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question everything

(48,621 posts) Wed Oct 23, 2024, 10:28 PM 17 hrs ago

Interesting comments from a WSJ columnist re Comey and Hillary

The whole piece did not make much sense to me, and I will give the link but these first two paragraphs got me: wow!

Trump and America’s Choice
By Holman W. Jenkins, J

(snip)

Mr. Trump likely never would have been elected in 2016 without FBI chief James Comey’s insubordinate and improper actions, the most important details of which are still hidden in the only part of the scathing 2018 Justice Department inspector general postmortems on Mr. Comey’s tenure to remain sealed under a top-secret classification.

The public knows only that, internally at the FBI and later in closed hearings of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, Mr. Comey justified his actions by citing false and likely fabricated Russian intelligence. His intervention culminated in his reopening of the email case 11 days before the election, which Hillary Clinton, independent pollsters and Mr. Comey’s own FBI colleagues say caused Mr. Trump’s victory.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-and-americas-choice-election-voters-harris-poses-risks-too-election-obama-cfc875b5?st=gALUg3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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Interesting comments from a WSJ columnist re Comey and Hillary (Original Post) question everything 17 hrs ago OP

Holman Jenkins is a right-winger who also writes for the National Review Ocelot II 17 hrs ago #1

thanks. sounded like a large helping of manure to me. but you did a much more stopdiggin 15 hrs ago #2

Ocelot II

(119,835 posts)

1. Holman Jenkins is a right-winger who also writes for the National Review

Reply to question everything (Original post)

Wed Oct 23, 2024, 10:54 PM

17 hrs ago

and is reliably full of shit.

The public knows only that, internally at the FBI and later in closed hearings of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, Mr. Comey justified his actions by citing false and likely fabricated Russian intelligence. His intervention culminated in his reopening of the email case 11 days before the election, which Hillary Clinton, independent pollsters and Mr. Comey’s own FBI colleagues say caused Mr. Trump’s victory.

I'm not defending Comey here, but his decision to re-open Hillary's email investigation wasn't on account of "false and likely fabricated Russian intelligence." He had other reasons, which weren't good ones, but they weren't related to Russia. Comey later headed an entirely separate investigation into alleged ties between Trump's campaign and Russia, and the Russian interference turned out to be real. Jenkins is still trying to deny that there was Russian interference.

I’m reminding you of this for three reasons. It ought to strike you how readily these truths now are omitted from the quasi-official narrative that the press adopts.

It also tells you something about intelligence leaks. They don’t happen by accident. They aren’t products of journalistic enterprise. They happen because somebody with a high degree of political immunity decides to leak something for a strategic purpose. It’s notable, then, that the extremely newsy findings of the secret inspector general’s report remain unleaked after five years.

Finally, the episode tells you something about the election we’re having—how it got ramped up into an existential crisis, Mr. Trump and his establishment enemies resorting to every kind of demagoguery, conspiracy theorizing and name calling.

Again, bullshit. The demagoguery and conspiracy theorizing is entirely on the GOP side. Trump's "establishment enemies"? Who would those be, pray tell?

But it's the Wall Street Urinal, and this douche is on their editorial board, so...

stopdiggin

(12,614 posts)

2. thanks. sounded like a large helping of manure to me. but you did a much more