By Joan Vennochi
Boston Globe
If FBI Director James Comey feels no deadline pressure to wrap up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, he should.
“The urgency is to do it well and promptly. And ‘well’ comes first,” Comey told local law enforcement agents in Buffalo on Monday, according to the Niagara Gazette.
“Well” is important. But so is “promptly,” and the FBI’s definition of that is unclear.
The probe, underway for a year now, addresses a fundamental question: Did Clinton intentionally or recklessly forward classified information in a way that put the country at risk?
Getting the answer sooner rather than later seems only fair.
“Yes, there surely is a professional, ethical, and moral obligation of the Feds to finish the investigation ASAP rather than leave a cloud hanging over the electoral process,” said noted criminal defense lawyer Harvey Silverglate. What’s also troubling, said Silverglate, is that “we don’t even know who is ignoring his/her ethical obligations, since we have not been informed, to my knowledge at least, who is in charge of the investigation.” Is it Attorney General Loretta Lynch, he asks, or — given the highly charged political nature of the investigation — a designee?
Democrats have a special interest in reaching closure before picking their nominee. Even the most loyal Clinton supporters wonder if an indictment is more than right-wing wishful thinking.
But an investigation that drags on past the convention, into the fall, is more than a partisan concern. It’s unfair to the country as a whole.
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