My phone buzzed with a “news alert” from the New York Times Friday morning. Normally, these alerts are reserved for truly breaking, earth-shattering news, like the rise of “man buns” in Brooklyn.
But Friday’s alert was particularly odd: “Lynch to Accept Guidance of F.B.I. in Clinton Email Inquiry” screamed the headline. In other words, the breaking news is that Attorney General Loretta Lynch has pledged that she will…avoid corruption and do her job. “The attorney general often follows the recommendations of career prosecutors, [so] Ms. Lynch is keeping the regular process largely intact,” explains the Times.
It’s tempting to proclaim here that the “lady doth protest too much.” But there’s something else going on: Since it was revealed that Lynch held an odd, secret meeting with Bill Clinton a few days ago on the tarmac of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, Democrats have bemoaned the “poor optics” of the rendezvous. And it did indeed look bad—the spouse of a presidential candidate who is under FBI investigation over her email practices huddling clandestinely with the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
But then again, the “optics” of an attorney general having to reassure the public that she won’t interfere with a potential criminal case to help a political ally aren’t very good either.
Update: Perhaps that New York Times story should have included an asterisk. Mark Halperin of Bloomberg now reports that Lynch will “reserve the right to overrule the recommendation of career prosecutors and the FBI.”
