COMEY ALTERNATE PRESS CONFERENCE RANT

      Over the past months, we at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have examined more than 60,000 documents found on Secretary Clinton’s server without finding a single classified document. Let me show you what a classified document looks like. This document I’m holding was once classified, but has since been declassified. You’ll notice that the document is clearly marked across the top of the first page with a single word: SECRET. This is called a header and it serves two purposes. First, it instructs whoever possess the document to handle it properly. Second, it warns away individuals who lack proper clearance. Again, in our examination of more than 60,000 documents taken from Secretary Clinton’s server, we did not find a single document with a header identifying that document as classified.

      However, upon closer examination, we discovered 110 emails that somewhere in the body of the email discussed a matter or matters that, in our opinion, was classified at the time. In addition, we found 3 documents among the more than 60,000, that, again within the body of the document, included paragraphs that begin with a `c’ enclosed by parenthesis. This marking indicates that the following material is classified. However, we have no reason to believe that Hillary Clinton reviewed this material, or that she reviewed any particular document, since many were, necessarily, reviewed by her aides first and never referred to Secretary Clinton.

      Finally, lying to the FBI is a crime. I know this because I was personally involved in the prosecution of Martha Stewart for that offense. If, in fact, we had any reason to believe that Secretary Clinton lied in the course of her voluntary interview, we would have charged her. We didn’t and we must therefore conclude that Secretary Clinton, when she told the American people that there were no classified documents in her server, was truthful, though mistaken.

       You’ll note that the above presentation contains all the facts that Comey mentioned in his hatchet job. I’ve simply arranged them in a different light, one that would radically change the public’s understanding of what the FBI found on Clinton’s server. But far from showing the public an example of a classified document, Comey never used the word `header’ in his presentation. Instead, he tossed off the fact that he found no marked documents in a couple of sentences, then went on to play investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury in an all-out attack on Hillary Clinton. In effect, despite every FBI Agent and every prosecutor finding no basis for a prosecution, Comey decided that Hillary must be punished and he would be the punisher. Nice.

      James Comey is a registered Republican and has been since he first began to vote. Further, he owes every appointment and every promotion to office-holding Republicans. Every appointment and every promotion. Even more to the point, this is not the first time Republicans have set their attack dog on the Clintons. Comey was deputy special counselor to a Senate Committee investigating Whitewater in 1996. Eight years later, in 2004, he headed an investigation into Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich. According to Time, his work for the Whitewater Committee provided the springboard to his later appointments.

      Finally, in the eyes of Republican lawmakers, James Comey has morphed overnight from villain into hero. That must be a more comfortable position for an individual who owes his career to Republican politicians. It will also play into his post-FBI career. Only in his mid-fifties, Comey will need a job when his term expires. An upper management job at Kroll Security Group? Perhaps with a mid-six-figure salary, not including bonuses?

      You gotta love a man who knows where his best interests lie.