The Chris Moeller Archives

Public interest disclosures

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has always been politicized. The people who are accusing James Comey of establishing some sort of new standard don't know history at all, or in many more cases, are doubling-down on the same disgusting tribal behavior in support of Clinton that led us to this awful electoral choice in the first place. Was the FBI politicized when they began the COINTELPRO program and targeted anti-war protestors, Civil Rights and Black Power organizations, and anti-colonial movements? They were already political in respect to Hillary Clinton's private email server when they chose to develop a separate legal standard for Candidate Clinton than the one established for Edward Snowden. It was a violation of FBI guidelines when the Bureau announced in July that it would not recommend charges against Clinton. Comey explained then that his decision to do so was based on "intense public interest." Being fair, when both major presidential candidates have engaged in as much criminal behavior as these two have, it puts the FBI in the unenviable position of having nearly every American suspect that they must be covering more for one than the other.

The Clintons are being blatantly disingenuous when they call for Comey to release details into the ongoing criminal investigation of her attempt to conduct State Department business nearly fully shielded from public oversight. If campaign operatives want the public to know what exactly is not contained in this new batch of emails that might have prompted a federal inquiry to be re-opened, they should tell us themselves. They know the source, and we do too. The emails are from Anthony Weiner, the former New York Congressman accused by the FBI of sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, and doing so with his four-year-old child in bed with him in the transmitted photo. Weiner's digital devices are in the process of being searched for child pornography after several weeks of the FBI attempting to secure a search warrant. Let Hillary or Bill, or Clinton aide-slash-Weiner's not-yet-divorced wife Huma Abedin-- or Weiner himself, a tried and true Clinton loyalist, if ever there was one, tell us exactly what's in there.

But of course, none of them will do this, because it's certainly damaging information-- worse probably than what Donald Trump's imagination can conjure. If it wasn't, they would be getting out ahead of their disreputable opponent on this. A charge of "playing politics" against the Bureau, against a director that they had previously praised, is the only card they have to play. Just as with the myriad other secrets coming to embarrassing light-- the leaks by Julian Assange, DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, and others, nobody from the campaign has disputed for more than a second the authenticity of the information itself, or has been willing to defend the malfeasance revealed by it. They just misdirect and misdirect, offering no evidence to back their claims, and resorting, at their worst, to the reanimation of McCarthyism in regards to the Eastern Bloc. They stumble to the finish line on the hope that their gullible supporters will stay Velcroed to the bandwagon for eight more days, refusing to accept that they have other, better candidates from which to choose.

posted by CM @ 6:31 PM