So, a Tea Party Republican from Utah puts out a misleading tweet about a letter he received written by the FBI Director and much of the national media jumps all over the innuendo of what to them is all that merits ‘a great story’.
Said Director Comey’s brief letter to FBI employees:
“To all:
This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.
Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.
Jim Comey”
There is only innuendo here -- knowingly, what much of the people initially tend to absorb in this fast-paced world. And there is a high probability there will be nothing of substance in the end (whenever that may be) but only duplicates of what has already been cleared in emails of a person who worked with her at the State Dept.
When I caught wind of this on Friday morning, before leaving for work, but not having the time to learn anything of substance surrounding it, I thought, ‘Uh-oh’, but then after working all day that day and catching up on it later I read how the media had just basically chased some shiny tin-foil. So, I worked all day on Saturday and thought nothing further of it. Sunday morning comes around, I tune into “This Week”, and immediately hear the word “bombshell” pertaining to it -- but yet, over the whole hour devoted to this subject still nothing of actual substance. Not only this, but repeatedly covering the same ground in how there is nothing of actual substance upon which to report.
Keep calling it a ‘bombshell’ even though nothing exists here but the very shell of a sound-bite -- only, a week-and-a-half before Election Day.
Surely, all in the media who have been covering the Presidential campaign managed to find time to read Comey’s brief letter, by Sunday. A tweet from a Tea Party Republican, along with reading the content of the letter, could and should have been both dismissed as a partisan take, and thus as a partisan story during a presidential campaign. Nope. Our illustrious, elite, corporate media for the most part, chasing good ratings like a cat chasing a laser-exerciser, ahead of substance, infuriatingly gave this tyrannical tabloid who has proven in every way, unequivocally, epically, manifestly, frighteningly unqualified to be leader of the free world, a fresh, last breath of verisimilar credibility.
They deserve as much heat as Comey for this. This is absolutely not the time for bad journalism. They can be accused of being just as out of touch as the Washington establishment.
And, now just breaking, a new letter from Jim Comey, the foregone conclusion…
“Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation. During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.
Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.
I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.”