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- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: US Politics Thread
Nothing good comes from this. Yes, it may lead to nothing. But this doesn't help Hillary in any way. It only hurts her.
Re: US Politics Thread
mitchejw wrote:James Lofton wrote:If you pulled that from the Onion it's their worst article ever. The least they could do is learn the basics of the electoral college.
Wow what a sour response. I wrote that in about seven minutes on the toilet this morning.
While I may not be funny, I know about the electoral college. I know that the Republicans have all the shit states that only have three electoral votes to pledge. If they're not three electoral votes little more than 4 or 5 electoral. college votes.
What's so difficult to understand about that? States Like North Dakota and South Dakota and Wyoming and Idaho and Montana. You know, all those inbred white states that nobody lives in or wants to live in .
Pretty racist comment.
No shit. I don't want to hear anymore faux outrage coming from Mitch on this subject.
They were investigating Weiner and his texting of an underage girl and found the classified emails on his fucking phone. Holy shit.
It's so fitting for it to go in this direction.
So Hillary likes rigging elections? Why am I not shocked? Her comments about Russia meddling were very disingenuous.
Re: US Politics Thread
After more reading about this it sure seems like Comey covering his butt more than anything. This man swore under oath that if anything new came to light it would be reopened for investigation. Chaffetz and his pals have already said they plan on investigating Clinton further if/when she becomes POTUS. In other words, as usual per the Republican party, this is only the beginning not the end of their "investigations." Same applies for Comey. Either way you cut it, this guy is going to get dragged up there and questioned relentlessly over the Clinton emails.
Now imagine Comey in front of Congress testifying that he became aware of further emails less than two weeks before the election, but did nothing. He'd be accused of being in the tank for team Clinton just for starters, and probably would face criminal charges. By releasing this information now it keeps him safe from any prosecution later when they most certainly go full "Benghazi" on him.
It also looks like nothing came from Clinton or her server and nothing was intentionally withheld from the FBI.
I'd guess it's a big nothing burger.
If the Clinton camp has anything left on Trump, I'd expect it to drop before the Sunday news shows too. Rumors have swirled for the last week that there is a "bombshell" out there. Guess we'll see soon enough.
I went through my sample ballot today and will be early voting tomorrow.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: US Politics Thread
After more reading about this it sure seems like Comey covering his butt more than anything. This man swore under oath that if anything new came to light it would be reopened for investigation. Chaffetz and his pals have already said they plan on investigating Clinton further if/when she becomes POTUS. In other words, as usual per the Republican party, this is only the beginning not the end of their "investigations." Same applies for Comey. Either way you cut it, this guy is going to get dragged up there and questioned relentlessly over the Clinton emails.
Now imagine Comey in front of Congress testifying that he became aware of further emails less than two weeks before the election, but did nothing. He'd be accused of being in the tank for team Clinton just for starters, and probably would face criminal charges. By releasing this information now it keeps him safe from any prosecution later when they most certainly go full "Benghazi" on him.
It also looks like nothing came from Clinton or her server and nothing was intentionally withheld from the FBI.
I'd guess it's a big nothing burger.
If the Clinton camp has anything left on Trump, I'd expect it to drop before the Sunday news shows too. Rumors have swirled for the last week that there is a "bombshell" out there. Guess we'll see soon enough.
I went through my sample ballot today and will be early voting tomorrow.
You don't write that letter over a "nothing burger"
Re: US Politics Thread
From a law blog, a legal perspective.
"The press is full of "breaking news" stories that FBI Director James Comey has "reopened" the Clinton email investigation. It's juicy news less than two weeks before the election. But it's not quite right.
When the FBI wants to say it is reopening an investigation, it knows perfectly well how to say that. In this case, the investigation was actually never actually closed, so it doesn't need to be reopened. The relevance of this letter is likely not that explosive new evidence of Clinton criminality has suddenly emerged.
It is that Comey made a set of representations to Congress that have been complicated by new information, apparently from the Anthony Weiner sexting case. So he's informing Congress of that fact before the election.
Comey represented to Congress that the Clinton email investigation was "complete." But as the letter relates, new emails have now come to the bureau's attention in that appears relevant to this one. (Weiner's estranged wife is one Clinton's top aides.) Comey has okayed a review of that new information to determine whether the emails contain classified material and also whether they are, in fact, relevant. And this fact, renders his prior statement to Congress no longer true.
The press is full of "breaking news" stories that FBI Director James Comey has "reopened" the Clinton email investigation. It's juicy news less than two weeks before the election. But it's not quite right.
Here's the text of Comey's letter:
When the FBI wants to say it is reopening an investigation, it knows perfectly well how to say that. In this case, the investigation was actually never actually closed, so it doesn't need to be reopened. The relevance of this letter is likely not that explosive new evidence of Clinton criminality has suddenly emerged.
It is that Comey made a set of representations to Congress that have been complicated by new information, apparently from the Anthony Weiner sexting case. So he's informing Congress of that fact before the election.
Comey represented to Congress that the Clinton email investigation was "complete." But as the letter relates, new emails have now come to the bureau's attention in that appears relevant to this one. (Weiner's estranged wife is one Clinton's top aides.) Comey has okayed a review of that new information to determine whether the emails contain classified material and also whether they are, in fact, relevant. And this fact, renders his prior statement to Congress no longer true.
The key point here, in other words, is not that he is "reopening" a closed matter investigation because of some bombshell. It is that he is amending his public testimony to Congress that the FBI was done while the bureau examines new material that may or may not have implications for investigative conclusions previously reached.
Here's the subtext: Comey and FBI investigated Clinton hard, and when various legal and practical hurdles made it impossible to move forward with any kind of criminal case against her, he stated his view—quite unflattering to her—that her behavior had been "extremely careless" with highly sensitive information.
He did this in public because he made a decision that Clinton and her team deserved public scrutiny for their acts, because she is a major party candidate for president. This is why he went out of his way—maybe too far—in revealing unfiltered information so that the public had the opportunity to consider it before voting for or against her.
This summer, in other words, he closed the investigation, stated his reasons, and took arrows both from those who thought he should have gone forward with a case and those who thought he should have said much less than he did.
And he testified before Congress that he was done.
The trouble is that now he has learned something which he thinks may complicate his earlier judgments. And he has authorized additional investigative steps to find out. He found out that he is not done. So the question is whether to tell Congress (and the public) or not.
Even at the risk of helping Trump, Comey has notified Congress (and the world) about it so as to clarify his prior testimony. This allows voters to judge how to consider this before the election—even though he will almost surely not be able to say anything more until after the election. It's a way of not pretending that the investigation is "complete" when he knows there is some degree of residual issue.
If you're inclined to be angry with Comey over this, imagine that he had not said something and it emerged after the election that, having testified that the investigation was complete, he authorized additional investigation of a new trove of emails.
Comey and the FBI are in a terrible position here, one in which they would be accused of playing politics whatever they ended up doing.
The interesting question here is whether the FBI's predicament is Comey's own fault. It's certainly not his fault that the email mess fell into his lap and had to be investigated in the year of an election. Nor is it his fault that the the FBI ended up investigating the DNC hack and whatever trouble Weiner has gotten himself into of late. Reasonable minds will differ about whether Comey leaned too far foreward in publicly disclosing information about his thinking on the email case. He can be criticized for having said and disclosed too much and thereby made his problem worse.
But what you can't reasonably say here is that Comey has been anyone's political lackey. Over the howling objections of many Republicans, he ended the Clinton email investigation, concluding that "no reasonable prosecutor" would go forward with a case. Over the snarls of the Clinton forces, at the same time, he commented quite disparagingly about the behavior of the woman who is likely to become his boss. And now, with the election only days away, he has amended his prior resolution of the case to deal with new information.
Say what you will about the FBI, but it's surely been independent.
Topics: Campaign 2016
Tags: Hillary Clinton, James Comey
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: US Politics Thread
Smoking Guns wrote:mitchejw wrote:Wow what a sour response. I wrote that in about seven minutes on the toilet this morning.
While I may not be funny, I know about the electoral college. I know that the Republicans have all the shit states that only have three electoral votes to pledge. If they're not three electoral votes little more than 4 or 5 electoral. college votes.
What's so difficult to understand about that? States Like North Dakota and South Dakota and Wyoming and Idaho and Montana. You know, all those inbred white states that nobody lives in or wants to live in .
Pretty racist comment.
No shit. I don't want to hear anymore faux outrage coming from Mitch on this subject.
Smoking Guns wrote:They were investigating Weiner and his texting of an underage girl and found the classified emails on his fucking phone. Holy shit.
It's so fitting for it to go in this direction.
So Hillary likes rigging elections? Why am I not shocked? Her comments about Russia meddling were very disingenuous.
I've had 5-6 comments on this thread since you last chimed in....is that all you got?
Faux outrage?
Are you a walking echo chamber ?
Funny how you had nothing to say to my other comments on this thread since Thursday.
I'm here....brung it.
Re: US Politics Thread
Spin spin spin....
No more spin than saying this is a "head shot" or "game-changer."
These emails, which haven't even been reviewed, could be the same ones they've already seen or nothing at all or something new. Since Comey chose not to explain himself, we won't know for weeks. They don't even know whose emails they are. They may not be Clinton's or Podesta's. They could be.
If damage appears to be big, Huma Abedin might have to fall on the sword and take a walk.
The investigation has not been "reopened." That's the ultimate spin.
