Juan Williams: Dark days for the FBI

This story ends with the demise of James Comey as FBI chief.

Let’s begin with the news that President-elect Trump has suggested he will not pursue criminal investigations by the FBI — and possible prosecution — of Hillary Clinton.

{mosads}The only reason that qualifies as news is because the FBI chief has reduced the bureau to a nakedly political player, leaving behind its goal of serving justice for all.

On the basis of Comey’s behavior, Trump thinks it is within his power to direct the Justice Department and the FBI chief, until recently a registered Republican, to prosecute his political rival, Clinton.

That twisted conclusion is not true as a matter of law. FBI investigations and federal prosecutions by the Justice Department are legally separate from the executive branch to prevent abuse of political power.

As a matter of history, however, the FBI has sometimes abused its power in order to target political outsiders. J. Edgar Hoover’s fascination with Martin Luther King Jr.’s sex life is one of the most infamous examples.

Right now the FBI’s proper role is so out of whack due to Comey’s actions that some Democrats, fearing more to come, are asking the Obama White House to preemptively pardon Clinton.

For the record, the FBI, State Department and several other federal agencies extensively probed Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State. None found any evidence of criminality.

None.

But in a “Through the Looking Glass” moment of politics in the age of Trump, the president-elect appears magnanimous merely by turning away from chants of “Lock her up!” at his campaign events. This kinder version of Trump is quoted by The New York Times as saying he does not “want to hurt the Clintons — I really don’t.”

So, Trump doesn’t want to hurt a political opponent who has committed no crime? How considerate.

The actions of the FBI clearly had an impact on the election’s outcome. Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told the Oxford Union that Comey’s actions sealed the election for Trump by pushing undecided voters toward him.

“With 11 days to go in this election cycle, something amazing happened,” Lewandowski said. “The FBI director, James Comey, came out on a Friday and said they may be reopening the investigation in to ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton’s emails. What that did was remind people there are two different rules in Washington — those of the elites, for the privileged, and those for everybody else.”

Lewandowski’s assessment fit precisely with the conclusion of the head of the Clinton campaign’s research division, Navin Nayak.

“Comey’s letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters — particularly in the suburbs,” Nayak wrote in an email to senior campaign staff. “We also think Comey’s second letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump’s turnout.”

Mrs. Clinton agreed in painfully blunt terms on her final conference call with donors on Nov. 12: “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”

Even Trump seemed to acknowledge the FBI had behaved improperly. He told the CBS program “60 Minutes,” there had been a “lotta leaking” by the bureau. Trump added he has not made up his mind about asking for Comey’s resignation when he becomes president.

One of those leaks apparently went to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who said in an interview days before Comey’s controversial statement that “a surprise” was coming.

Recall the context, too.

All this took place after Comey held a press conference in July to announce that the FBI would not be recommending charges against Clinton. But Comey added a politically inappropriate commentary by saying that he was of the opinion that Clinton had been “extremely careless.”

That performance prompted his fellow Republicans, particularly members of Congress, to ask why the FBI did not recommend prosecution after the laundry list of questions raised by Comey.

In a lot of media coverage, the FBI probe came to be seen as an equivalent counterweight to Trump’s numerous vulgarities and ethically questionable controversies. Then, two weeks before Election Day, came Comey’s second wave of political interference. The rest, as they say, is history.

To my mind, the politicization of justice in America did not start with Comey’s interventions and it won’t stop with a new attorney general or a new FBI director.  

Remember the FBI is under the purview of the Department of Justice. The attorney general is essentially the FBI director’s boss.

In my lifetime, both Democratic and Republican presidents have blurred the lines between politics and justice — seeming to forget that the DOJ is supposed to be an independent agency. 

Four decades ago, Republican President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, served 19 months in federal prison because of his involvement, and by extension the DOJ’s involvement, in the Watergate scandal.

This is why President-elect Trump’s nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) to lead the Justice Department is so disturbing. In nearly forty years in public life, Sessions has shown zero sympathy for the hard-fought struggle for civil rights and voting rights.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader in the Senate, said last week that he will ask Sessions about plans for the Civil Rights division.  

But first both Sessions and Trump need to pledge an independent review of Comey’s actions. That will end with a goodbye for Mr. Comey.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.