https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/fbi-trump-comey/597523/
.... The IG concluded that Comey, fired by a president who was publicly seeking to cripple an investigation into a foreign hacking-and-disinformation campaign that helped put him in office, should have kept silent. That standard would not only incentivize presidential corruption, but establish that government officials who witness such corruption should not warn the public and instead adhere to a Mafialike omertà.
...the great significance of the IG report is that it establishes that bureau officials’ highest loyalty should be not to the Constitution or to the public but to the boss. The president has successfully purged bureau officials he perceives as hostile to the agency, at least one of whom is facing prosecution. The FBI’s internal investigations have focused on the president’s critics, not officials who abused their authority to aid Trump in the latter days of the 2016 campaign. The Democratic Party has shown no appetite for scrutinizing rogue bureau officials’ behavior, which tells leadership that it should fear only right-wing criticism. For all the president’s public feuding with the nation’s chief law-enforcement agency, he appears to have won the battle to redefine its nature.
there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton. The president has spent much of his term complaining about a “deep state” conspiracy against him, but the available evidence suggests that Clinton is the one who should be complaining. An FBI agent told The Guardian that Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
The FBI scrupulously held to its principles of noninterference with the Republican candidate, and disregarded those principles entirely with the Democratic candidate.
Yet the reasons for this partisan discrepancy in the bureau’s treatment of Clinton and Trump are fairly obvious. While the Republican Party responds to its displeasure with the bureau by attacking, delegitimizing, and investigating it, the Democratic Party responds by doing nothing. Although the vast majority of bureau personnel are attempting to do their jobs as apolitically as possible, this creates an asymmetry that even those who seek to play by the rules cannot ignore: You can safely disregard Democratic concerns, but anger the GOP and your career may not survive.
.... The IG concluded that Comey, fired by a president who was publicly seeking to cripple an investigation into a foreign hacking-and-disinformation campaign that helped put him in office, should have kept silent. That standard would not only incentivize presidential corruption, but establish that government officials who witness such corruption should not warn the public and instead adhere to a Mafialike omertà.
...the great significance of the IG report is that it establishes that bureau officials’ highest loyalty should be not to the Constitution or to the public but to the boss. The president has successfully purged bureau officials he perceives as hostile to the agency, at least one of whom is facing prosecution. The FBI’s internal investigations have focused on the president’s critics, not officials who abused their authority to aid Trump in the latter days of the 2016 campaign. The Democratic Party has shown no appetite for scrutinizing rogue bureau officials’ behavior, which tells leadership that it should fear only right-wing criticism. For all the president’s public feuding with the nation’s chief law-enforcement agency, he appears to have won the battle to redefine its nature.
there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton. The president has spent much of his term complaining about a “deep state” conspiracy against him, but the available evidence suggests that Clinton is the one who should be complaining. An FBI agent told The Guardian that Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
The FBI scrupulously held to its principles of noninterference with the Republican candidate, and disregarded those principles entirely with the Democratic candidate.
Yet the reasons for this partisan discrepancy in the bureau’s treatment of Clinton and Trump are fairly obvious. While the Republican Party responds to its displeasure with the bureau by attacking, delegitimizing, and investigating it, the Democratic Party responds by doing nothing. Although the vast majority of bureau personnel are attempting to do their jobs as apolitically as possible, this creates an asymmetry that even those who seek to play by the rules cannot ignore: You can safely disregard Democratic concerns, but anger the GOP and your career may not survive.
