Trump’s talk about the government trying to rig the election might, after all, have had some truth to it. The FBI director, James Comey, has faced a lot of criticism for his handling of the investigation into Clinton’s emails earlier this year. One example of him ignoring the rules of the department of justice was when he held a rambly and strange press conference in July where he talked about the investigation and Clinton’s “extremely careless” is her handling if the emails, without consulting a prosecutor first. Disregarding all rules and by releasing the emails to the public, he hindered Clinton from exercising her legal right to protest the government’s findings in court. Essentially moving the investigation from the court of law and into the court of public opinion.
The latest developments in the email controversy are that FBI Director Comey wrote a letter to Congress saying that the FBI have discovered emails that maybe have something to do with the previous investigation into Clinton causing a split in the nation where half are applauding the FBI and half are criticizing Director Comey, and even saying that he is breaking the law. More specifically, Harry Reid, a Democratic senator, is saying that Director Comey is breaking the Hatchet Act which forbids federal employees from political activity.
The new emails were found during an investigation into Anthony Weiner for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Anthony Weiner is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin who is one of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, and that is how they connected the emails to Clinton. Despite the fact that the Los Angeles Times just confirmed that the emails aren’t to or from Clinton, this is what has caused the uproar from Democrats and the Clinton campaign, who are now calling for Comey to explain why he felt he needed to share the fact that the FBI found emails that Hillary Clinton had never received, sent or even seen. It is strange that he felt that Congress, and thereby the media, needed to know this so much that he decided to break FBI and DOJ protocol and go out of his way to comment on an ongoing investigation.
It is incredibly strange that he decided to send the letter so close to an election, which is breaking protocol. It hasn’t just gotten Democrats angry; the sending of the letter has also “opened him up to fierce criticism not only from Democrats but also from current and former officials at the F.B.I. And the Justice Department, including Republicans.” So Director Comey might have done this in an attempt of harming the Clinton campaign, although this can not be certain. He has admitted that he knows that the letter he sent had “a significant risk of being misunderstood.”
All of this has resulted in Trump changing his rhetoric and is now saying that the election “might not be as rigged as I thought.” Interestingly he changes his opinion on rigging as soon as it is beneficial to him, which is something that he has done before. This double standard is revealing, once again, that he only cares about it when he is loosing.
Either Director Comey is extremely careless in his handling of the Investigation, or he is trying to impact the election. Both of these alternatives are concerning and leave Director Comey with some questions that need answering.
