McKenna: Timing of FBI investigation could benefit Clinton

Once upon a time, he was Hillary Clinton’s savior. But on Oct. 28, 11 days before election day, James Comey revealed there were 650,000 additional emails to go through, the Republican FBI Director suddenly turned the Clinton campaign upside down and drew allegations from Democrats that he’d violated the Hatch Act.

On Sunday afternoon, two days prior to the general election, Comey put the new controversy to rest by announcing that a review of newly discovered emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton has not changed his initial conclusion that the Democrat should not face criminal charges.

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The implications of all this are unknown. Clinton’s campaign appeared to be dominating the national polls following the debates and the release of the infamous “locker room talk” tape that showed Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, followed by a dozen women coming forward to claim they had been among Trump’s victims. However, polls following Comey’s announcement that the FBI was looking into thousands of new emails obtained from a device belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman, and estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, showed the race tighten in key battleground states.

The Hatch Act is a Depression-era law that was enacted to strictly limit the political activities of federal employees. Violating the Act is a fireable offense but not a criminal violation. Former state Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican and Donald Trump critic, explained what an official in Comey’s capacity can and can’t do. Things he could do: Campaign for or against a candidate as a federal employee or even speak at a candidate’s fundraiser, so long as he’s not the one asking for donations.

“But you don’t bring your politics to the office and you don’t use your office to influence the outcome of the election,” Comey said. “The allegation is that Director Comey may have violated the Hatch Act because he may have intended to influence the outcome of the presidential election with his decision to notify Congress that there is another batch of emails that they found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop that are connected to the emails that they were looking at in the Hillary Clinton investigation.”

So the question seems to be whether or not Comey intended to influence the election. McKenna said Comey is getting so much attention for the potential Hatch Act violation because he sent a letter to FBI employees informing them that he decided to announce the existence of these other emails because he felt it was important to inform the American people, to supplement the record.

“I think that one sentence is what critics who think he violated the Hatch Act are hanging their case on,” he said.

So if Comey had left that sentence out, there would have been no problem?

“I think that it would be much harder to make any kind of case that he violated the Hatch Act because what did he do? He announced to Congress that the FBI has come into more emails from Weiner’s laptop and they’re looking at them,” McKenna said. “He did that in his official capacity. He didn’t go to a campaign rally and announce it.”

So what does McKenna think?

“I think the better view is he probably didn’t violate the Hatch Act in this case,” McKenna said.

McKenna says that no matter what had been written in the letter, Comey would be receiving a ton of criticism for choosing to make this announcement to re-look at the emails when he did – less than two weeks before the election. McKenna added that he believes that the timing was a calculated decision and that, if Clinton wins the election, might actually be a plus for the Democrat.

“When the news came out after the election that there are 650,000 emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop that overlapped with the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server, there would have been a huge uproar that that information wasn’t shared with voters in advance of the election,” he said. “So, if Hillary Clinton is elected I think it’ll be better that this got aired ahead of time. If she won and this information came out afterward, it would be very damaging to her credibility on top of the damage that the email server has already done to her.”

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