The FBI has its strengths, one of which is to spot a crack and exploit it. Jim Comey, whose personal brand has fabulously ping-ponged from being the most hated person to the left when he was blamed for Clinton losing to Trump, and then adored after being fired by Trump, seized the opportunity to accomplish two goals. Re-establish his bona fides as patriot and virtuous head of the FBI, and stand up and out as a public darling.
The rawness of emotion from that slice of anti-Kavanaugh activists rivals the anti-war movement of the ’60s or the post-9/11 fear and loathing of terrorists. As invariably happens, the depth of passion rises in inverse proportion to the ability to think critically. It was a crack, and Comey leaped in to exploit it on behalf of his FBI.
We live in a world where the president routinely attacks the F.B.I. because he fears its work. He calls for his enemies to be prosecuted and his friends freed. We also live in a world where a sitting federal judge channels the president by shouting attacks at the Senate committee considering his nomination and demanding to know if a respected senator has ever passed out from drinking. We live in a world where the president is an accused serial abuser of women, who was caught on tape bragging about his ability to assault women and now likens the accusations against his nominee to the many “false” accusations against him.
Tying Kavanaugh’s conduct to Trump, the allegations against him to Trump, is pure exploitation. You can fairly characterize Kavanaugh’s conduct at the hearing as improper, but of its own accord, not Trump’s. And playing the factually non-existent, but emotionally-bonded, connections between Ford’s accusations and Trump, or any personal experience of any other person in America, is pure gaming by Comey, who is far too smart to not realize that he’s inflaming the idiocracy.
But why? This is his chance to restore the public perception of the FBI as the most trusted, beloved and magical law enforcement organization ever. Hoover must be smiling.
In that world, the F.B.I. is now being asked to investigate, on a seven-day clock, sexual assaults that the president says never happened, that some senators have decried as a sham cooked up to derail a Supreme Court nominee, and that other senators believe beyond all doubt were committed by the nominee.
Unmentioned here is that the FBI has already conducted six background checks on Kavanaugh, without any constraints, and found nothing. Great job, guys. There are possible reasons why they came up empty, but Comey neglects to mention them. Even so, if Kavanaugh was as awful as some believe he is, one might suspect something, something, would show up.
Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the F.B.I. is up for this. It’s not as hard as Republicans hope it will be.
To be clear, the FBI is pursuing an additional background check. Contrary to the dreams of antagonists, this is not a criminal investigation into Ford’s allegations. for which no authority can or should exist. The FBI does not perform criminal investigations into Americans at the direction of politicians. Would you want them to? And the FBI certainly has the wherewithal, the personnel (as it decides to deploy them) and the ability to interview witnesses.
The question isn’t whether the FBI can, and should, pursue additional background checking. They should and have been charged to do so. If they are limited by their mandate, they have the power to say so in their report back to the Senate, noting that they are of the view that additional people should have been interviewed for reliable results. If the process is “apparently” designed to thwart the “fact-gathering process,” then it will blow back in the Republicans faces.
But what the FBI cannot do is magic. Not that the people who hated the FBI before but love them at the moment would care or know.
F.B.I. agents are experts at interviewing people and quickly dispatching leads to their colleagues around the world to follow with additional interviews. Unless limited in some way by the Trump administration, they can speak to scores of people in a few days, if necessary.
They will confront people with testimony and other accounts, testing them and pushing them in a professional way. Agents have much better nonsense detectors than partisans, because they aren’t starting with a conclusion.
See what he did there? After establishing plausible cred for failure and shifting inchoate blame onto the bad guys, Comey turns agents into experts. They are trained, but that doesn’t make an “expert.” He just elevated their skills way beyond reality, as is painfully obvious to anyone who has ever read a 302 where a person’s vague benign words were twisted into a conclusory confession. Some agents are better. Some are worse. All are still merely FBI agents.
Comey then sets up a tricky comparison between agents and partisans. It’s true that partisans, seeking to get information to confirm an outcome (like guilt) are particularly bad at detecting “nonsense.” But agents have no magical skills to detect lies. No one does. If the agents pursue their interviews neutrally, as would be expected of them, they will hopefully gather accurate information. But they aren’t any more capable of detecting “nonsense” than anyone else who isn’t blinded by partisanship.
Yes, the alleged incident occurred 36 years ago. But F.B.I. agents know time has very little to do with memory. They know every married person remembers the weather on their wedding day, no matter how long ago. Significance drives memory. They also know that little lies point to bigger lies. They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook* are a flashing signal to dig deeper.
Having already spun the “little lie” that agents are experts, Comey goes big claiming that “time has very little to do with memory.” It’s false and absurd, as is the bizarre choice of analogy. Not only is the analogy false as well, but it’s irrelevant to the interviews. Even if we assume the glaring falsehood that “significance drives memory” was true, there is nothing “significant” about the substance of the interviews to the people being interviewed. Even if I could remember the weather on my wedding day, I wouldn’t remember the weather on yours.
This is one of those brief, shining moments when the unduly passionate want to believe that the FBI will be its salvation, making them once again hysterically popular. Comey is smart to play the fools to manufacture a belief in the agents’ magical powers, as they want so desperately to believe.
But when the FBI is back to its old tricks, rather than finding the evidence to destroy Kavanaugh’s nomination, they will still enjoy the unwarranted myth of their magical powers being built now. The expectation that once the heat is off people will come back to their sense and realize Comey toyed with their heartstrings gives people far too much credit. Comey saw the crack and exploited it. The crack is emotion, and it’s wide enough to get you to believe anything.
*Others have asserted with certainty that Kavanaugh’s testimony about the meaning of words and phrases in his yearbook was false. Having no personal knowledge, I wouldn’t know. While the arguments that he lied about the meaning of these words appears strong, I am unaware as yet of any conclusive evidence to that effect. Comey (and almost everyone on twitter) finds it obvious. I prefer evidence before reaching a conclusion.
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Aw, that’s cute – he thinks they aren’t partisans. Maybe they aren’t – in the sense they don’t overtly declare and openly pursue a partisan agenda. Of course, by that standard, I suppose ordinary local police are hardly ever racist.
When your hopes and dreams are dependent on the FBI, they are whatever you believe them to be. Until the next time.
Did someone feed that horse peanut butter again?
SHG,
Despite what Comey says, I have no firm memory of the weather when I was married in 1972. I also have no firm memory of the weather when I was married in 1992. But I do remember the place, the date and the approximate time. I also know that study after study and case after case has shown that eyewitness identifications have a high error rate, particularly when there has been a long passage of time. Finally, after suffering through two full-field FBI background checks myself (that were more intrusive than a colonoscopy) I find it implausible that a third would uncover anything of significant additional value, let alone a seventh. If it did, Comey’s vaunted FBI would be required to answer for its failure to find the new and significant information the first six times.
In any event, the FBI does not need, and my guess does not want, an endorsement from a fellow who trashed long-standing FBI protocols and traditions. That the New York Times thought it newsworthy to publish Comey’s cry for renewed relevance says all an objective reader needs to know.
All the best.
RGK
But if he pulls this off, not only will Comey stand to be loved again by the Democrats, but he’ll be invited to FBI parties.
Seriously, it’s astounding that the Times has chosen to be willingly complicit in propounding this nonsense to achieve its momentary goals. We spend decades debunking the lies about memory, only to have the Times promote them to “get” Kavanaugh. Too bad for the wrongfully convicted who will spend decades in prison based on these lies about memory, but isn’t it worth it to destroy the enemy of the moment?
Astounding? Seriously astounding at that…
Have you ever considered purchasing an adjective abacus for your desk?
Perhaps that newspaper you read everyday will put on a retro subscription promotion this fall and give them away to enshrine their legacy while promoting their brand….
Now that would be astounding, seriously astounding at that.
I have wondered how much popularization of questionable “truths” about evidence can be blamed on the need for dramatic shortcuts in TV and movies. Victims can always ID the real perp from a 6-pack of photos & facial recognition works 100% of the time, so the story can move right along.
I must grudgingly say I do admire how Comey manages to get back onto every faction’s “good guy” list on a rotating basis. One would think someone would notice that he lacks consistency.
Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind. And any consistency that fails to bolster whatever somebody feels at the moment is, by definition, foolish. At least that’s what people keep telling me.
For my part, while I seem to have forgotten what the weather was like on the day I got married, I’m going to strive to remember that Comey had the sheer unadulterated brass to say that “time has very little to do with memory”.
And that the NYT actually printed it.
So, since Comey is obviously “partisan,” agents have “much better nonsense detectors” than he does, and he should credit the six, previous background checks that came up empty.
Comey’s failure to note the 6 prior checks is a bit of a problem. The only saving grace is that no one to whom this nonsense is directed will think of it or care.
I’m holding out hope the FBI weighs in on the meaning and import of whether and when Judge Kavanaugh ‘boofed’ and what that had to do with his participation in the ‘Devil’s Triangle’.
By the way, have you seen Judge Garland’s yearbook? Spoiler alert: He was heavily involved in shameful thespian activities.
Would you feel better if I posted all the nutjob comments by those who want to argue for Kav? If not, don’t be that flaming nutjob on the other side, k? Your idea of snark doesn’t play well to lawyers. It’s not, as you believe, that they’re politically against you, but that your comments can be really dumb.