Basically Everybody Thinks James Comey Has Fucked Up

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So how is America reacting to Comeygate? Let’s check in:

Comey has lost Joe Walsh? Walsh is a guy who says stuff like this: “Illegals surging across the border. Again. 2 weeks before Election Day. Paying attention America?” And this: “White House won’t say if Obama will leave the country if Trump wins. He’ll probably leave. He’ll go back home.” But even Joe Effin Walsh thinks Comey has crossed a line.

In the meantime, standup comic Harry Reid, who moonlights as Senate Minority Leader, wrote a letter to Comey:

In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.

I wouldn’t count on any explosive news emerging about Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, but this is A+ trolling from Reid. The only surprise is that Reid wrote a letter to Comey instead of a tweetstorm. But Reid is old school.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it’s hard to find anyone, Democrat or Republican, who approves of how Comey has handled this situation. Inside the FBI itself, Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal tells us that the Bureau is pretty much at war with itself. Long story short, there’s a whole swarm of agents in the field who are hellbent on digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton. Senior DOJ officials—civil servants, not political appointees—rolled their eyes when they got briefed on the state of their investigation, but the agents keep beavering away regardless, continually coming up empty. The Washington Post adds this nugget: “One person familiar with the matter said their presentation drew at least in part from media accounts over various foundation-related controversies.” Uh huh.

So either the field is full of rogue agents pursuing a vendetta against Hillary Clinton, or else the senior ranks of the Justice Department is full of political hacks who will stop at nothing to protect Hillary Clinton. Take your pick, I guess.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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