New York Times Tries to Compare Comey to Hoover. Here Are 4 Reasons That’s Idiotic

The New York Times is huffy over the fact that FBI director James Comey announced the re-opening of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, so they’re trying to compare him to J. Edgar Hoover.

The Times piece, titled “James Comey Role Recalls Hoover’s F.B.I., Fairly or Not,” features the following quote from an FBI historian:

“I think this is sort of a flashback to the days of J. Edgar Hoover,” said Sanford J. Ungar, a Georgetown scholar, former journalist and author who has written about the F.B.I.’s history. “I don’t mean to smear Comey, and it may be an unfair comparison. But Hoover would weigh in on issues without warning or expectation. I just wonder how Comey sees his role.”

The Times goes on to admit that the comparison to Hoover “may be quite a stretch” and to describe some of the differences between the two men, but as Newsbusters notes, “Why put it in a headline on the front page in the first place, if not to help Hillary?”

Here are four reasons why comparing Comey to Hoover is idiotic.

1. Hoover was feared by presidents, politicians and government officials alike. Hoover would always dredge up some sort of dirt on politicians in order “to procure funds, to gain political muscle, or to avert investigation of operations he preferred kept hidden,” according to the UK Guardian. President Harry Truman once wrote that “We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail… Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”

Hoover served under eight presidents, and four of them wanted to fire him, but they never did in part because of Hoover’s popularity, but it was also likely due to the possibility of Hoover having files on them. According to the Washington Post:

Still, Hoover built his FBI files into an intimidating weapon, not just for fighting crime but also for bullying government officials and critics and destroying careers. The files covered a dizzying kaleidoscope — Supreme Court justices such as Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, movie stars Mary Pickford and Marilyn Monroe, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, physicist Albert Einstein, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, among others — often replete with unconfirmed gossip about private sex lives and radical ties.

By 1960, the FBI had open, “subversive” files on some 432,000 Americans. Hoover deemed the most sensitive files as “personal and confidential” and kept them in his office, where his secretary, Helen Gandy, could watch them. Today, with few exceptions, Hoover’s FBI files are open for any American to see at the National Archives. They make fascinating reading and paint a stark portrait of power run amok.

Comey, on the other hand, clearly hasn’t garnered that same type of fear given how Democrats have been eager to publicly smear him despite lavishing him with praise back in July. There’s also no indication whatsoever that Comey has files for the purposes of Hooveresque black mail.

2. Hoover surveilled his enemies. Take Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance:

Now, in his latest column, [Jack] Anderson revealed that the FBI had conducted surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s sex life.

Besides attending sex orgies, King was having an affair with a young woman in his office, says an agent who monitored wiretaps on King’s office and home phones.

“Besides his home, King had an apartment,” the former agent says. “On Tuesdays, he’d go to the apartment, ostensibly to meditate and write sermons.” In fact, King’s girlfriend would meet him there for sex.

Hoover viewed King as “the most dangerous Negro in the future of this nation,” according to Biography.com and used surveillance to find any dirt he could on the civil rights leader.

Through surveillance, Hoover discovered that President Kennedy was having an affair with a woman named Judith Campbell Exner, so Hoover told Kennedy that Exner was sleeping with Sam Giancana, a Chicago mob boss.

“Because Hoover knew such tidbits, no president would fire him,” wrote Ronald Kessler in an excerpt from his book The Secrets of the FBI.

3. Hoover actually made FBI resources available to Thomas Dewey. The Comey/Hoover comparison likely stems from Hoover’s attempts to help Dewey win the 1948 presidential election by deploying FBI resources. Hoover hoped to be appointed as attorney general or to the Supreme Court under a President Dewey, according to a 1979 Washington Post article. Hoover did not intervene in an election in such a blatant manner again, although he did support Richard Nixon in the 1960 election quietly over John F. Kennedy.

This does not appear to be the case with Comey. There is no evidence that Comey is pursuing the position of attorney general or Supreme Court justice under a President Donald Trump – that would be a risky move for Comey given that Clinton is still the favorite to win the presidency despite the re-opening of the FBI investigation.

4. Comey isn’t trying to interfere in an election, he’s only looking out for himself. At the end of September, Comey was asked by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) if he would re-open the investigation after “several very material issues” had surfaced since he announced in July he wouldn’t indict Clinton.

“I’ve not seen anything that would come near to that kind of situation,” Comey responded, per the Washington Examiner.

Therefore, Comey had no choice but to tell Congress in order to save himself from possible perjury charges. It is idiotic then to suggest that he is trying to influence an election when he gave Clinton a pass just a few months earlier and clearly painted himself into a corner.