It's over! No indictment for Hillary over her damn emails! Final electoral roadblock removed!
I guess we can all move on with our lives, eh? Hah...as if.
Let's break down the section of yesterday's statement from FBI Director James Comey's that Republicans will be desperately grasping onto over the next few months. Via the press release:
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. The phrasing here seems damning at first, but check out what he says a few paragraphs down: While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.With just weeks to go until the national party conventions, it can't help but feel overtly political to take such specific aim at Hillary Clinton for being a part of a flawed "security culture of the State Department in general". Comey also managed to pick a fight with a whole other department in the process, and State was quite eager to jump in and defend themselves a few hours later. If he wanted a mess, it looks like he got his wish.
Also, a careful reading makes one wonder if the "extreme carelessness" he speaks of was mainly aimed at Clinton, her colleagues or all of them put together. And just how much evidence is there for such carelessness? Just a little or a whole lot? Just once, or over and over again over four years? He's oddly vague on specifics despite making such an "extreme" characterization.
He goes on:
For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails). Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.After all of this huffing and puffing, it turns out that only a "very small number" of these e-mails bore markings indicating classification. But does this mean they had "CLASSIFIED" emblazoned on the top or had less obvious indications within them? Again, vague. Did Clinton send any of these "marked" emails or just receive them? He doesn't say. Were any of these part of the Top Secret group? Again we don't know, but probably not. Are the Top Secret emails the same as the "innocuous" drone program emails we heard about earlier this year? Could be, but who knows. And what does "very small number" even mean? 2 or 3? For some reason he was specific on the number in the Top Secret group, but not here.
For more on the unusual or even questionable nature of this public statement, I recommend reading responses from Alan Dershowitz, former Department of Justice spokesman Matthew Miller and others.
James Comey must have known that his carefully-chosen words would amount to red meat thrown to Clinton's opposition right in the middle of a contentious election year. There's no reason to ignore something so obvious. He's entitled to his non-legally binding statement about these emails, but his opinion matters far less than the fact that Hillary Clinton is legally in the clear.
Besides, guess who else gets to publicly air opinions on this matter until the election? Hillary Clinton. The American people will then have to decide whether to believe a Republican FBI Director and elect Donald Trump...or believe a Democratic former Secretary of State and elect her instead.
I'm not sure this will be a hard choice.
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Originally posted at HillaryHQ.com