{"id":54301,"date":"2016-10-31T19:01:17","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T23:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=54301"},"modified":"2016-10-31T19:19:22","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T23:19:22","slug":"white-house-stays-curiously-neutral-on-comey-move-to-re-open-emailgate-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=54301","title":{"rendered":"White House Stays Curiously Neutral On Comey Move to Re-open Emailgate<\/i> Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

White House’s Earnest says he won’t defend Comey<\/h1>\n

But he won’t ‘criticize’ him, either.<\/h3>\n

By Sarah Wheaton
\n<\/span>POLITICO<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said repeatedly on Monday that he would \u201cneither defend nor criticize\u201d FBI Director James Comey\u2019s disclosures of the new Hillary Clinton email developments.<\/p>\n

But Earnest\u2019s non-defense was more emphatic than his non-criticism.<\/p>\n

Earnest did reiterate that President Barack Obama thinks Comey is a man of \u201cintegrity\u201d who didn\u2019t do anything to \u201cintentionally\u201d influence the impending election when he offered Congress sketchy details about a new line of inquiry into the scandal over Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server at the State Department.<\/p>\n

But no less than the \u201cstrength of American democracy\u201d depends on longstanding Justice Department guidelines about discussing investigations, Earnest said. They\u2019re the same guidelines Comey seem to have veered from on Friday with his letters to lawmakers and FBI staff. Earnest also essentially acknowledged that his \u201cinstitutional constraints\u201d as the president\u2019s spokesman were the last thing holding him back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president believes that our democracy has been very well served for more than two centuries by officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI observing longstanding traditions that limit public discussion of investigations, whether an election is around the corner or not,\u201d Earnest said. He later added, \u201cThose norms are important because they protect the rights of people who are being investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnest went on, \u201cSo at the end of the day, officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI have a responsibility to live up to those traditions and to follow them, and the president\u2019s expectation is that they will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her deputy reportedly urged Comey not to proceed with his plans to tell Congress about newly discovered emails related to Clinton\u2019s private server on former Rep. Anthony Weiner\u2019s computer. So Earnest seemed to be offering another tweak when he noted the president\u2019s conviction that departures from those guidelines should be made \u201cin consultation with other officials at the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Earnest said that the president still has confidence in Comey\u2019s integrity, character, and ability to do the job Obama nominated him for three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president is completely confident that Director Comey has not taken any steps to try to intentionally influence the outcome of the election or to advantage one political party,\u201d Earnest said.<\/p>\n

But that may have been the effect, he observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly have already seen some of Secretary Clinton\u2019s harshest critics capitalize on this letter — distort its contents — to provoke controversy,\u201d Earnest said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why these kinds of guidelines are so important, and that\u2019s why adherence to these guidelines have served our country so well for some time. The strength of our democracy depends on it,\u201d Earnest continued.<\/p>\n

Earnest also essentially encouraged reporters to check out the sharp criticism others are lobbing at Comey. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, for example, wrote that Comey \u201ccommitted a serious error\u201d in a Washington Post op-ed<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important is that people across the country and former elected officials have more of a luxury to weigh in from the sidelines,\u201d Earnest said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In not taking an official stance on Comey, Earnest said he was \u201cobserving the institutional responsibilities that I have, and that everybody who works here has, including the president of the United States, which is that we\u2019re not going to be in a position of defending or criticizing decisions that were made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnest did acknowledge that the guidelines he was citing formed the \u201cbasis for other people to offer their criticism of Director Comey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holder isn\u2019t Comey\u2019s harshest Democratic critic. That title so far goes to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the minority leader, who suggested that Comey might have \u201cbroken the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnest at one point showed some sympathy for Comey, saying he\u2019s in a \u201ctough spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

At another point, Earnest said Comey has \u201cgot a tough job, and hopefully he\u2019ll draw on that character and integrity as he does it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnest said the reason he couldn\u2019t defend the FBI director is the same reason he couldn\u2019t criticize him: “Nobody at the White House has insight into the decision that Director Comey made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brent Griffiths contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n

____
\nhttp:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/10\/white-house-james-comey-clinton-fbi-230540<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White House’s Earnest says he won’t defend Comey But he won’t ‘criticize’ him, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}