Donald Trump Owes His Presidency to James Comey & He Hates Him For It
President Trump took to Twitter yesterday to criticize Fox News for interviewing James Comey calling him a "sleazebag & totally discredited former FBI Director." Trump attacks Comey regularly and blames him for instigating the FBI probe into his campaign's ties to Russia. The recently released Inspector General's report rejected the President's conspiracy theory, but Trump continues to hammer the former FBI director anyway.
Trump's animosity toward Comey will never subside because he knows that he would have lost the election without Comey's decision to send a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on October 28, 2016 announcing the discovery of more Clinton emails. The FBI Director released the letter just as many Americans were finalizing their voting decision and beginning to cast ballots in early voting states. His subsequent letter on November 6 that again absolved Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing was released after millions of votes had already been cast in early voting states.
Vox has a great piece on the research that's been done on the "Comey effect" in the 2016 election. They conclude:
Vox: "Instead, the evidence is clear, and consistent, regarding the Comey effect. The timing of the shift both at the state and national levels lines up very neatly with the publication of the letter, as does the predominance of the story in the media coverage from the final week of the campaign. With an unusually large number of undecided voters late in the campaign, the letter hugely increased the salience of what was the defining critique of Clinton during the campaign at its most critical moment."
Donald Trump rejects the "Comey effect," just as he hates to be reminded that he lost the popular vote, because it undermines his legitimacy and stature. And, it's really, really hard to argue that the FBI had some kind of bias against you when the Director of that agency sunk your opponent's candidacy.
By: Don Lam & Curated Content
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