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James Comey, the former FBI director who oversaw Hillary Clinton's investigation into the illegal processing of official emails, was reprimanded by the Justice Department for mishandling official memos.
The irony is so thick that it's hard not to laugh. But there is a serious problem here: the actions of Comey and Clinton reflect an arrogance of power and a flagrant disregard for the rule of law. The work produced by the officials belongs to the public. It does not belong to a home study or a homebrewed server.
Comey, according to the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Justice, reportedly reported home memos summarizing his conversations with President Trump. He kept them in a safe at home rather than at the Department of Justice. When he was fired, he did not return the memos to the FBI. Instead, he kept the memos and then shared them, through friends, with reporters.
But these notes were not to Comey. It was obviously an official work product of the FBI, although Comey claimed to believe otherwise. The IG wrote that "the description by Comey of the memos as personal documents does not find any basis in the law and is totally incompatible with the plain language of the laws, regulations and policies defining the federal documents and the terms of the contract FBI Commitment of Comey ".
Federal records include "any recorded information, regardless of its form or characteristics, created or received by a federal agency … as part of the transaction of a public enterprise".
Comey did not meet Trump as a former friend, nor to talk about real estate. Their meetings were clearly part of Comey's work. Some of the material has been classified. "As Comey knew, classified information is never considered a personal property; it is rather the property of the US government. "
It probably sounds familiar if you followed Comey's career, because it's the same kind of things that caused Clinton's problems.
Clinton was leading the state department's affairs on a private secret e-mail address based on a server at her home. She did not inform the state department officials of the server. When she left the department, she did not return the records. Before handing them over, she first asked her private agents to purge e-mails which she thought she should not have to turn around – apparently because they were personal, rather than as federal records.
The danger of placing classified information in unsafe environments is a problem with the actions of Comey and Clinton. But there is an underlying problem even before the questions on the classified information.
Public documents belong to the public. Our federal transparency rules exist to ensure that the government is subject to the consent of the governed. Clinton worked for us. Comey worked for us. We have the right to know how our government works.
Obviously, some information can not be subject to a request for access to information because they are too sensitive. But there are federal authorities whose job it is to make such decisions according to the law.
Yes, even Comey and the Clintons are under the law.
To ignore the federal rules on documents, is to ignore transparency. Disregarding transparency undermines democracy.
Nobody was surprised that Clinton behaves this way. But it is ironic that Comey, who considered himself the savior of the country against Trump's scourge, would fulfill his mission by trampling on the rule of law and the foundation of democracy.
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