2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHow James Comey and Loretta Lynch made Donald Trump the president of the United States
By Paul Waldman December 22 at 9:51 AM
This morning Sari Horwitz has what may be the most comprehensive account yet of what happened behind the scenes as FBI Director James Comey decided to essentially hand the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. Its an extraordinary story, one that provides an important lesson that goes beyond this one election: Political events with sweeping consequences are determined by individual human beings and the decisions they make. That may not sound surprising, but its a profound truth that we often forget when we look for explanations in broad conditions and trends (which are still important) or theories about dark and complicated conspiracies that dont exist.
Lets start with this summary of what happened when the FBI informed the Justice Department that Comey wanted to go public with the news that the bureau was looking into some emails found on a laptop belonging to Huma Abedin, Clintons close aide, which would end up happening nine days before Election Day:
It was DEFCON 1, said an official familiar with the deliberations. We were incredibly concerned this could have an impact on the election.
Aides at Justice and the FBI located in offices directly across the street from each other on Pennsylvania Avenue began exchanging increasingly tense and heated phone calls, nearly a half-dozen throughout the afternoon and evening of Oct. 27 and into the next morning.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/12/22/how-james-comey-and-loretta-lynch-made-donald-trump-the-president-of-the-united-states/?utm_term=.b85e0f2fc741&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
ffr
(23,127 posts)HuffPost. Coverups. Collusion between FBI and tRump surrogates.
GiulianiGate.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028391770
ffr
(23,127 posts)So both of them failed to do their jobs, Comey with an act of commission and Lynch with an act of omission. You can sympathize with the pressure they were under and say that hindsight is always 20/20, but the fact is that they failed, and it was because they didnt have the courage to do the right thing. The next time you shake your head at the sight of Republicans yelling into cameras or talk radio microphones about how terribly angry they are at whatever theyre supposed to be angry at today, remember how politically useful all that noise can be.
NewJeffCT
(56,840 posts)Fear of Republican outrage was driving their decisions. How often has this been the case over the last 40 years?
KT2000
(20,833 posts)the crazy people run the show. It happens in most group situations where there is no leadership.