Alan Dershowitz: Comey May Have Overstepped His Authority
EDITOR’S PICK--Renowned lawyer and professor Alan Dershowitz penned an op-ed piece for The Hill in which he says James Comey reached the correct conclusion in Hillary Clinton's email scandal, but that the FBI Director might have exceeded his authority getting there.
"[Comey] was certainly correct in his ultimate recommendation. The evidence in this case, as he described it, would not have justified a criminal prosecution," Dershowitz wrote. "There is simply no precedent for indicting a former secretary of state for carelessness, even extreme carelessness."
However, Dershowitz identified four curious statements the FBI director made that suggest Comey overstepped his bounds:
- The FBI is an investigative agency; it does not make prosecutorial decisions like Comey outlined Tuesday.
- It's rare and highly unusual for an FBI director to articulate opinions — Comey called Clinton "extremely careless" — about the behavior of a subject.
- Comey was obtuse in his "verbal formulation" of whether emails where classified or not.
- Comey implied that some Clinton aides might lose their security clearance over this; again, out of the FBI's purview.
So though Dershowitz lauds Comey as honorable and is comfortable with the outcome, he is uncomfortable with the power wielded by someone with the job title of FBI director. (Read the rest.)
-cw
