James Comey is Maxwell Smart How Comey’s botched mission to safeguard a Hillary presidency elected Trump. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-comey-is-maxwell-smart-1501022653
Terry McAuliffe, governor of Virginia and former prolific Clinton fundraiser, is no idiot when it comes to politics. In response to a general question about Hillary Clinton’s postelection deportment, he not only turned a recent Politico podcast discussion to Russia’s election meddling but zeroed in on fake Russian intelligence implicated in FBI chief James Comey’s election interventions.
Why this underplayed episode, among all the overplayed theories of Russian meddling, might weigh on his mind is no mystery. Put aside the obvious objection that if Hillary Clinton had been a better candidate, she would have won. Joshua Green, author of a new book about the election, “Devil’s Bargain,” says internal Trump polls showed a clear view of the race’s final days. Voters who liked neither candidate broke decisively for Mr. Trump after Mr. Comey’s Oct. 28 letter reopening the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server.
Nate Silver, the polling authority at FiveThirtyEight.com, reached the same conclusion using public surveys: “Hillary Clinton would probably be president if [Mr. Comey] had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28.”
Mr. Comey, in public testimony, attributed his serial interventions to the Arizona tarmac meeting of Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A Washington Post headline blared: “Now we know: Bill Clinton cost his wife the presidency.”
Except that, in later reporting by the Post and other new organizations, it wasn’t the tarmac meeting at all; it was planted Russian intelligence about Attorney General Lynch that led to Mr. Comey’s intervention.
This story actually makes a lot more sense. The public knew about the tarmac meeting. Voters were already factoring it in. If the Justice Department worried how its Clinton decision would play, it could have leaked the Comey recommendation. It could have authorized him to speak publicly.
Plenty of Hillary surrogates, from President Obama on down, stood ready to lend credibility to a decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Comey’s unprecedented, protocol-violating step simply wasn’t required. CONTINUE AT SITE
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