October 31, 2016

Basically Everybody Thinks James Comey Has Fucked Up

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So how is America reacting to Comeygate? Let’s check in:

Comey has lost Joe Walsh? Walsh is a guy who says stuff like this: “Illegals surging across the border. Again. 2 weeks before Election Day. Paying attention America?” And this: “White House won’t say if Obama will leave the country if Trump wins. He’ll probably leave. He’ll go back home.” But even Joe Effin Walsh thinks Comey has crossed a line.

In the meantime, standup comic Harry Reid, who moonlights as Senate Minority Leader, wrote a letter to Comey:

In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.

I wouldn’t count on any explosive news emerging about Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, but this is A+ trolling from Reid. The only surprise is that Reid wrote a letter to Comey instead of a tweetstorm. But Reid is old school.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it’s hard to find anyone, Democrat or Republican, who approves of how Comey has handled this situation. Inside the FBI itself, Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal tells us that the Bureau is pretty much at war with itself. Long story short, there’s a whole swarm of agents in the field who are hellbent on digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton. Senior DOJ officials—civil servants, not political appointees—rolled their eyes when they got briefed on the state of their investigation, but the agents keep beavering away regardless, continually coming up empty. The Washington Post adds this nugget: “One person familiar with the matter said their presentation drew at least in part from media accounts over various foundation-related controversies.” Uh huh.

So either the field is full of rogue agents pursuing a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, or else the senior ranks of the Justice Department is full of political hacks who will stop at nothing to protect Hillary Clinton. Take your pick, I guess.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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