FBI Director James Comey told the nation on Tuesday that the bureau would not recommend charges against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton regarding her use of a private email server.
For the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, it was good legal news – and a political nightmare.
While Comey said “no charges are appropriate in this case” because there is no evidence of malicious intent, he also had this to say of Clinton and her team: “They were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” and “any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position . . . should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
Clinton was careless – and mind-bogglingly so. And worse, she was dishonest about it. Clinton said last year she never sent classified material. But she did – and dozens of times. If the Republican nominee was, say, John McCain, Comey’s assessment would be a disaster for her. It still could be, but Donald Trump appears to be incapable of translating the FBI director’s harsh words into any sort of thoughtful rebuke. On Twitter, this was the best he could muster: “Crooked Hillary Clinton lied to the FBI and to the people of our country. She is sooooo guilty. But watch, her time will come!”
Even on a dark day for Clinton, the intellectual and experiential divide seems greater than ever. To believe, even in the wake of Comey’s castigation of Clinton, that Trump would be a more competent, honest president – and a less secretive one – takes an astounding level of self deception. He is, after all, the guy who feeds fact-checkers more falsehoods than they can handle and continues to refuse to release his tax returns.
Only the most partisan Democrat would deny that Hillary Clinton has on multiple occasions exercised poor judgment and abandoned principle. And no matter who she hires as a speechwriter, it is unlikely that she will ever be the inspirational figure that Kennedy was or Obama is.
But in a presidential field essentially winnowed to two, there is really only one. Clinton is a flawed candidate, perhaps even deeply, but she operates effectively and without illusions in a complex world. The same cannot be said of her opponent, who sees nothing but phantoms and conspiracies in the rare moments when he shifts his gaze from the television cameras.
Republicans will work hard over the next few months to sell voters on the idea that Clinton cannot be entrusted with the presidency because of the way she handled her email as secretary of state. They will do so with joy and relief because it means they don’t have to address the stark fact that their standard-bearer is the most unprepared and divisive candidate ever to gain the nomination of a major American political party.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte and other Republican leaders want nothing more than to spend the summer and fall talking about why Clinton would be a poor president. Voters have a responsibility to demand that they also explain in detail how Trump would be a good one.