Hillary, Doug Schoen, and the FBI investigation(s)

photo credit: RT.com

Over the weekend, Democrat pundit Doug Schoen stunned TV viewers when he went wobbly on his support of Hillary Clinton. He's concerned about the fallout from the FBI investigation. From his follow-up column at The Hill:

However, in good conscience, and as a Democrat, I am actively doubting whether I can vote for the Secretary of State. I also want to make clear that I cannot vote for Donald Trump as his world view and mine are very different.

So, it would seem that Mr. Schoen will either vote third party or not vote for any presidential candidate. Either way, that’s more bad news for Mrs. Clinton.

On a related subject, Andrew McCarthy raised some interesting points concerning the FBI Director’s decision to re-open the email investigation. From PJ Media:

I have never been a fan of the notion – at the Justice Department, it is the received wisdom – that the election calendar should factor into criminal investigations.

Law-enforcement people will tell you that taking action too close to Election Day can affect the outcome of the vote; therefore, it should not be done because law enforcement is supposed to be apolitical. But of course, not taking action one would take but for the political timing is as political as it gets. To my mind, it is more political because the negatively affected candidate is denied any opportunity to rebut the law-enforcement action publicly.

The unavoidable fact of the matter is that, through no fault of law enforcement, investigations of political corruption are inherently political. Thus, I’ve always thought the best thing to do is bring the case when it’s ready, don’t bring it if it’s not ready, and don’t worry about the calendar any more than is required by the principle of avoiding the appearance of impropriety.

A problem arises, however, when you start bending other rules. FBI Director James Comey bent a few of them when he decided to (a) make a public recommendation against prosecution, (b) nevertheless make a public disclosure of the evidence amassed by the FBI, and (c) include a public announcement that the investigation was closed.

McCarthy had more to say about Director Comey’s decisions and his bending of the rules at NRO here.

It is fair enough to say that Director Comey should not have started down the wayward road of making public comments about pending investigations in which no charges have been filed. Such comments inexorably lead to the need to make more comments when new information arises. Not that the director needs advice from me, but at this point, he ought to announce that — just as in any other investigation — there will be no further public statements about the Clinton investigation unless and until charges are filed, which may never happen.

As for the election, Mrs. Clinton is under the cloud of suspicion not because of Comey but because of her own egregious misconduct. She had no right to know back in July whether the investigation was closed. She has no right to know it now. Like any other criminal suspect, she simply has to wait . . . and wonder . . . and worry.

There were other worthy Democrats, but the party chose to nominate the subject of a criminal investigation. That is the Democrats’ own recklessness; Jim Comey is not to blame. And if the American people are foolish enough to elect an arrantly corrupt and compromised subject of a criminal investigation as our president, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Read the rest here.

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