This is exactly the time to start holding Federal officials and office holders accountable for their attacks on democracy.

I am asked to explain why I am so adamant about the need of a criminal investigation of James Comey and his agency in relation to his unprecedented letter of last Friday.

My short take on the argument of those like Senator Leahy, for a quick return to "normalcy" is that this is a violation of the most basic of all acts in democracy, the vote in a general election.  The election doesn't belong to those who are running for office, IT BELONGS TO THE VOTERS.  All public offices belong to THE PEOPLE, not the people who ask for and are allowed to borrow those offices for a while.   Unless The People have a free, honest, fair election no one can be really said to honestly fill those offices.  That's as true of the office of senator, president, house members, judges and justices, directors of the FBI.   When one of them, in this case the Director of the FBI, inserts himself and his agency into the election on the side of one party or more than one party, they are violating their trust and delegitimizing their term in office.  No senator, no president, no other person in public office has the right to brush that violation aside, LEAST OF ALL WHEN THEY ARE ONE OF THE HIGHEST LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN THE COUNTRY.   If law enforcement breaks the laws, a ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee is the last person who should be trying to sweep it under the rug.

The elections system in this country is a total mess, few if any of the defects that led to the disastrous election of 2000 have been fixed, if anything the past six years of Republicans putting voter suppression measures into state laws have made things far worse than they were then.  The Republicans on the Supreme Court who have crippled the Voting Rights Act have played at least as despicable a role in delegitimizing our elections and damaging any rational confidence in them.  This is exactly the time to start holding Federal officials and office holders accountable for their attacks on democracy.

Today, thanks to a line of  some of the most dangerous Supreme Court rulings, going back more than a half a century, combined with a line of coy and covert neo-fascist attacks under the guise of "fedralism" and "originalim" and joining the new class of sociopathic billionaires, democracy is dying, being strangled.   The courtly members of the Senate, such as a majority of those on the Judiciary Committee have proven they don't have what it takes to even begin to address these attacks on egalitarian democracy.   They are too busy striking poses of lofty comity, doing a pantomime of outrage at every new attack without ever really risking their position to save democracy.  

It is my greatest hope that a President Hillary Clinton, the one politician in the history of the presidency who has had the full effect of that attack on democracy for more than a quarter of a century, will be the one to start the defense of democracy.   Her opponent is a fascist who is supported by the fascist dictator of Russia, a man who has promoted neo-fascism in Europe and who is working hand in glove with the Trump campaign and the sleazy criminals under Julian Assange to do that.  If there is anyone qualified for us to put our hopes in, it is her.  If she loses, American democracy is almost certainly doomed.  If she wins and fails to effectively defend democracy against all of these attacks, it is doomed to a slower death.  But she certainly can't do it alone, she will need our support and our advice and when she missteps our full objection to those missteps.  We live in a democracy, for the time being, not an elected monarchy.   We have to start by acknowledging how we got here and the regime of court permitted lies that is the basis of fascism, here and now.