It
may come as a surprise that one of this country’s greatest experts on
Richard M. Nixon’s many crimes is, in fact, Hillary Clinton. In 1974 she
was, by many accounts, among the brightest members of the staff of the
House Judiciary Committee that investigated Nixon and prepared the
articles of impeachment. In this bizarre election year, it must be
painful to her that she should find herself at the center of a scandal
described by her hyperbolic political opponent, Donald J. Trump, as
“worse than Watergate.”
But while “Emailgate” is no Watergate, there are some noteworthy echoes.
For
one, the controversial decision by the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey,
to inform Congress about new evidence in the investigation into Mrs.
Clinton’s email server makes sense only if you think of what Watergate
meant for the bureau. Its reputation was badly hurt by the behavior of
L. Patrick Gray, its acting director at the time, and the revelations of
its Hoover-era misdeeds that followed. Subsequent directors like
William H. Webster, Robert S. Mueller III and now Mr. Comey have all
appeared to understand that the country needs a trusted, nonpartisan
F.B.I.
The fact that emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer
might be relevant to the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s private
email server had to be reported to an interested congressional
investigative committee. If Mr. Comey had sat on the information — with
part of the country already voting in the presidential election — he
would have not only made the F.B.I. more of a target for partisan fury,
but also made himself a target for future House investigations, since he
had testified under oath that the F.B.I. had completed its Clinton
email investigation.
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