After the resumption of the e-mail investigation, James Comey rages against Clinton furious protest. But does the FBI boss really intervene politically motivated into the final spurt of the US election campaign?
By Hubert Wetzel
James Comey, as a US commentator aptly wrote, had the choice between "a rash and an eczema." His employees had told FBI's chief FBI on Thursday that on a computer of the former Congressman Anthony Weiner, emails had been discovered for the actually completed investigations on the private e-mail server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Could be significant.
So what should Comey do? Keeping the treasure secret and exposing himself to the criticism that he wanted to sweep something under the carpet? Or go public, even at the risk of getting into the current presidential election campaign? Comey decided for the second way, he announced the discovery on Friday in writing to the Congress.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that FBI employees had known for weeks. Why they did not inform Comey earlier, remained unclear at first. Since then the FBI boss is in an angry dispute. Clinton and ranghohe Democrats accuse the 55-year-old jurist of having published an unclear information, possibly in an arbitrary manner. The Justice Department, under Loretta Lynch, who is entrusted to Comey, said that it was against the Congress and the public a few days before the election, about ongoing investigations concerning one of the candidates. Comey has to take this decision alone - you can not leave a subordinate more clearly.
On the other hand, the Republicans and their candidate are Donald Trump. They praise Comey for saying he had the courage to go against Clinton despite political pressure. It sounded quite different a few months ago. In the summer, the Republicans had spit poison and gall, when Comey announced at a press conference that Clinton had been "extremely careless" with state secrets when she had handled her mails as a foreign minister through a private server . But she had not committed any offenses which justified an accusation, so Comey said. There is nothing in Comey's biography that would make him appear as a political opportunist.
Politically, he is closer to the Republicans; President George W. Bush first made him a federal prosecutor in New York, later a vice-minister. As such, Comey countered, for example, the surveillance of all domestic telephones in the US by the NSA secret service.
After Bush's office in 2005, Comey worked for Lockheed Martin and several investment companies. President Barack Obama nominated Comey then 2013 for the office of the FBI boss. At that time, too, Comey was still registered as a Republican, only this year he changed his party membership in "independent".
