Joy Reid scorches the Comey FBI for getting 'weaponized' in the GOP's 'ugly gambit' to stop Clinton
In a Saturday editorial for the Daily Beast, MSNBC's Joy Ann Reid took the FBI and its director James Comey to task for allowing themselves to be "weaponized" by the Republican Party and used to try and hamstring a presidential candidate.
"Behind Comey’s defiance of both precedent and the guidance of his boss, the attorney general, was the subtext of intense pressure being put on the FBI and the Justice Department by Republicans, some of whom rushed Comey’s vague letter to members of the press," Reid wrote.
Reid said that Republicans have wasted a tremendous amount of time and taxpayer money trying to "investigate" their way into blocking Hillary Clinton from the White House.
"Comey disappointed Republicans in July by not going along with what would have been a highly unusual indictment of a public official given the facts of Clinton’s email use, Republicans responded by dragging him before Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s House Oversight committee. Donald Trump called for Comey himself to be investigated," she said.
"Republicans including Chafftez eagerly tweeted out Comey’s news Friday, and Trump supporters (and some media outlets) ran with the erroneous claim that the FBI had 'reopened' its Clinton email probe (it never closed it) and that the agency is revisiting its decision not to prosecute Clinton over her email server (there’s exactly zero evidence of that)," Reid said. "And since Republicans have openly signaled that they plan 'years of investigations' of Clinton should she win on November 8th, it’s not hard to see where this is going. They’re hoping this new 'revelation' sinks Clinton, but expecting to use the faux scandal to drag her down over the next four years. "
Anyone who remembers the 90s will remember this pattern and the role the Republicans played in obstructing and attempting to impeach President Bill Clinton.
"The point of the many 'gates' -- Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater and Lewinskygate -- was never to advance public policy, or to hold the president and administration accountable to the American people," Reid said. "They were a naked grab for power by means outside the electoral process."
"There’s simply nothing on the other side of the aisle that’s equivalent. When they took back Congress in 2006, for example, Democrats didn’t pursue probes of the Bush White House, even given the lies that led to the Iraq war, and the discovery of warrantless wiretapping and other abuses of civil liberties," she said.