The FBI’s War On Democracy
By 
Above: James Comey
It rests squarely on the shoulders of the director:
“Comey has unleashed a lot of the bad behavior by people down the line by signaling that it’s okay to treat Hillary Clinton differently,” says Matthew Miller, a Democrat who formerly served as a spokesperson for the Justice Department. “There certainly seem to be FBI agents who have taken a really hard partisan line and are just kind of blinded by their anger and hatred toward Hillary Clinton.”
The recent series of FBI leaks are particularly worrisome because they raise the prospect of a state security agency equipped with the full resources and investigative might of the federal government working to interfere in the elections. The FBI is so powerful — it can, with court approval, issue subpoenas, tap phones, intercept emails and conduct round-the-clock surveillance — that even a small coterie of its agents can find ways of influencing the political process. That’s the kind of thing we normally see in autocracies like Egypt or Turkey, not here in the United States.
It’s impossible to know how many agents support Trump, and the anti-Clinton leaks are likely the result of only a tiny minority of the bureau. Still, the fact that a small fraction of the FBI’s workforce has felt free to take steps that could impact the election is profoundly alarming. Comey stumbled by personally entering the political fray. His bigger mistake may have come from signaling to other agents that they could do the same.
Comey released his letter about the Clinton email probe over the objections of his higher-ups at the Justice Department, and despite the fact that the move violated two separate and long-standing policies. The first calls for never discussing ongoing criminal investigations. The second, repeated every four years, is to avoid taking steps within 60 days of an election that could influence the vote and appear to inject partisanship into the FBI’s work.
“We must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship,” then-Attorney General Eric Holder said in a 2012 memo.
Comey did so anyway, triggering sharp criticism from former senior FBI and DOJ officials from both parties. Two of Holder’s most recent Republican predecessors, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey, have also accused the FBI chief of making a serious error in judgement.
The FBI chief’s decision has also spurred a sustained counterattack from the Clinton campaign, which has repeatedly pointed out that Comey took the step despite having earlier argued against publicly accusing Russia of hacking a variety of Democratic targets. He claimed this was to avoid influencing the race by bolstering Clinton’s contention that Moscow was trying to help Trump win the presidency. In a conference call with reporters Monday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Comey’s reluctance to name Russia was “a blatant double standard.”
Outside experts on the FBI say Comey has made a serious and perhaps irreparable mistake.
“His actions were unprecedented, unethical, shocking, and have apparently led to chaos within the bureau, an unprecedented number of leaks, and chaos in our election cycle,” said Douglas Charles, a history professor at Penn State.
Charles, the author of a book about J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, said Comey has a long history with the Clintons that may have left him with a “personal grudge or underlying or subsumed political motive” to try to derail Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
Comey staying on as FBI director if Clinton wins is obviously untenable, and hopefully Obama will correct his mistake before leaving office. If Trump wins, he’d be a perfect fit, although I’m sure Joe Arpaio will be disappointed.