The Naïvetéof Joan Vennochi: Or Is She as Sly as a Vixen

() hillartThe headline of her article read: Why is the FBi so slow on Clinton e-mail probe?” 

James Comey the FBI director met with FBI agents in Buffalo, New York, and a “host of other law enforcement agents” and told them things like “I hope people have realized how screwed up ISIL is..”  Maybe it is me but I’d expect a better choice of language from a person in his position but perhaps that’s the way they talk in the high counsels of our government now.

Then it is reported he said about the Clinton emails that he is staying “close to this one to make sure we have the resources to do it competently.” He went on after saying there was no pressure to wrap-up the probe before the political conventions this summer that “The urgency is to do it well and promptly. And ‘well’ comes first.”

Vennochi writes: “IF FBI Director James Comey feels no deadline pressure to wrap up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, he should.” She adds: “Well” is important. But so is “promptly,” and the FBI’s definition of that is unclear.”

Comey was a strange pick for FBI director. He had worked for the Justice department in New York and again in Washington. He then went to Lockheed Martin the largest U.S. defense contractor for five years. In June  2010 left to work for Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut based investment management firm.

He left Bridgewater after two and a half years in January 2013. He was appointed FBI director on September 4, 2013.  It was announced that he would be paid over three million dollars by Bridgewater if he was confirmed as FBI director by the Senate. Bridgewater manages approximately $154 billion in global investments for a wide array of institutional clients, including foreign governments and central banks, corporate and public pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations.” I suppose three million is a small price to pay for having friends in high places.

Here’s what Vennochi seems not to get. It is probably because of the Globe’s diktat that none of its columnist or reporters speak or write anything evil about the Boston FBI or the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office. The paper wants to keep their sources happy and feeding them information. She apparently thinks the Department of Justice and the FBI are on the level and not motivated by political considerations. She seems not to understand that things in politics on the big stage in Washington are not like in Boston.

A clear demonstration of her ignorance is that she thinks Comey is somehow controlling this investigation. She is so bad that she talks to Attorney Harvey Silverglate who tries to aim her in the right direction by telling her: ‘Yes, there surely is a professional, ethical, and moral obligation of the Feds to finish the investigation ASAP rather than leave a cloud hanging over the electoral process.” Then he all but says you’re looking at the wrong person when you’re looking at Comey. 

According to Vennochi Silverglate said: “[W]e don’t even know who is ignoring his/her ethical obligations, since we have not been informed, to my knowledge at least, who is in charge of the investigation.” She continues to write: “Is it Attorney General Loretta Lynch, he asks, or — given the highly charged political nature of the investigation — a designee?” 

The fault, dear Joan, lies not in your stars but yourself, you lack understanding. Silverglate led you to the fount of knowledge but he could not force you to think. You were hell-bent on blaming the FBI so you failed to look you higher.

Comey is a but a cog in the Obama/Clinton machinery. All FBI directors, even the vaunted J. Edgar Hoover, dance to the president’s tune. Obama or his Attorney General could bring the FBI investigation to a close yesterday if that is what they wanted. They don’t. They want Comey standing out there talking about “under investigation” as the clock ticks and newspaper columnists wonder.

Vennochi’s penultimate sentence is:  “An endless investigation leaves a perpetual cloud over her head.” To which Hillary would respond: “An endless investigator is better than an indictment.”  If charged she no longer could say as Vennochi noted in her article: “There’s nothing to it.” Which seems queer considering  how long it is taking the FBI to work on it

Hillary said on Meet the Press that last August (have they been investigating that long?) she was “was happy to answer any questions” but the FBI has not reached out to her for an interview. Too bad she wasn’t asked if it reached out to her lawyers. I’d have to guess if it did or when and if it does, we get into the lawyer negotiation stage over when, where, permissible questions, time limits, etc.  She only has to stall 6 or so months. For her lawyers that will be easy. Why if it true the DOJ or FBI hasn’t had her in for questioning suggests it is part of the big stall?.

But truly it escapes me how Vennochi after talking to Silverglate could kick the wrong can. Was it really her naïveté? Or was it her intent to send everyone off after the wrong culprits?

 

11 Comments

  1. Hillary has been breaking the law for awhile now, cattle futures trade dubbed cattlegate is an example of that, the odds alone of her making that kind of money from her initial investment is in the millions. I am not a conspiracy theorist, she had to have done something illegal during the tragedy in Benghazi. The email scandal now is just another example. She lies often and is running a slush fund with her husband in regards to the CGI -Clinton Global Initiative, i think it is called that. It is tough to find objective facts in all she has done regarding Benghazi and E-mail scandals, media needs to be less partisan and more for the people seeking factuals.

  2. Look, even if I could answer your questions
    you would not be able to live the answer
    so just learn to love the questions
    and maybe some day down the road
    you might live your life into the answers

    Rilke

    Sirius Documentary (2008) (Part 1) – YouTube
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    Apr 23, 2013 – Uploaded by R Cispa
    Dr. Steven Greer has teamed up with Emmy Award winning filmmaker Amardeep Kaleka (www …

  3. Readers may find this book to be very interesting:

    The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories
    by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Author)
    Hardcover: 320 pages
    Publisher: Regnery Publishing; First Printing edition (October 1, 1997)
    Language: English
    ISBN-10: 0895264080
    ISBN-13: 978-0895264084

  4. In 2000 ,after reading about the
    Patrick Knowlton case I contacted
    his attorney John Clarke in DC
    and we arranged for him to speak
    at Bates College.

    visit Clark’s website

    fbicover-up dot com

    Hillary Clinton and the cover-up of the murder of her friend Vince Foster by Kenneth Starr

    01/21/2001 – Updated 11:25 AM ET

    Witness in Foster case loses appeal
    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/court/2001-01-08-foster.htm
    WASHINGTON — A man who says FBI agents and other people conspired to intimidate him over his testimony about the 1993 death of White House lawyer Vince Foster lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday.

    The court, without comment, refused to revive Patrick James Knowlton’s lawsuit against two FBI agents and about two dozen other people, many of them unidentified.

    Knowlton had stopped briefly at a park in suburban Virginia on July 20, 1993, shortly before Foster was found there with a gunshot wound to the head. Knowlton apparently did not see Foster’s body, but he later told an FBI agent that a car he saw at the park did not look like a photo he was shown of Foster’s car.

    Four investigations – including one by Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr – concluded that Foster committed suicide, but some people have speculated that Foster may have been murdered.

    In 1995, Knowlton was quoted in a news report as saying the FBI had falsified his report about the car. Later he was called to testify before a federal grand jury.

    During the days before his testimony, Knowlton contended that more than 20 people approached him on public streets and sidewalks and ”glared” at him. He complained to the FBI and later said the agent who came to his home disabled his phone so he could not call his lawyer.

    Knowlton sued in 1996, saying two FBI agents and 26 other people – all but two of them unidentified – conspired in a ”campaign

  5. Dorothy Parker:

    You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

    Parker’s answer when asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence?, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970).

    • Bill:

      Great comment You always add delight to the conversation with your extensive knowledge of the esoteric.

  6. Matt, i have seen thousands and thousands of comments under various articles from people who know what they’re talking about, wondering how the heck she hasn’t been indicted yet. There’s a neighbor down the street who had a security clearance at one time who is also shaking his head in disbelief.

    If, as you say, Comey is but a political cog, that is deeply, deeply disturbing and somewhat difficult to believe. I have personally seen the FBI operate in investigations, gathering statements and evidence, etc., seemingly from everywhere – the agents are all business, and when the DOJ wants to get someone, they go after it, based on evidence gathered by the FBI.

    How could one person be above the law, in contrast to Petraues and others?

    • Elmer:

      You answered your own question when you stated: “when the DOJ wants to get someone, they go after it

      The DOJ does not want to get Hillary. Did you forget how it did not want to get Lois Lerner. http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/06/despite-lois-lerner-pass-judge-orders-irs-to-release-key-target-list-administration-blocked/#7751432259f3

      • OK, Matt

        If Comey is indeed stalling, in the hopes that everything will just go away regarding a massive violation of national security by the Hildebeast:

        – who got to Comey?
        – why?
        – how?
        – why would Comey be willing to bend over and look the other way where a serious crime has been committed, jeopardizing this country?

        I find it difficult to believe that an FBI director, presumably sworn to uphold the law, would simply look the other way and ignore a massive, serious crime.

        About Killery – I don’t find it difficult at all to believe that it would do whatever it wants to do, including breaking the law, because, after all, it is “for the children” – that’s a magic phrase that allows one to do whatever one wants to do.

        But Comey is a different story.

        Yes, I’ve read the other comments.

        • Elmer:

          If it is a crime to have secret documents on a non-secured computer it is apparent from all I have read that a serious crime was committed as we saw happened in the Petraeus case as well as others where some people ended up in he can. How difficult is it to figure that out that an investigation has been ongoing for at least eight months. It is difficult to explain why in the face of such obvious evidence the FBI continues to investigate the matter. After all everything is on paper and there is nothing new that will be discovered. In other words it has all the evidence and has had it for months. It seems clear to me there is a big stall.

          Comey works for the president and the attorney general. He seeks to please. He obviously does not want to do anything they would not like and he knows they would not like to see Hillary tripped up. He also is aware that if he did not stall he would affect the upcoming election and he does not want to do that. If Hillary gets elected, he’ll then have to bury everything.

          Comey sees these as past crimes. he may not believe they jeopardized the country. He may believe the crime were not significant but the result of charges would be highly disastrous to Hillary and the punishment would greatly outweigh the offense. That’s not his call but it does not mean he can’t think like that. Or maybe the A.G. Lynch who has the ultimate decision on whether to bring charges feels the punishment Hillary would suffer is too great compared to the crime. That is a decision a prosecutor is charged with making. Not every criminal act must be punished.

          • You mean to say that seeking to please a narcissistic jerk who worships at the altar of a made-up political religion – climate change – outweighs enforcing the law?

            Also – Petraeus seems to have done far, far less, and his “punishment” did not involve jail time. So AG Lynch can simply ignore the law also? She’s supposed to enforce the law, not worship a politico who broke it.

            Matt, I will tell you that from what I’ve seen, there are thousands and thousands of people who think there was a very, very serious crime committed.

            And I guarantee you that anyone who has ever held a clearance KNOWS there was a very, very serious crime committed.

            I hope that you are wrong. This is supposed to be a nation of laws, not men. I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that in this case, under such serious circumstances, anyone could decide that Billary deserves to be above the law. I don’t care how much she claims that she is “fighting for us.”

            The spin doctors keep saying that “there is no proof that the server was hacked.”

            What utter hogwash. If I drive drunk, it’s still against the law – I don’t have to have killed anyone.

            Also:

            http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/08/source-no-coincidence-romanian-hacker-guccifer-extradited-amid-clinton-probe.html?intcmp=hplnws

            Hosko, who is not part of the current email probe, read the Guccifer indictment and told Fox News that Guccifer’s technical skills and intent “show the relative ease of getting very close to someone in a high place in government. Not only Hillary Clinton, but Colin Powell and George W. Bush. … It’s important on a couple of levels. Here is an individual in a relatively poor Eastern European country who was able to intrude on sensitive emails about activities in Benghazi.”