The Comey Coverup Vladimir Putin knows more about the 2016 outcome than the American people do. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-comey-coverup-1524004580?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=8&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s
In his memoir, James Comey cites a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” This mysterious development, he says, was central to his decision to intervene publicly in the Hillary Clinton email case.
Now this is strange because the big mystery was apparently disclosed in a flurry of reporting by the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN a year ago. His insistence in his book that the secret is likely to remain classified for decades also seems a bit hilarious when so much of the story was spontaneously declassified by anonymous leakers last spring, likely including Mr. Comey or people working for him.
Let’s recall what spawned that year-ago leakfest. It’s a question Mr. Comey leaves untouched in his book. Many in the FBI thought the intelligence was fake, possibly a Russian plant. The final reporting word was CNN’s, which cited sources saying Mr. Comey knew the evidence was probably fake but still considered it a threat to discredit the Justice Department’s handling of the Clinton email case.
A few weeks later, though, Sen. Lindsey Graham told CBS that Mr. Comey (presumably in closed hearings) had twice confirmed that the secret intelligence inspired his actions in the email case but “as early as a month ago, he never mentioned it was fake.”
Let us guess that this matter will remain classified for “decades” because it is embarrassing to Mr. Comey and the FBI. It’s also embarrassing, perhaps fatally so, to the intelligence agency that presented the intercept to Mr. Comey. The implication ought to set your hair on fire. Mr. Comey’s first intervention led to his second intervention, reopening the Hillary investigation 11 days before the election, which he now concedes he might have resisted if he had not been sure Mrs. Clinton was going to win anyway.
Many analysts, including Mrs. Clinton, believe Mr. Comey’s actions—possibly driven by fake Russian intelligence—changed the outcome of the election.
In brief, an intercepted Russian document cited a Democratic Party email that, in turn, referred to a private conversation in which Attorney General Loretta Lynch assured a Clinton aide that Ms. Lynch would sit on the email investigation.
In his book, Mr. Comey says of this unnameable intelligence that political opponents of Mrs. Clinton could use it to cast “serious doubt” on the credibility of the Justice Department investigation.
Let’s roll back the tape because Mr. Comey’s original intervention makes even less sense now. If the email was fake, how does it compromise Ms. Lynch? And whether or not it was fake, how did Mr. Comey improve matters? In fact, by intervening, didn’t he just confirm that Justice couldn’t be trusted? Finally, if the intel wasn’t fake, where are the subpoenas and obstruction-of-justice indictments that naturally follow? CONTINUE AT SITE
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