Forget Economics Vs. Identity Politics, It Was Comey, Comey, Comey!

John Podesta has an op-ed in the Washington Post today where he lambastes the FBI for its role in the 2016 election. Podesta points out that when the FBI contacted the DNC to tell them that the organization had been hacked, he ended up speaking to essentially the IT help desk at the DNC. The FBI agent specifically spoke about infiltration by the “Dukes”, a group that the agency was familiar with because of other intrusions into government systems and has been directly associated with Russia since 2008. Although the agent tried to follow up multiple times afterward, the IT guy had no reason to be sure that he was truly an FBI agent and a credible source. As Podesta points out, it might have been helpful if the agent made a personal visit to DNC headquarters, which is located only a few miles from the FBI in Washington DC. If a personal visit was to much, perhaps he could have spoken to the senior members of the DNC who were actually members of Congress. If not that, perhaps he could have asked to escalate his phone calls up the management chain of the DNC, rather than just speaking to the help desk.

Podesta contrasts this lackadaisical attitude to the overwhelming force that the FBI applied to investigating Hillary’s email server which involved dozens of agents and, according to Comey himself, required “thousands of hours of effort”. If only the FBI could have put in a couple of hours of effort to accurately inform the DNC.

As we gain more insight into the investigation of Russian hacking, Comey’s actions begin to look worse and worse, which is simply hard to imagine at this point. All through the summer, the FBI reported incidents of Russians hacking the election systems in the US. In August, the FBI reported breaches in the voter registration systems in Arizona and Illinois. In congressional testimony at the end of September, Comey also reported that other intrusions had been attempted and scanning activities, which are a prelude to an attack, had also been detected. All during the summer WikiLeaks had been providing timely releases of hacked DNC emails and it did not take a rocket scientist to at least surmise that the Russians had provided that material, considering the FBI was well aware the DNC had been breached. So Comey certainly can not claim that it was unclear whether our election system was being hacked and, since all the damaging material that was being leaked effected Democrats, he had to have some inkling that some group was trying to influence the election. And all the evidence pointed to the Russians.

Comey, along with Jeh Johnson, head of Homeland Security, attended that fateful meeting with congressional leaders where McConnell refused to put out a bipartisan statement about the Russian hacking and threatened to accuse the administration of partisan interference in the election if the administration did so unilaterally. One of the unanswered questions about that meeting is what exactly Comey’s input was, if anything. Did he provide cover for McConnell in that meeting? Subsequently, the administration did put out a watered down warning about foreign interference in our elections but, significantly, the FBI refused to even sign on to that, reportedly because Comey felt even that warning would influence the election in a partisan way. That is pretty hard to swallow considering just weeks later he violated DOJ rules and the direct recommendations of his superiors to announce an investigation into the Abedin emails that turned up absolutely nothing. In addition, the New York FBI office was serially leaking damaging accusations against Clinton that all proved to be unfounded. Even to this day, the FBI refuses to sign on to assessment that Russia hacked our electoral system in order to help Trump get elected and it continues to provide cover for Republicans to claim the evidence about Russian hacking is inconclusive. This FBI reluctance allows David Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to obfuscate what has really happened by saying, “I’ll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there’s clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence – even now. There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that’s it”. Media reports describe the differing assessments of the CIA and the FBI as a difference in the focus of each organization. As an example, CNN says, “Part of the issue is the nature of the CIA and FBI roles in the investigation. The CIA produces raw intelligence, the FBI moves more slowly to reach conclusions based on the intelligence and other investigative work”. If it weren’t for the damage done, those statements are simply laughable when you think about Comey’s letter about Abedin’s emails based on no evidence at all and before a warrant to look at the emails had even been prepared, much less, accepted by a judge.

Podesta is correct in stating that the FBI is broken. But he is being kind. This was a coordinated attack by the FBI to manipulate an election. And Comey was a willing participant. Whether the FBI could prove that Russia was directing the hacking or not is irrelevant. Whether the FBI could prove that the hacking was designed to help Trump is irrelevant. The facts are that foreign powers of some sort hacked our election systems. Leaks resulting from that hacking only hurt the Clinton campaign. Knowing those facts, Comey still refused to sign on to the administration’s October statement. And even to this day, he refuses to say that it was designed to get Trump elected when all the information shows that it did. Beyond that, his rationale for his letters about the Abedin emails are in direct contradiction to his rationale for not commenting on the Russian hacks and directly contradict the bureau’s rationale for not agreeing with the CIA’s assessment. He allowed the New York field office to leak inaccurate and incredibly damaging information regarding Clinton just days before the election. As far as I know, there has been no disciplinary action taken against anyone for those leaks. And to this day, his agency still provides cover for Republicans and Trump.

This election may have been hacked by the Russians. But it was an American coup. While Democrats fight about whether to blame their economic message or identity politics, they help deflect from the central figure in this election. It’s Comey, Comey, Comey!