Holy inside the Beltway, Batman!

By Don Rush
By Don Rush

Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s old news. Political elites violate tons of rules and with nary a slap on their pocket-picking hands for repercussions. Queen of the Damned Hillary Clinton, those pesky, and mean honky Republicans and of course James Comey, Director of the ever-lovin’ Federal Bureau of Investigations.

My notes as I watched.
My notes as I watched.

After Comey completed his July 4 weekend, unannounced, surprise press release in regards to Clinton’s e-mail debacle — many Americans, myself included, were flabbergasted, shocked, angry and down right positive the political fix was put in play.
At the beginning of Comey’s announcement, he laid out every reason why Hillary was reckless and careless by having her own unsecured server in her own basement; classified information e-mailed; uncleared folks with access to the classified information; the deletion of tens of thousands of e-mails; the “scrubbing” of servers so cleanly that FBI computer geeks could not retrieve missing emails; and the fact her careless disregard for rules and national security as Secretary of State, most likely opened up national security to be breached by enemies of our nation.
After all that, he then said, the FBI’s investigation could not find malicious intent on her part, so he recommended no legal actions be taken.
Americans skeptical of Beltway politics screamed bloody hell! If that were any of us peons, our butts would be locked up in some secret government hoosegow, never to be heard from again.
Midweek, last week, there was a Congressional hearing called to ask Comey, “what the heck were you thinking?” And, because I am your huckleberry, over the course of two days, while doing paper work, answering the phone and taking care of work, I watched and paused and watched more of the four-plus hours of this hearing. (Click here to watch the C-Span footage of the hearing.)
I have never subjected myself to so much political posturing as I did last week. I was so mad, I made myself watch. On some levels, I actually came away with more respect for Comey. He was not defensive. He was respectful and, even with hard questions, answered evenly.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of course, is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans grilled Comey on basically everything I wrote above. They went point by point of what Hillary told Americans versus what really took place.
Was then Secretary of State Clinton:
1. Extremely careless with classified material? Yes.
2. Shouldn’t she had known better? Yes.
3. Did uncleared persons have access to classified material ?Yes.
On every question the Republicans asked, aside, from should she be charged, Comey answered, “Yes.” He further explained, prior to the investigation, he would have assumed Clinton would have known better.

James Comey
James Comey

Democrats, all, praised Comey for being totally awesome and apologized about the nasty Republicans questioning his judgement. They said past Secretaries used their own servers before Clinton (to which Comey disagreed). They made the point only a handful of e-mails were classified out of 30,000 — never thinking it only takes one e-mail in the wrong hands to really mess things up). Some Dems used their five minutes at the hearing to not get into the matters at hand, but rather to grandstand on pet issues — like black lives matter and police abuses of African American males.
A few Republicans and Democrats asked Comey if he thought the hearing was a knock against him. Each time, he answered, “No.” Further, he welcomed the opportunity to explain his recommendation not to prosecute Clinton, because he understood most Americans would be dubious of his findings.
Comey said he wanted Americans to believe there are civil servants who are honest; he wanted to show transparency. And, you know what, I believed him. I think he did all he could, aside from, saying Hillary should be prosecuted, that her actions were reckless and careless and she should not have had her own server.
Why he pulled short? Who knows. He said there was no reasonable doubt she knew what she was doing was wrong and that there was no precedent for prosecuting. Political-speak translation: Hillary gets the out of jail free card based on technicalities. That was the only flimsy part of his testimony.
Who knows, the six-foot-eight Comey has six kids. Maybe he’s hedging his bets because the FBI has a better understanding what happens those who threaten the Clintons than the rest of the world?
Do I feel better about what has happened? A little. Are there two sets of rules, one for us and the other for political elites? Of course: always has been, always will be. Do I think the investigation was warranted? Hell, yes! And, I think it will and should continue.
Oh, and I believe we Americans really need to start paying attention. Our ambivalence has led to politcians and bureaucrats believing themselves above laws we ourselves are subject to.

Click here read to a Huffington Post column, that tears mine apart and is more damning than mine. But, I’m a “nice” guy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *