Democrats Selective Memory on Comey and Russia/Trump

Recently, in another one of Fox News' Fair and Balanced political food fights, I listened to a Democratic strategist argue that the FBI Director's firing was "unprecedented".  Unfortunately, that comment was never challenged and was a lie.  The fact is that the former Democrat, President Bill Clinton set the precedent when he fired the then-FBI Director William Sessions at the recommendation of his Attorney General Janet Reno.

Then there's this Russian conspiracy theory that Trump colluded with them and Putin to become President.  Democrats seem to forget that in early January, before Trump was even sworn in, the Director of National Intelligence released a co-authored, non-classified report by the FBI, NSA, and CIA titled: “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”.  The key assessments of that report were as follows:

• "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency."
• "We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President - elect Trump."

In coming to the first conclusion, the report stated the following:

Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012 , and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him.

So, clearly, Hillary was the target of the hacking, without any specific attempt to put Trump into office.  The fact is, the email dumps by Wikileaks would have happened no matter who ran against Hillary. In the second assessment, the most powerful word in the statement is "developed".   This clearly means that Trump was not "job one" in the hacking of the DNC server and Wikileaks.  It took time for the Russians to decide that Trump was the better candidate from their perspective.

I just wish that the media would be honest and well-versed in the topics they are covering, so that political parties couldn't play these intentional games by hiding known facts and relying heavily on the knowledge that voters have short memories.

References:

An FBI director has been fired only once before — and it was under dramatically different circumstances: http://www.businessinsider.com/last-fbi-director-fired-bill-clinton-william-sessions-2017-5

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

Firing Comey Gave Democrats Fuel for the Russia/Trump Connection

Nearly a day doesn't go by that a Democratic politician or strategist doesn't remind Americans that Trump may have illegitimately been elected because of collusion with the Russians.  This is despite the fact that ongoing concurrent investigations in the House, Senate, and the FBI have not produced any evidence to support it

So, it was no wonder then, that when Trump fired FBI Director Comey, the Democrats automatically smelled a rat.  Immediately,  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded a special prosecutor under the assumption that Comey's dismissal was a direct result of his investigation of Russian interference in the election.  Therefore, the Russia/Trump controversy continues to have legs.

However, there is an obvious flaw in that thinking.  Comey being fired does not stop the Russia investigation. And unless Comey was extremely hands on and had nothing else to do, there is most likely some lead investigator at the FBI who is actually in charge of thet investigation.  That's the reality.

My problem with the Comey firing is why it took so long.  Trump should have let him go early into his presidency because of the way he -- not the Russians -- interfered in the election regarding  Hillary's email server. In addition, the way the firing was handled was a violation of every code of conduct for any executive.  You just don't fire someone by letter unless that person simply isn't available.  The proper thing to do is to have a face-to-face meeting in which the person being released receives a full understanding as to why he/she is being let go.  That was not the case, and it clearly shows an insensitivity on Trump's part that I find reprehensible.

References:

Pence Calls Comey Firing 'Right Decision' as Democrats Pounce: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/democrats-charge-comey-firing-nixonian-demand-special-prosecutor-n757121

Chuck Schumer calls for special prosecutor for Russia probe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/05/10/trump-takes-twitter-defend-comey-firing-decision/5ozYTKF0klYhBhmRiDkNjO/story.html

Comey Firing Was Inevitable--Surprise Is It Took So Long: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/05/09/james-comey-fired-donald-trump-fbi-director-column/101488186/

Hillary's Misplaced Claims as to Why She Lost

In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton stated that she lost the election because of Comey, Wikileaks, and misogyny.  Yes, that right,  misogyny.  Not because she was simply a bad candidate.

In the case of FBI Director Comey, she need only look inward to find a justification for his investigation into her conducting classified State Department business on a private email server in her home.  Comey was just the messenger who eventually cleared her.  And, many still think she was wrongly cleared of what should have been considered a crime.

Then, there's the Wikileaks dumping of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacked emails. If she wants to blame anyone, she should blame her own Democratic party.  The DNC was warned months in advance that there could be hacking of that server.  The whole incident could have been minimized if the DNC had acted quickly to block any hacking.  Instead they waited months to do so.

Then, there's this bull about misogyny.   Clearly, she wants the world to believe that she lost because this country is sexist, and she was a victim.  The only problem is that, except for college educated white women, she substantially lost the women's vote.  This conclusion is based on a post election analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight.com.  For example, among white women without a college degree, she only garnered 34% of the vote compared to 62% for Trump.  And, even among college degreed white woman her win margin was only 51% to 45%.

The simple fact is that Hillary lost because she was a bad candidate with the wrong message for America.  To many, she was just another 4-year iteration of the Obama presidency. For myself and others, it was President Obama that created the Trump victory.

References:

Hillary Clinton blames Comey, WikiLeaks and 'misogyny' for 2016 loss: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/07/hillary-clinton-blames-comey-wikileaks-and-misogyny-for-2016-loss.html

FBI Chief Jim Comey Clears Hillary Clinton—and Puts Himself in the Crosshairs: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/06/fbi-director-james-comey-clears-hillary-clinton-on-new-emails.html

CNN: Sources: US officials warned DNC of hack months before the party acted: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/politics/democratic-convention-dnc-emails-russia/

Clinton Couldn’t Win Over White Women: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over-white-women/

Why did Hillary Clinton lose? Simple. She ran a bad campaign: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-hillary-clinton-lost-bad-campaign-perspec-20161114-story.html

CNN's SE Cupp: Hillary Was 'Singularly Terrible Candidate' For Dems: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/se-cup-hillary-clinton-democrats-bad-candidate/2016/11/09/id/758076/

And the worst candidate of 2016 was ... Hillary Clinton: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/and-the-worst-candidate-of-was-hillary-clinton/collection_f8f936de-1636-5546-9f08-e1290b573934.html

Hillary's Email Server: The Most Damning Words from the FBI Director

Hillary Clinton is still trying to buffalo the American public into believing that FBI Director Comey said she didn't send or receive any emails that were "clearly" marked classified.  But to that point, here's what he said:

"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."

He then goes on to say:

"For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."

The words "any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position" speaks volumes regarding her reckless disregard for her handling of the highest level of classified topics.  Either she's too stupid to recognize when something is extremely sensitive, or she simply doesn't care.  In either case, she should not be handling our nation's secrets as President.

References:

Clinton doubles down on disputed claim FBI found her email remarks 'truthful': http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/04/clinton-doubles-down-on-claim-fbi-determined-her-remarks-on-email-scandal-were-truthful.html

Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

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Comey Hearing: Complete Bipartisan Partisanship

Yesterday, I listened to Congress grilling FBI Director Comey over his decision not to recommend any charges against Hillary Clinton, for her use of a personal email server.

What I basically heard is the Republicans focusing in on Hillary's lies that contradicted the FBI reported facts.  On the other hand, Democrats were dismissive of those lies and attempted to prove that no actions rose to a level that would warrant charges.  I actually  heard one Democrat slam the hearing as being purely political partisanship, as if the defense of Secretary Clinton wasn't, in itself, partisan.

In my opinion, this country will never achieve true bipartisan agreement on anything if the Democrats can't understand that lying to the American people, over-and-over again, is a violation of the public trust by a person who wants to lead this country.  I feel that is actually a bigger problem than whether or not Hillary was charged.

The Trial of Hillary Is Happening Anyway

When FBI Director Comey outlined a litany of security violations with regard to Hillary Clinton's email server, he essentially showed her to be a liar and a reckless individual on so many issues as this video clip of MSNBC's Morning Joe so clearly states:

In my opinion, this may possibly explain why Comey didn't bring any charges.

He merely tossed all of the violations out into the public domain and, as a result, she will be  tried in the court of public opinion; and, as that video shows, not favorably.  He could have simply handed the conclusions of his FBI investigation to the Justice Department without a press conference and allowed that agency to decide whether or not to press charges.  But, by having an unprecedented news conference, he ensured that what she did wouldn't be swept under the rug.  He also gave Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and any Trump SuperPacs, all the sound-bites they need to keep prosecuting her in that fabled public court.  In fact, as of this writing, the RNC has already released this ad:

If Hillary Clinton does lose the election because of her server problem, the Democrats may regret that she wasn't charged so that they could have had the opportunity run someone else for President.

References:

Morning Joe eviscerates Hillary Clinton in wake of brutal FBI report about email conduct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maVuOWDOHL8

Transcript: Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system