Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

House Botches a Chance to Air Clinton's Misdeeds

The FBI director was asked why he didn't indict her, not to detail her "extreme carelessness."

July 7, 2016 at 8:51 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Missed opportunity.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images

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The House Oversight Committee had the perfect stage today when it brought FBI Director James Comey in for a hearing on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. The panel’s Republican members could have pressed him to detail what he had called Clinton’s “extreme carelessness” in using a personal communications system to conduct her work as secretary of state. Comey had reams of material to refer to, if they had cared to ask.

Instead, House Republicans chose to browbeat the FBI director for his decision not to indict her for her behavior. As a result, most of Comey’s time was spent defending himself -- in effect, making the case that Clinton’s actions were not as bad as House Republicans believed.