.
"Clinton,
who seemed to have momentum in battleground state polls before Comey’s
Friday bombshell, notably declined on Thursday to say whether, if
elected, she would ask the FBI director to resign."...
11/3/2016, "‘He’s got to get control of the ship again’: How tensions at the FBI will persist after the election," Washington Post,
Deep divisions inside the FBI and the Justice Department over how to handle investigations dealing with Hillary Clinton will probably fester
even after Tuesday’s presidential election and pose a significant test
for James B. Comey’s leadership of the nation’s chief law enforcement
agency.
The internal dissension has exploded into public view
recently with leaks to reporters about a feud over the Clinton
Foundation, an extraordinary airing of the agency’s infighting that
comes as the bureau deals with an ongoing threat of terror at home and a
newly aggressive posture from Russia.
Comey, meanwhile, has come
under direct fire for his decision to tell Congress that agents were
resuming their investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server--a revelation that put him at odds with his Justice Department bosses....
[FBI agents pressed Justice unsuccessfully for probe of Clinton Foundation]
“He’s
got to get control of the ship again,” said Robert Anderson, a former
senior official in the FBI who considers Comey a friend.
“There’s a lot
of tension in the organization, and there’s a lot of tension in Congress
and the Senate right now, and all that counts toward how much people
trust the FBI.”
Comey has been under fire since Friday from lawmakers in both parties
and even President Obama for his decision to inform Congress of the new
developments in the email probe just 11 days before Election Day. On
Thursday, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that
Comey had learned three weeks earlier of the discovery of new emails
potentially relevant to the case, but did not take action to resume the
email probe until he was formally briefed last week on what
investigators had found.
Clinton,
who seemed to have momentum in battleground state polls before Comey’s
Friday bombshell, notably declined on Thursday to say whether, if
elected, she would ask the FBI director to resign.
“I’m not going
to, you know, either get ahead of myself by assuming I’ll be fortunate
enough to be elected,” Clinton said, responding to a question from
SiriusXM’s Joe Madison. “That’s really up to you and your listeners....I also would never comment on any kind of, you
know, personnel issue.”
Comey was confirmed to a 10-year term in
September 2013. While the law allows a president to remove an FBI
director, the step is rarely taken out of respect for the independence
of the position. President Bill Clinton removed Director William S.
Sessions in 1993 amid allegations of ethical improprieties.
The
pent-up frustration inside the FBI seemed to burst when Comey revealed
in a brief letter to legislators that agents in an unrelated case had
found emails potentially relevant to the Clinton email investigation.
The
details, then and now, were scant. Officials familiar with the matter
said the messages came from a computer seized in the investigation of
disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the estranged
husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Agents said the messages were
associated with Abedin and Clinton.
Abedin has told people she has no
idea how the messages got on the device.
Although investigators
had discovered the emails in early October, software glitches prevented
them from separating Abedin-related emails from the hundreds of
thousands of messages recovered until Oct. 19 or 20, according to people
familiar with the case....
If Clinton is elected, Comey might have to contend with one or more
investigations involving a sitting president. If she is not, he might
face criticism for upending her bid.
Anderson, the former FBI
official, said Comey will have to work quickly to finish the restarted
email review, then talk to leaders and visit field offices to ease the
tensions in the bureau and help mend public perceptions of the FBI. Comey has repeatedly said in the past that is important to him."...
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