What Hecate Said

I might have my disagreements with Hecate on some issues but what she said about James Comey the other day is one of the best takes on it I've seen.

But it’s worse than that.  Comey showed his agents, months before the election, that it was OK to break the rules in order to injure Hillary.  After a long investigation into what were always bullshit issues about her use of a private email server, Comey was unable to recommend that Hillary be prosecuted.  In other words, he couldn’t make a case that she’d broken any laws.  FBI/DOJ procedure in that case calls for a simple announcement that there will be no prosecution.  It’s specifically against practice to do what Comey did — go ahead and scold the subject of the investigation for behavior that isn’t illegal.  But that’s exactly what Comey did to Hillary.  A simple, “There’s no basis for a prosecution; nothing here,” would have been too helpful to her.  So, instead, Comey broke the rules and gave a long lecture about how Clinton’s behavior didn’t break any rules but was still irresponsible.  His speech was designed to hurt her as much as possible, given that he couldn’t find any illegal behavior.

Well, as we all know, leaders lead by example.  And the example that Comey gave to the members of the FBI was that they didn’t have to follow procedure when it came to harming Hillary Clinton.

But it’s worse than that.  Comey realized that the NY FBI office would leak the information concerning Huma Abedin’s computer.  He apparently didn’t think he could control his own agents.  So he decided to announce the information himself.  Why?  Certainly not for the reasons he gives.  Comey said that if he hadn’t shared the information, Clinton would have been an “illegitimate” president from day one.  (Not sure what that even means nor how it squares with the DOJ’s policy against releasing damaging information just before an election.)  No real explanation for why the same concern wouldn’t apply to Trump.  And, if Comey’s out-of-control NY office was going to leak it, he didn’t need to.  Further, having the information come from Comey made it MORE damaging to Hillary than if it had simply come from some “unnamed source.”

So Comey’s actions make no sense and, even all this time later, he doesn’t have an explanation that holds water.  Shall I tell you why I think he did it?


He did it for the same reason he went out of his way to hurt Hillary as much as possible when he announced they couldn’t find a reason to prosecute her.  Comey may not consider himself a sexist, but his unconscious sexism really shows.  He may not have liked the idea of Trump as president, but powerful, ambitious women — Hillary, Loretta Lynch — really rub him the wrong way.  If Hillary was going to be president — and he admits that he expected her to win — then she needed to be taken down a peg.  Made to pay.  Taught a lesson.  Kept from getting too uppity.

Listening to him on Rachel's show, she did a good job of getting him past the self-serving sanctimony that has been so revolting,  I'd love to hear Hecate grilling him.  His claimed motive of wanting President Hillary Clinton to not have a cloud hanging over her is Trump-Michael Cohen level bull shit. 

The New York office of the FBI should be under investigation for political interference.  I wonder if we can count on some of them leaking stuff to Rudy Giuliani, that is if he wasn't one of their conduits during the campaign.  Clearly Comey suspected them and he was the director.   I suspect that apart from the large number of FBI personnel who are Republicans and who likely had possible political motives in what Comey suspected them of doing, a lot of the largely male population of the FBI had related reasons of blatant sexism.