Trump elements within the FBI would leak word of the Weiner emails to the media. pic.twitter.com/LVuIuwCpYb
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 16, 2018
Stephanopoulos doesn’t quite pose the “why not wait?” question directly to Comey, but Comey’s thinking seems to have been influenced by concerns that pro-Trump elements within the FBI would leak word of the Weiner emails to the media.
From the transcript where they’re talking about why he sent the letter about re-opening the emails investigation:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the reasons it was– you feared it was going to leak out is– ’cause you were dealing with a rogue element of FBI agents and former FBI agents up in New York who were really pushing to get this out there. Were you aware of that?
JAMES COMEY: I knew that there were leaks coming– or appeared to be leaks about criminal investigation of the Clintons coming out of New York. And I don’t know exactly where that was coming from. I commissioned an investigation to find out. I don’t know what the investigation found.
But, yeah, I was worried about– the– the team that had done the investigation was in the counterintelligence division at headquarters, of the emails. And there were no leaks at all, very tight. But the criminal folks in New York were now involved in a major way, and I don’t want to single anybody out ’cause I don’t know where it was coming from.
But there’d been enough up there that I thought there was a pretty reasonable likelihood that it would leak, and that’s what Loretta was reflecting.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You had your– your former boss, Rudy Giuliani, out there on television saying something big was coming.
JAMES COMEY: Yes, I saw that. And I don’t know whether that was– it’s part of what I ordered investigated. I don’t know whether that was part of a leak outta the– FBI office in New York that knew about the search warrant. But that was my concern, that once you start seeking a search warrant, especially in a criminal case– counterintelligence is different.
They’re so used to operating in a classified environment. They’re much tighter. But once you start involving people whose tradition is criminal, and in New York which has a different culture, there is a reasonable likelihood it was going to get out anyway.
Rogue elements in the criminal division in the New York branch of the FBI, who were Trump fans, who were thought to be about to leak.
Hillary Clinton’s email practices, because they carried the risk of exposure of confidential information, were bad enough for Comey to decide to depart from standard practice and deliver a little lecture about her inappropriate and careless conduct.
NY FBI agents leak politically damaging confidential information to Rudy Giuliani for purposes of influencing a presidential election, and the threat of them doing so again is so obvious that it induces Comey to depart from accepted practices and send an ill-advised letter to Congress that ends up possibly throwing the election, and all Mr. Higher Loyalty has to say about those leaks is that, well, gosh, it’s “a different culture.”
This was in a lot of the news reports at the time. Which means what we have is a dangerous group of treasonous FBI agents working in criminal investigations.
I’ve only known one career FBI agent in my life, and what a shock, he was a super vocal Republican, as well as a domestic abuser (police called when he beat up his wife). He also left his service weapon within easy reach of his (and my) children, and was horrific to his live-in babysitter. Somehow none of those things led to his weapon or badge being taken, though. After all, it was only women and children at risk. (We stopped letting our au pair take the kids to that house, and had his au pair over to our house as much as possible when she was off duty, and complained to the au pair agency.)
@Screechy Monkey – but there’s no double standard at work here. Nope, not at all. /s
Sigh. As an ex-federal employee (of a shadowy, three-letter government agency ;-) ) I actually think it’s a pretty damning thing to admit that as Director, he was unable to communicate the seriousness of leaking such information during an election or rely on that office to keep their goddamn mouths shut.
But Trump’s conflicts of interest and total incapacity for the job he was seeking did not carry a big enough risk to the country to warrant a deviation from the normal FBI procedures, so the information remained confidential. No lectures, no media blitz, just…silence.
The possibility that Russia might be interfering in our election did not carry a big enough risk to the country to warrant a deviation from normal FBI procedures.
The fact that Trump has connections with all sorts of unsavory characters, and apparently has long believed he could get away with anything because he is rich (and now famous) did not carry a big enough risk to the country to warrant a deviation from normal FBI procedures.
Makes me wonder if it was something else that posed such a big risk…like, maybe her second X chromosome? Her pantsuits? Her hair do? Her earrings? Her mammary glands? Her voice?
My suspicion is that gender was not the main determinant in this situation. I think this one can be explained by the fact that Republicans play hardball, while Democrats play pattycake.
Comey knew that Republicans would tear him a new asshole if the news about Weiner’s computer came out after the election and Hillary had won. He was not worried about Democrats doing anything to him if he threw the election Trump’s way. And sure, part of his calculus was no doubt his belief that Hillary was going to win anyway, but I wouldn’t underestimate the way that conservatives have been working the refs for decades now.
After all, Obama fell for it, too. He could have released info about the Trump investigation, but was afraid of appearing partisan and so decided not to do it unless the Congressional leadership okayed it. McConnell — you know, one of those sensible Republicans who never really liked Trump — said nope, and so Obama kept quiet. Not that Obama is guaranteed to be 100% free of gender bias (nobody is), but I think it’s not the best explanation here.
Unfortunately, there’s some truth to that double standard. Republicans can get away with scorched earth tactics, because their base loves it and won’t hold it against them. A substantial portion of the Democratic base still pines for the good ol’ days of bipartisanship, and is turned off by what they see as vulgar politicking.