Comey's Answer On Abedin Emails Is Simply Not Credible

So James Comey is testifying at the Senate Judiciary Committee today and Diane Feinstein finally put him on the spot about his decision to reveal the FBI investigation into the Abedin emails just 11 days before the election, an act that virtually every independent analysis shows tilted the election in Donald Trump’s favor. Comey’s answer was less than satisfactory.

Comey insisted that he would make the same decision again, which is not surprising because he will never admit an error as enormous as this was. But his explanation was truly beyond belief. Comey said, “I stared at ‘speak’ and ‘conceal,’ and ‘speak’ would be really bad. There’s an election days away—Lordy, that would be really bad. Concealing in my view would be catastrophic, not just to the FBI but well beyond. And honestly, as between really bad and catastrophic, I said to my team we’ve got to walk into the world of really bad…Anybody who disagrees with me with me has to come back to Oct. 28 with me and stare at this and tell me what you would do. Would you speak or would you conceal? I could be wrong, but we honestly made the decision in those two choices and even in hindsight, and this has been one of the most painful decisions, I would make the same decision. I would not conceal that to Congress.” Well, really bad it was. Of course the hypocrisy of this statement is that when he looked at “speak” and “conceal” when it came to the investigation of Russian hacking and the connections to the Trump campaign, “conceal” did not seem so “catastrophic”.  But Comey incredibly claims that their was no hypocrisy in how treated the Trump investigation, saying, “I treated both investigations under the same principles … people forget we would not confirm the Hillary Clinton email investigation existed for the first three months.” I am not aware of any DOJ “three month rule” on not commenting about ongoing investigations but apparently Comey thinks there is one.

In addition, Comey tried to weasel his way out of even taking responsibility for the investigation of the Abedin emails becoming public, claiming he merely sent a “private letter” to the heads of the House and Senate Oversight Committees.

Just look at the incredible lack of judgement here. On the one hand you have the potential of a presidential campaign conspiring with a foreign power, possibly committing treason, and a batch of emails that you have no idea are relevant or not to an investigation of the possible unintentional mishandling of confidential documents. Which one seems like the bigger threat to the country? Of the two, which one would you “conceal”? If you are James Comey, you “conceal” the Trump investigation and “speak” about emails whose contents you know nothing about and whose relevance turns out to be nil. Of course, he could have taken the proper course of action that follows DOJ procedures and applies in all FBI investigations, especially right before an election, and that is not to comment at all until there is a decision whether or not to prosecute. In addition, Comey apparently believed, if you take him at his word, that his “private letter” to Jason Chaffetz, who had been waging a partisan witch hunt against Hillary Clinton for years, would not become public. These answers are just not credible.

As Adam Schiff put it in a nutshell, for Comey, “Real choice was not conceal or speak. Comey spoke about Clinton & concealed Trump invest. Real choice was to abide by DOJ policy or violate.” He chose violate.