FBI Director James Comey Knew The Risks With His Clinton Letter. Trump Just Showed Them.
Less than 24 hours after Comey tried to calm nerves at the FBI, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump proved his fears to be justified and raised additional questions about why he went public in the first place.
Speaking at a rally in Golden, Colorado, Trump made a series of apparent mischaracterizations or uninformed assertions about the state of the FBI investigation and law enforcement in general that will only muddy the waters further about this 11th hour campaign development.
It started with Trumps blanket claim that the newly discovered emails ― found, apparently, on a computer that belonged to former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the estranged husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin ―
proved his Democratic rival was guilty of
something.
The newly discovered emails do not support such a claim. Indeed, no one is entirely sure what the emails say. There are reportedly more than a thousand of them. But those reports also say that many may be duplicates of ones the FBI has already investigated. Its not entirely clear, additionally, whether the emails originated from Clinton herself, Abedin or neither.
Trump also insisted that because the FBI had announced that investigators were looking into the emails,
it had to be that the material theyd discovered was massive in scope and scandal. Now the evidence is so overwhelming ― because they wouldnt have done this unless the evidence was overwhelming, he said.
But all that Comey revealed on Friday was that the emails the FBI had discovered appeared to be pertinent to the [earlier] investigation.
Agents arent even sure what emails are on Weiners computer, its been reported. And Comey himself wrote that the FBI could not assess whether the material may be significant.
Trump didnt stop there. Though no one actually knows what will be found on the device, he still speculated about what was there.
Trump again says the Weiner emails are part of the 30k lost emails. There's no evidence of this as of yet
john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) October 29, 2016
He admitted, at one point, that he had no knowledge to assert that Comey had made his announcement because there was dissatisfaction within his ranks. But Trump made the assertion anyway. There was a revolt and I can be pretty sure of it, he said.
Trump also seized on reports that Comeys decision to write to Congress went against the recommendation of Attorney General Loretta Lynch to claim that the Department of Justice was biased against him.
Now the Attorney General is fighting the FBI, because the FBI finally did what was right, he said. The Department of Justice is trying so hard to protect Hillary.
But Lynchs efforts to dissuade Comey from going public didnt have to do with protecting Clinton so much as trying to uphold a longstanding DoJ practice of not interfering in campaigns so close to election day. If anything, Comey appears to have acted roguely in this instance, with numerous career and non-career justice officials expressing shock with his decision to make a public pronouncement 11 days before people vote.
That didnt stop Trump from speculating, of course.
There are those, and I happen to be one of them, who think Hillary Clinton offered Loretta Lynch a reappointment, he said. This claim might be less dubious than the others, however, since The New York Times has reported that Clinton is considering retaining Lynch at the DOJ.
For good measure, Trump compared the American system of justice to what one would find in a developing nation, adding that in terms of our judicial system, this is the lowest point in the history of our country.
