After Hillary Clinton was hounded Javert-like by Republicans and their beltway press stenographers for the past 18 months about her use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State, FBI Director Comey concluded his office’s investigation stating nothing she did rose to the level of a crime, nor could he find any intent to commit one. Since he couldn’t prosecute her (this is the guy who led the Whitewater Clinton hunt, after all), Comey did his best to spank her on network news Tuesday, offering up opinions as to her “carelessness” in a rather odd news conference. Instead of being content with a bad Hillary news cycle, greedy Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, chose to “investigate the investigator,” today hauling FBI Director Comey before Congress in what amounted to one of the bigger farces in recent memory.
Director Comey has been lauded by Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, as being above reproach. Today he was treated as a hostile witness. Since Mr. Comey had no intention of besmirching his own record to satisfy a partisan witch hunt, he wound up giving hell to his interrogators. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
All these Keystone Kops did was given Comey a platform to explain that Secretary Clinton did not lie or evade during questioning, that nothing Clinton did rose to the level of a crime, so there is no case against her. He wound up defending her and attacking his attackers. This may go a long way to derail the suspicions Republicans wish to stoke against Clinton, since smearing her is their only hope of claiming the White House in November, with the odious Donald Trump as their nominee.
We know several Republicans have admitted on national television that their numerous Benghazi “investigations” were designed to wreck Hillary’s poll numbers. Yet, the grand finale of Rep. Trey Gowdy and his Congressional cabal’s rude 11-hour interrogation of Hillary Clinton last fall ended with her looking presidential, reasonable, compassionate, composed, fresh as a daisy…you get the idea. In contrast, Gowdy, covered in flop sweat, looked like he needed a shower, a burger and a nap – not necessarily in that order.
Think these two witch hunts are related?
Desperate Republicans’ problem isn’t that Hillary did something wrong – it’s that they cannot break her.
The real story of Hillary’s emails is there’s no scandal, as illustrated by the excellent reportage of Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald (read here, here, here and here). Here’s some more debunking if you like.
Further, the lack of Republican outrage/hysteria over Bush Administration officials conducting government business through an RNC private email server and then “losing” 22,000,000 of those emails; or SoS Colin Powell helping get us into a phony war, using private email during his tenure, and never turning over one page though he was required to do so should be a red flag that this has nothing to do with any desire on Republicans’ parts to prosecute actual wrongdoing.
Once again, Rep. Jason Chaffetz and his pals look like partisan hacks instead of honorable apples doing the people’s business. They’re constantly complaining that President Obama has not been a good shepherd of the economy, that the Affordable Care Act is a disaster and that we’re in dire trouble as a nation. If that is true, why are they wasting taxpayers’ time and money (we’re talking millions of dollars here), by continuing these partisan witch hunts at the expense of actually helping the American people on issues they pretend are so crucial.
Either the sky is falling or it isn’t. Either America is in desperate trouble or this current crop of Republicans simply wish to distract from their own lack of solutions and lack of a good Presidential candidate by trashing Hillary Clinton, President Obama and everyone not in their own circle. This is known in the parlance as, “Look over there! Squirrel!”
A number of prominent Republicans, both former government operatives and business leaders, have already come out to endorse Hillary Clinton as the only sane choice this November. Isn’t that really what has Republicans apopletic?
If so, their circular firing squad isn’t helping.
2 Comments
Comey and the media owe Hillary Clinton an apology. Comey and the State Department have clarified that none of the emails were properly marked classified. Comey told Congress under oath that even an expert familiar with the classification manual could not have known the emails were classified and admitted that Hillary made a “reasonable inference” (his words) that the emails were not classified.
I’m glad he backtracked under oath, but it was Comey who was “extremeley careless” in adding inappropriate and inaccurate conjecture, editorializing, and speculation to his announcement of no charges — a partisan assessment he was forced to contradict when pressed for specifics under oath. Hillary didn’t lie, didn’t commit any crime, and wasn’t hiding anything according to Comey’s testimony. Thank you Trumpublican Party for your witch hunt that has exonerated her. Again.
Spot on, DK. Isn’t it interesting that when Comey was under oath, he was no longer keen on grandstanding for the cameras.