Inquirer Editorial: FBI director's fingerprints will be all over this presidential election
FBI Director James B. Comey's name won't be found anywhere on Tuesday's presidential ballot, but his fingerprints will be. No matter the outcome, the election will be influenced by Comey's decision to ignore Justice Department policy in announcing that a previously closed investigation was being reopened on the basis of unexamined evidence that might not even be pertinent to the case.
FBI Director James B. Comey's name won't be found anywhere on Tuesday's presidential ballot, but his fingerprints will be. No matter the outcome, the election will be influenced by Comey's decision to ignore Justice Department policy in announcing that a previously closed investigation was being reopened on the basis of unexamined evidence that might not even be pertinent to the case.
Polls tightened significantly after it was reported Friday that Comey was reopening the investigation into whether Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton violated the law with her inept handling of classified material while using a personal email server when she was secretary of state. The announcement provided an immediate boost to Republican nominee Donald Trump's lagging campaign.
Comey's decision, revealed in a letter to Congress, said the FBI wanted to examine emails discovered on a computer that belonged to former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The computer was seized as part of an investigation of Weiner for allegedly sending sexually suggestive texts to a 15-year-old girl. Similar behavior several years ago ruined Weiner's political career.
The FBI didn't obtain a warrant to begin searching the new trove of emails until Sunday, so what was Comey's rush to speculate about what they might contain? It is highly unlikely that any significant information can be gleaned from the emails before Election Day, which means the FBI director has created a haze of suspicion without any credible evidence to support it. His haste aids one presidential candidate - Donald Trump.
"We don't operate on innuendo," President Obama said Wednesday. "We don't operate on incomplete information." But that is exactly what Comey did in making an assumption, apparently sight unseen, that the emails on Weiner's computer not only warranted reopening the Clinton case but required him to go public with his decision. That's contrary to the FBI's typical reticence about its ongoing investigations.
It's not clear why Comey did it. Some observers say he was motivated by dissent within the FBI by those who disagreed with his earlier conclusion that there was no evidence of a criminal act by Clinton. In an internal email to bureau employees, Comey said he felt obligated to tell Congress that he was reopening the Clinton investigation. But he also said "we don't know" if the emails on Weiner's computer are significant.
Comey's decision to announce a reopening of the Clinton investigation 11 days before the election flies in the face of the FBI's decision this summer to abide by a Justice Department request to keep quiet about an ongoing investigation of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort so as not to impact the presidential election. Manafort is mentioned in a corruption investigation in Ukraine.
Coney's past reputation for integrity has earned him some benefit of the doubt. But if he wasn't motivated by politics, perhaps it was ego. Other FBI directors, most notably J. Edgar Hoover, let the nature of the office cloud their minds into thinking of themselves as the law, rather than its servant.