Comey screwed up big time BY BRUCE UDOLF O

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Comey screwed up big time

BY BRUCE UDOLF
OCTOBER 29, 2016 7:51 PM

Republicans immediately consumed with gusto Friday’s news that FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congressional leaders informing them that his agency was reviewing new information relating to the Hillary Clinton email case.

They gleefully declared that the FBI had “reopened” the email investigation. While this is a misleading exaggeration of Comey’s admittedly vague letter, the political use that GOP partisans have made of it illustrates why public releases of information relating to pending investigations of public figures up for election have traditionally been withheld.

When I served as chief of the Public Corruption/Integrity Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, there was an unwritten policy at the Justice Department that no public actions be taken with respect to any investigation involving a public figure within six months prior to an election in which that figure stood as a candidate.

This meant it was verboten for a prosecutor to seek an indictment, authorize a search warrant, issue a press release or take action that would likely be made public in the months prior to an election. The reason for this protocol was clear and simple.

Investigations of public corruption, like all other investigations, are designed to determine the truth about allegations of criminal conduct and, if justified, to serve as a basis for criminal charges — and not to influence elections.

To the extent that such disclosure might have such an unintended effect, the policy required us to stand down from such action until after the election. If the public figure were elected in the meantime, and if charges were subsequently brought and resulted in a conviction, there would be sufficient mechanisms in place to remove him or her from office.

The concept reflected in this policy is that the Department of Justice is not in the business of doing opposition research for political opponents of public figures ...

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/arti...98437.html

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