A Queasy, Steely Silence

Yeeks.

So now we come to know, or at least to hear, that former FBI Director James Comey had an interesting discussion with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch in regard to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, and her communication of thousands of classified documents on the unsecure mail account on it.

Here is the story.  We know that Comey testified in public last Thursday in regard to various aspects of the "Russia investigation", including lots of questions about a private conversation he had with President Trump about the offshoot of that investigation involving Gen. Mike Flynn.  In his public testimony, Comey said under oath that he had been instructed (not "hoped", by the way) to refer to the criminal investigation into Mrs. Clinton's mishandling of classified material as a "matter", not an "investigation."

We also know that there was a whole unseen, closed-door testimony given by Comey to the same Senate Intelligence Committee that same afternoon, and something curious appears to have fallen out of it.

We are told that there was a "document", which we assume to be an email transcript, that was (and presumably still is) in the possession of the FBI.  We are told that Miss Lynch was not aware of its existence, until Mr. Comey brought it to her attention in person in her office at some point during the 2016 campaign -- after the meeting on the "matter" matter.  That was when he had also gone to talk about the grossly inappropriate "meeting on the tarmac" with Bill Clinton, whose wife Comey's FBI was investigating. 

The document in question appears to have been a communication between two "political figures", whatever that suggests, and indicates that Miss Lynch, then the Attorney General of the United States, had agreed to stop the Hillary investigation, obviously to protect Mrs. Clinton's candidacy and her campaign.

Miss Lynch was not aware of the document until that point.  When Comey brought it to her attention, according to the article's quoting of a source inside the meeting, he told the committee that “the attorney general looked at the document then looked up with a steely silence that lasted for some time, then asked him if he had any other business with her and, if not, that he should leave her office.”  Loretta was not happy.

Now, allowing for the fact that the source had to be a United States Senator (I don't imagine anyone else was in the room) or a cleared senior staff member, it is still an unnamed source and accordingly, we should be suitably careful about our presumption of its accuracy.  But we will go with it for the moment.  Were it fictional, we'd have heard from the Democrat senators promptly -- and we didn't.

In fact, my instinct is to go with the whole "If it weren't true, then ..." line of thought, as you will see.

So obviously the existence of such a document and the narration of Miss Lynch's reaction to it have to be analyzed that way.  First, of course, is that it's more evidence that politics is a stinky business.  Someone in the Democrats' line -- possibly Barack Obama, possibly former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, someone with access -- had to have communicated with Loretta Lynch about her dropping or quashing the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton to protect Hillary's candidacy.

That fact (Lynch's intent to stop the investigation) got to the campaign, the DNC or both, and someone stupidly wrote someone else an email celebrating that fact.  And that email got to the FBI, despite Hillary's Bleach-Bitting of her server (we don't know whose server it came from).  Politics on the left being what it is, the writer assumed that was normal for Democrats in office to do things like letting political issues interfere with a judicial investigation.  Yeah, scares me too.

So again, let's assume that the testimony is accurate as far as that meeting goes.  But let's assume the opposite, that is, that Miss Lynch had never been approached by Obama or the DNC to stop the Hillary investigation, and had not agreed to do so.  Would she ever then have reacted by glaring silently at Comey and telling him to leave the office?

Of course not.  If I were the AG and the FBI director came in with an email saying I had done something I had not done, well, I would not have glared at him.  I'd have said "Jim, you know and I know that I would never have agreed to do anything like that.  I can't interfere with your Bureau's investigation, especially of an active presidential candidate.  I certainly hope there is nothing else suggesting that I would.  Have a nice day"

But no, she got mad at Comey.  She said nothing.  However is that possibly inconsistent with guilt (i.e., that she had agreed to stop the investigation)?  Were she innocent, she would never have acted that way; it was a clear tell that something was wrong and being covered up.

Now -- it is absolutely possible that what had happened was that Obama or the DNC had in fact gone to her to ask her to drop the investigation.  She might have been ethical enough to decline or, worse, gave an answer that was intended to say that she'd "think about it" but never intended to stop the investigation -- but it was inferred by whoever asked her to mean that she would drop it.

Then, angry not at Comey but at the writer of the email for putting her in a terrible situation, she shut her mouth and told Comey to get out.  I suppose that could have happened, and it's not totally out of the question and could have led to the documented outcome of the meeting.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have established a reputation for being so completely political as to have no credibility.  We all readily now believe that they would have thought nothing of asking the sitting AG to stop a criminal investigation, for purely political reasons, and that a Democrat AG would actually do so.

And we have gotten to know Jim Comey now.  And it seems perfectly reasonable to believe that, to keep his job, he left the AG's office quietly and went as far as he thought he was allowed, going public with all the reasons Hillary should have been indicted or a had a grand jury convened to charge her -- but then dropping the investigation.

Just like a dutiful, weak little man.

This is not going to end anytime soon.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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