Comey May Find Himself Out of a Job
James Comey has, at very least, opened himself up to withering criticism from both sides of the political aisle. And at worst, his actions may cost him his job as FBI Director.
To start, it is worth noting that when Comey first advised Congress of his recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton, he bowed to the intense partisan environment, and engaged in a fair bit of anti-Clinton editorializing that was wholly at odds with established precedent. As we wrote at the time (drawing on a piece by former Justice Dept. public affairs director Mark Miller):
Imagine that the FBI had just spent a year investigating the Koch brothers to see if they had violated any campaign finance laws and then the director of the FBI gave a press conference saying that they had not broken any laws, followed by a 15-minute speech explaining why they are deplorable people and detailing all the things they had done wrong that didn't technically qualify as crimes but were still pretty reprehensible. ... That is not the way the FBI is supposed to work. If someone is innocent, then the FBI is not supposed to besmirch that person's reputation. If the target is guilty, then he or she should be indicted; otherwise, the investigation should be closed with a simple statement that no charges will be brought. Until now, this was always the way the FBI worked.
As chance would have it, there is a rough, real-life parallel to our hypothetical example here: The FBI has been looking into Donald Trump's connections to Vladimir Putin, and has said nary a word about their conclusions. Being circumspect with one candidate but publicly commenting on and lambasting the other certainly does not seem consistent with the non-partisan approach that is expected of the Bureau.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Oct31.html#item-2
= new reply since forum marked as read
