Rex Murphy: Comey, Clinton are proof that it's egotism that corrupts completely - National Post

Justice watchdog's report on email investigation reveals Comey presided over a real 'basket of deplorables' — a biased, democracy-defying FBI

Then-FBI director James Comey testifies before the U.S. House Oversight Committee about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, in Washington on July 7, 2016.J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Such was Anthony Weiner’s admiration of his private parts, he burned to share their glory with the world — particularly, that part of it composed of young and female strangers. Thus it was he became the Ansel Adams of genital selfies. Iphone in one hand, his unspeakables on the pedestal of the other, Instagram his gallery, out went the junk mail.

His other fame, leaving aside such trivia as serving in the U.S. Congress, and a hilarious run for mayor of New York, was his (now exploded) marriage to Hillary Clinton’s top aide and principal pilot fish, Huma Abedin. If Disney did noir it could be a movie: The Princess and the Pervert.


A great pile of Hillary Clinton’s private server emails were found nesting, mingled with the self-portraits of the wondrous dong, on the aforesaid Weiner’s laptop. By laptop here — lest there be understandable confusion — I mean the portable computer, not the anatomical recess.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, right, is accompanied by aide Huma Abedin as she arrives at an event in the New York City borough of Queens on April 11, 2016. Andrew Theodorakis/Getty Images

As all now know, this discovery tripped the reopening of the investigation into Hillary’s hidden, secret-shielding server, and ultimately James Comey’s second intervention in the 2016 election, 11 days before the vote. The marital alliance of poor Huma with dim Anthony was thus the avenue to one of the great scandals of the 2016 race. If Weiner had the emails, who could not have them?

The whole world knew of the Abedin-Weiner marriage. The bandits of the Afghanistan mountains knew Huma and Anthony were married. The chipmunks of Central Park knew Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin were married. There are anchorites sitting on a tree spike somewhere in a desolate and empty landscape that knew this. Charlie Rose knew it.

However, there was one man, one mind alone, not furnished with that factum. It was the top man at the FBI, the No. 1 sleuth of the greatest investigative institution in all of human history, James Comey.

Former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner leaves his apartment building in New York City in a file photo from July 24, 2013. Richard Drew/AP

But Comey, a full six feet and seven inches of righteousness and zeal, says he didn’t know that Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin were man and wife. The man conducting an investigation into the conduct of the world’s most famous woman, and presidential candidate, did not know of the infamous husband of Ms. Clinton’s principal counsellor.

Ineluctably this leads to the conclusion that the only conceivable reason James Comey was selected as the head of the FBI, was that Inspector Clouseau was too busy sorting out whether there was ever any connection between one Brad Pitt and a woman called Angelina Jolie.

The Inspector General’s report on the Clinton investigation is the story of another crash marriage, that of staggering, wilful bias with imperious self-righteousness, attended by bridesmaids of immense smugness and shameless deceit. A cadre of the very top people at the FBI appointed themselves as the guardians of Hillary’s ascent, and the manipulative schemers “guaranteeing” Donald Trump’s fall. They could taste Hillary’s victory, they dreamed of it. They dreaded, hated and despised Donald Trump. This report is the real Handmaid’s Tale — the FBI servicing the Clinton campaign, even as it toiled mightily to torpedo Trump’s.

The Department of Justice Inspector General’s report, released June 14, 2018, reveals how the FBI became entangled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Jon Elswick/AP

More than any other element that got Donald Trump elected was the blistering combination of snobbery and self-righteousness of his opponent. Recall Clinton’s famous “basket of deplorables” speech about that camp of “irredeemable” bigots and racists and evangelists and phobics, the ignorant, unwashed hillbillies who simply were too stupid and backward to see her greatness. Contempt, nourished in hubris, buried her campaign.

The most interesting thread in the IG report is the identical mindset of contempt to be found in the supposedly neutral, dispassionate, ruthlessly impartial masters of the FBI. Peter Strzok, a principal in both the Clinton and Trump investigations, emails his FBI colleague/bedmate/fellow partisan, Lisa Page, this contemptuous classic: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support …” The capital letters are his. It was Walmart. It was southern Virginia for god’s sake. He could SMELL Trump voters.

"Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support"
- FBI investigator Peter Strzok

Another FBI email is the very elixir of snobbery and vulgarity. Read this: “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing. They probably didn’t watch the debates, aren’t fully educated on his policies, and are stupidly wrapped up in his unmerited enthusiasm.”

These people were objective!

The outstanding reveal is, of course, the email from Strzok to Page, he reassuring her Trump will never get to the White House, in the now famous declaration: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton checks her Blackberry from a desk inside a C-17 military plane upon her departure from Malta, bound for Tripoli, in an Oct. 18, 2011, photo. Kevin Lamarque/AP

Actually, the attitude behind those previous quotations, which is found in yet so many more from the report, is the really significant message, the big “tell” of the IG report. They know what’s best. They will tailor things for what they see as the “right” outcome. They, and they alone, are the enlightened. Those who think differently are “pieces of sh-t.” It’s not that they were going to “stop it.” It’s that they thought they had the right to stop it.

"This is corruption. Not the corruption of money. The corruption of unfathomable, reckless moral egotism"

And in all that basket of contempt and self-righteousness, who’s at the pinnacle, the chief Pharisee of the lot? James Comey. He has presided over a biased, democracy-defying FBI. He has used his position, in secret, to set the terms of the game. He went from judicious public servant to self-appointed master.

This is corruption. Not the corruption of money. The corruption of unfathomable, reckless moral egotism. Was the Clinton investigation a fix? How could it have been anything other, with this guy in charge?


Source: Rex Murphy | National Post