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Defining moment for Comey in Clinton call
The Hill
by Niall Stanage
7/6/2016
Excerpts:
James Comey went from the political frying pan to the fire Tuesday when the FBI chief announced that he would not recommend pressing charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of State.
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At the outset of his statement, he said that he had “not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of government. They do not know what I am about to say.”
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Some experts argued that Comey had walked the high wire as steadily as could be reasonably expected.
“I think very highly of him. He is an incredibly thoughtful, experienced person. He is the right guy to have. I don’t think he was fazed by the politics,” said Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and a former assistant director of the FBI.
But Hosko also hinted that he himself had been surprised that the harsh criticism Comey leveled at Clinton did not lead to a recommendation to indict.
Referring to Comey’s Tuesday morning remarks, he said, “For the first three-quarters of it, he was crafting an indictment of Hillary Clinton’s actions. … It felt like an indictment.”
While Comey would deny any balancing of political imperatives, it is nonetheless a fact that his decision to not press for indictment was accompanied by several damning findings — most notably that Clinton and her colleagues had been “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Referring to email exchanges that included classified information, Comey also asserted, “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position … should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
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In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said that “because of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves.”
View the complete article at:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...n-clinton-call
The Hill
by Niall Stanage
7/6/2016
Excerpts:
James Comey went from the political frying pan to the fire Tuesday when the FBI chief announced that he would not recommend pressing charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of State.
.................................................. ...............
At the outset of his statement, he said that he had “not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of government. They do not know what I am about to say.”
............................................
Some experts argued that Comey had walked the high wire as steadily as could be reasonably expected.
“I think very highly of him. He is an incredibly thoughtful, experienced person. He is the right guy to have. I don’t think he was fazed by the politics,” said Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and a former assistant director of the FBI.
But Hosko also hinted that he himself had been surprised that the harsh criticism Comey leveled at Clinton did not lead to a recommendation to indict.
Referring to Comey’s Tuesday morning remarks, he said, “For the first three-quarters of it, he was crafting an indictment of Hillary Clinton’s actions. … It felt like an indictment.”
While Comey would deny any balancing of political imperatives, it is nonetheless a fact that his decision to not press for indictment was accompanied by several damning findings — most notably that Clinton and her colleagues had been “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Referring to email exchanges that included classified information, Comey also asserted, “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position … should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
.................................................. .....
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said that “because of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves.”
View the complete article at:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...n-clinton-call