2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumCan anyone control the FBI? - By the Washington Post Editorial Board
IT WAS disruptive enough that James B. Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, injected last-minute uncertainty into the presidential campaign by announcing discovery of additional emails in the investigation of Hillary Clintons private server. Mr. Comeys explanation for the disclosure, that he needed to keep Congress informed, was dubious, and the damaging impact, casting a new shadow over Ms. Clinton, was tangible. In the days since, the FBIs behavior has grown even more questionable. FBI sources have fanned new doubts about Ms. Clintons candidacy with inaccurate leaks about an investigation of the Clinton Foundation. This reflects poorly on Mr. Comeys leadership and on the FBI.
Former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. wrote in The Post the other day that the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, has a policy of not taking unnecessary action close in time to Election Day that might influence an elections outcome. Mr. Holder said rules he approved are intended to ensure that every investigation proceeds fairly and judiciously; to maintain the public trust in the departments ability to do its job free of political influence; and to prevent investigations from unfairly or unintentionally casting public suspicion on public officials who have done nothing wrong.
The FBI, or at least a part it, has blasted right through Mr. Holders rules. According to reports Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal and Thursday in The Post, agents based in New York thought they should investigate whether donors to the Clinton family charity were given improper benefits by the State Department when Ms. Clinton was secretary. They were motivated in part by Clinton Cash, a book by the conservative author Peter Schweizer that was published in May 2015. According to The Posts account, when the FBI agents took their desire to probe the foundation to higher-ups, they were advised the evidence was thin. Nothing abnormal about that; prosecutors and officials use their judgment about what cases to pursue all the time. But this group of New York agents apparently was unsatisfied, and someone decided to prosecute the case through leaks days before the presidential election. Most irresponsible of all was Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who declared an avalanche of evidence is coming every day and an expansive investigation into the foundation was ongoing and would lead to likely an indictment. Without any substantiation whatsoever indictments are returned by grand juries, not by special agents of the FBI the headlines took off. The false report of an impending indictment was then repeated by Donald Trump. Mr. Baier apologized on Friday for a mistake, but the political damage had already been done.
We can only guess at the motives of the FBI agents behind this politicization of law enforcement, but their behavior is sickening. The campaign has been hard enough with the ugly chants of lock her up. The last thing we need is to find the fingerprints of the nations premier law enforcement agency all over an 11th-hour smear of Ms. Clinton.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fbi-is-completely-out-of-control/2016/11/04/20af72c4-a2be-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
Cha
(297,574 posts)beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)Numerous levels of law breaking....and we can make room in our prisons..
BSdetect
(8,999 posts)no matter how illegal their acts.
dalton99
(781 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)have political power within the FBI and to some extent may have maneuvered Comey into action. Not to excuse him in any way, but this right-wing faction are not his posse and in some cases are directly antagonistic to him.
Giuliani, who maintains good relationships with many former right-wing NYPD officers and FBI agents, was not the only one to tell the press something big was about to happen before it did. Former Assistant Director James Kallstrom did the same thing. Also like Giuliani, he has called the Clintons "The Clinton Crime Family" and spread many other lies, and like Giuliani is also in league with the Breitbart, Judicial Watch, dark-money billionaires, Trump camps.
uponit7771
(90,359 posts)LAS14
(13,783 posts)sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)hlthe2b
(102,348 posts)DeminPennswoods
(15,290 posts)who got themselves hired as career civil service. Every personnel action is documents with an SF50/SF52 form. All that has to be done is to ask OPM or DoJ HR for a list of names of current employees who were converted from political appointee to career civil service and the dates of the personnel action.
OPM can also pull security clearances. When that happens, you basically can't do your job and can be fired or sent to a job so trivial, you'll end up quitting.
Denying pensions would be my choice, but it's pretty hard to do under civil service laws.
Hekate
(90,779 posts)I had not thought of the FBI, but you are very likely right.