Washington: There's a lot of handwringing at the FBI, but director James Comey can't pretend that the impact on the Clinton campaign of his cryptic little letter to Congress on Friday could be other than that described by Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile: "Like an 18-wheeler smacking into us."
Senior Justice Department officials, reportedly including US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch, told Comey that his payload of political TNT wasn't a good idea, that this wasn't how you do business.
More News Videos
- Video duration
- 01:54
Clinton: FBI letter on emails 'deeply troubling'
- Video duration
- 00:22
Baby powder cancer risk
- Video duration
- 01:02
The centre of South Korea's political scandal
- Video duration
- 01:01
Chobani yoghurt attacked for helping refugees
- Video duration
- 00:58
Toddler drives toy car on busy road
- Video duration
- 00:48
Mosul: Iraqi forces break through
- Video duration
- 00:48
Aerial footage shows Italy quake damage
- Video duration
- 00:51
Michel Aoun becomes Lebanon's president
Clinton: FBI letter on emails 'deeply troubling'
Hillary Clinton says FBI director James Comey's decision to notify Congress that it is looking into newly uncovered emails relating to her use of a private email server is "unprecedented" so close to an election.
But the record shows that Comey knows what he's saying as much as what he's not saying in the matter of Hillary Clinton and her very stupid private email server, the existence of which was aptly described by one of her own disbelieving sidekicks as "f---ing insane".
In his exhaustive, year-long initial investigation, Comey came up empty in the search for evidence of criminal wrongdoing – which is as much as he should have said in his July announcement, which Clinton had hoped would be the end of the matter.
But Comey had a lot more to say. And it's hard not to conclude that he figured if he couldn't get a conviction at law, he'd settle for taking Clinton down in the court of public opinion – why else would he resort to loaded language that included phrases like "extremely careless … should have known …especially concerning … generally lacking … still obligated to protect it … hostile actors … sophisticated adversaries".
Compare that with the paucity of information in his Friday letter – he must reopen the investigation because inadvertently, the FBI had come upon another trove of emails that warranted examination because they " appear pertinent to the investigation".
And oh, by the way, with just 11 campaign days left, he didn't know how significant the emails were or how long it would take to review them.
Comey's July assault on Clinton, like so much about her that should have been grist to the campaign mill, was overtaken by Donald Trump's inability to control his hands and his penis, as a result of which the Clinton machine was confidently attempting to run out the clock.
Now, Clinton is blown out of the water on account of what the FBI doesn't know – as opposed to what it might know.
Not surprisingly, Trump could not contain himself - "bigger than Watergate", he told a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire - as his faltering, seemingly doomed campaign took on a new lease of life.
As explained by FBI insiders, Comey's choice was to proceed without advising Congress, but in the knowledge that he could not guard against leaks about such an explosive development; and at the same time, risk the discovery of incriminating evidence and having to reveal it after the election when, in all probability, Clinton would be in the White House.
In making a political calculation, Comey went rogue. For much of his life he has been a registered Republican voter, but he also had the balls to stand up to the Bush White House when it wanted to illegally, as Comey believed, expand domestic surveillance in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But as reported by The New Yorker, this precise conflict had been addressed in the abstract by the Justice Department four years ago, with then US attorney-general Eric Holder formally declaring that officials "may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party".
Comey wasn't worried about actually upsetting half of the country with his July decision to not charge Clinton. Suddenly, he's worried about possibly upsetting half the country should it be revealed after the election that he had abided by departmental protocol in not revealing the existence of new emails, the significance of which he does not have a clue about.
It's immaterial whether Comey was protecting his behind or giving Trump a leg-up.
In opting to protect the FBI from possible allegations of a pro-Clinton cover-up, the FBI director settled on a course of action that, at the least, puts a slick on Clinton's road to the presidency – and thereby gives Trump a chance to get back in the race.
The political reality is that Comey has given Trump that leg-up. But in trying to avoid blowback after the election he'll be seen to have caved to Trump's relentless claims that the FBI and others are part of a grand conspiracy to rig the election against him.
And what has he achieved? Suddenly Trump is cheering Comey on, but now the FBI director is facing a full-frontal attack from senior Democrats that his letter was "extraordinary", "irresponsible" and "appalling". And that is nothing compared to the barrage he'll cop if it transpires that Trump can defy his own political shortcomings to harness this gift.
"By providing selective information, [Comey] has allowed partisans to distort and exaggerate to inflict maximum political damage," Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta told reporters in a conference call on Saturday. "Comey has not been forthcoming with the facts … [the letter is] long on innuendo."
The opportunity for Trump here is to refocus voters' minds on themes that have been swirling but not gaining traction because of obsessive reporting on the GOP candidate's record of sexual abuse.
These include WikiLeaks revelations that Bill Clinton may have been leveraging the Clinton Foundation for personal financial gain; and Hillary Clinton's own staff questioning her judgment – in one leaked email, Podesta complaining of Clinton's "terrible" political instincts; another has a close aide - she who described the private email server as insane - demanding to know if whoever told Clinton she could have the server "has been drawn and quartered?".
In trying to steady the campaign, the Clinton team has opted for sticking to its schedule and hoping desperately that voters had long ago made up their minds on the email issue – and that despite tightening polls, they can still run out the clock.
It all comes down to what Trump can make of Comey's gift.
Clinton surrogate John Sasso, a veteran of the 2004 and 1988 Democratic campaigns, counsels that Trump doesn't have the skills to use it to political effect: "Fortunately, Trump has spewed so much innuendo and conspiracy nonsense that he has lost all ability to convince persuadable voters and change the structure of the race."
That seemed to be the belief among Republicans too. But some see it as an opportunity to shore up the chances of their down-ticket candidates.
Rob Simms, who heads the House Republican campaign effort, told The New York Times: "It boosts the check-and-balance argument, because it is a reminder of all of the things voters hate about Clinton."
In an email to all FBI staff on Friday, Comey concluded: "There is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it."
Oh, they heard you alright.