The FBI director’s decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for mishandling highly classified information is a bump in the road for Donald Trump’s campaign against her—a pretty big bump. It may halt Trump’s gradual narrowing of her lead in the general election race, at least for the time being.
Clinton and Democrats can live comfortably with the critical words of James Comey, the FBI chief, aimed at Clinton for the reckless way she treated national security information on her private email server. She and her aides were “extremely careless in their handling very sensitive, highly classified information,” he said. Clinton should have known an unclassified system was no place to discuss “Top Secret/Special Access” information. Yet that’s just what she did, Comey added. But his words alone won’t sting her.
True, there are still plenty of Clinton scandals for Trump to exploit. He won’t have to stop calling her “Crooked Hillary.” There’s the Clinton Foundation, her endless record of lying, her role in silencing women husband Bill has accused of sexually abusing, the Benghazi fraud, the exorbitant fees from Wall Street firms for speeches, and much, much more. They’ll give Trump a lot to talk and tweet about.
But the media is minimally interested, if that, in these cases of misconduct or corruption. Clinton’s private email happens to be the only scandal the mainstream media has covered intensely and on a daily basis. Now it’s gone. Will reporters and commentators shift their focus to the Clinton Foundation, a target-rich environment for investigative reporters if there ever was one? I doubt it. They’re more likely to move, crowd-like, to reporting on some Trump peccadillo.
For the media, the emails were the issue. The rest are worn-out controversies only the conservative press is interested in. Non-prosecution of the emails vindicated her of corruption. The rest don’t matter.
Comey rescued Clinton and Democrats on another front as well. Had Clinton been indicted, it would have forced her either to withdraw from the race or to continue as a candidate under indictment and facing calls for her to step down. Were she to withdraw, it would have thrown Democrats into a bitter struggle over who should replace her, primary rival Bernie Sanders or Vice President Joe Biden. Now all this turmoil—enormously helpful to Trump and Republicans—has been averted, thanks to Comey.
Comey has altered the presidential race. He will have some explaining to do about how and why he reached his decision to let Clinton skate. But while conservatives are second-guessing him, the media for the most part will move on.
Three big issues provide Trump with a chance to defeat Clinton. One is terrorism and the feeble fight to contain it by President Obama and Clinton. The second is the economy and stagnant wages. The third is Hillary Clinton’s corruption.
The corruption issue has always the weakest of the three, but it’s the juiciest for Trump to talk about. His new economic plan, soon to be announced, and a detailed strategy for combating terrorism will have to carry the day.
