Greatest represented democracy in Human History and thats us and happy halloween. And thats hardball for now. All in with chris hayes starts right now. Tonight on all in why in the world the fbi would decide to jump into an election with no evidence of any wrongdoing with just days to go. Fbi director james comey under fire. Ten days to go . I think its disgraceful. Criticism coming from across the political spectrum. I think this is probably not the right thing for comey to do. But is the fbi decision actually impacting voters . Well breakdown the state of the race with over 23 million votes already cast. Jew usa rom lock her up to jew sa if in a donald trump
close to the election. A second source later confirmed that same story to the huffington post. Now, this all comes as comey faces growing backlash for his decision three days ago to announce the bureau had discovered a new trove of emails belonging to top clinton aide huma abedin discovered during an investigation of abedins estranged husband, anthony weiner, for allegedly sending elicit texting to an underage girl. We still have no idea whats in those new emails and we have no idea if they have anything to do with the original investigation of potential Classified Information on Hillary Clintons private email server. The fbi has now began to review abedins emails but it remains unclear if they are finished before election day. What we do know about the emails and the decisions to make them public 11 days before the election has come largely by leaked to the press. Comey explains his thinking and acknowledges potential consequences. Given that we do not know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, i dont want to create a misleading but i wanted you to hear directly from me about it. Anonymous sources said he had two main reasons, a sense of obligation to lawmakers and testified this summer and concern that word of the New Discovery would be leaked to the media and be reported as a coverup. The Clinton Probe has been the subject of an internal feud at the fbi. Some investigators pushing for a more aggressive approach. Its been widely reported that in disclosing the new emails, comey acted against the guidance of his boss, loretta lynch, and against department policy. Earlier today, clinton addressed that issue in cleveland, ohio. Im sure a lot of you may be asking what this new email story is about and why in the
host janine piero. I think its disgraceful. Im outraged because its a violation of Department Justice policies and procedures, whatever. It was probably inconsistent with protocol so in that sense you have to question the decision. The protocols are put in place for a reason and ensures more consistent Decision Making and in that sense you have to question this decision. Comeys actions violate not only Longstanding Justice Department policy, the directive of a person that he works under, the Attorney General. But even more important, the most fundamental rules of fairness and impartiality. Even some of the gops most famous flame throw ers have bee critical. Joe walsh said, look, i think comey should have said prosecute
her back in july but what he just did 11 days before the election is wrong and unfair to hillary. And then a member of the outspoken Freedom Caucus in the case of the a postelection leadership coup. I actually agree. I think this was probably not the right thing for comey to do, but this whole case i think theyve mishandled. Im joined by sheldon whitehouse. Hes a former judiciary committee. Basically, this would leak, so instead of the director of the fbi writing a letter, you would have reports popping up from unnamed official sources saying we found a bunch of emails and it looked like a coverup so he had to do something. What do you think. If the fbi is not a safe
place for Classified Information or confidential investigative information to go, thats a problem that he needs to address in a very, very serious way. Theres a very important public right at stake behind all of this, which is that prosecutors and investigative agencies, like the fbi, get incredible power to look through our personal lives, to look through our papers, to look through our emails and they get that power at the price that they are not allowed to disclose it unless they are bringing charges. When i was the Attorney General of my state with broad criminal jurisdiction, when i was the United States attorney, we had a very clear rule. Any derogatory information that we developed in an investigation had to be listed in the charging document, in the indictment or in the criminal information or else we didnt talk about it. And if there were no charges, then we would never divulge
derogatory investigative information, least of all opinion about the suspect who had never been charged. So director comey broke that rule right off the bat with his first press conference. The Second Bright Red Flag is that you dont engage with the legislature. He had no obligation to congress to clarify anything. Once a prosecutor goes down the rat hole of trying to make sure that congress thinks that what hes doing is fair, theres no going back. And congress is perfectly able to manipulate that by denying its approval, by false criticism and so comey is caught in a terrible trap now of his own making and its stunning to people who are prosecutors if someone has experienced and honorable as him would fall into this trap. Its fascinating to hear that from a member of the article 1 branch, u. S. Senator, to say that this idea of sort of bending the congress or being worried that he was misleading the congress, you dont think
thats a legitimate concern in this case . Thats totally not a legitimate concern. Of all of the people that investigators involved in a criminal investigation should be concerned about, they have no obligation to congress. Look, they have an obligation to the integrity of their investigation. And the integrity of their investigation includes keeping information confidential and within the investigation until its charged. You dont get to be a smearer at large with derogatory information and thats what that rule is designed to protect against and thats the trap that director comey fell into and its astonishing. Whats so insane to me and ive got to give kudos to the team that reported this Paul Manafort inquiry, but its the same problem there. This stuff should not be leaking. Were journalists. But from an ethical standpoint what was interesting, after the comey
letter, you have three straight news days of articles with nothing but warring factions of the fbi leaking info without an investigation anonymously and prosecuting this in the court of the Public Opinion and shredding any presumption of innocence that might have existed. This is a terrible week for the fbi. I have never seen the agency with such indiscipline, with such disregard for these basic prosecutorial principles and ultimately when the dust settles, whether its donald trump or Hillary Clinton, the institution thats going to suffer the most will be the federal bureau of investigation for having broken these very, very basic principles of fairness and of prosecutorial conduct. Senator sheldon whitehouse, strong words. Thank you for taking the time tonight. Appreciate it. Im joined by Jennifer Granholm and richard painter, chief
ethics white house lawyer under george w. Bush. And mr. Painter, let me start with you. I read your oped. It was somewhat surprising to me but there seems to be a collective gasp happening after what weve seen played out in the last three or four days. Well, absolutely. The fbis job is to investigate, not to play politics and the fbi certainly doesnt have an obligation to report to congress but should not be reporting to congress. And the members of the House Oversight committee have no business pressuring the fbi to deliver to them information on their political enemies. In this case, Hillary Clinton. Now, in this situation, it appears that the fbi did not have any derogatory information about secretary clinton because they hadnt even gotten a warrant to look at the laptop. So they didnt even know what was in there and yet they are
firing this letter up to the hill telling the members of congress that they have all these emails. That was inappropriate and, not only that, a violation of the hatch act. The only use of that letter only conceivable use is political. And thats exactly what was done with it and it went up on the internet and then they passed the torch to donald trump and this is a tragedy for the fbi. I am i want to ask you a question, jennifer, in a second. But let me just follow up on that. The hatch act is the federal statute that guides essentially that bars political activity while on the federal dollar. It creates bright lines between essentially Civil Service activity and political activity. Its a very important part of the Civil Service architecture of the country. Youre accusing comey of violating that. Thats a very serious thing to say. Well, its he did violate
it. The members of congress, they are not subject to the hatch act. Right. Theres the president. But the president cant order the fbi or pressure the fbi to investigate his political enemies. Neither can members of congress. And thats whats been going on here and weve had it going on for a year and the fbis conducted its investigation. They closed the investigation and, by the way, they did not reopen the investigation. I dont know where that came from. But once this letter was sent, its been blown out of proportion in the media. Its being used for politics and the hatch act prohibits the use of official position to influence an election and i cant imagine a worst violation of the hatch act than the fbi getting involved in partisan politics in trying to influence elections. Jennifer, the Clinton Campaign has been very aggressive on this. You know, theyve organized several phone calls, theyve been public in their frustration and condemnation of james comey. Theyve accused him in the wake
of the report of him keeping the fbi out of that letter about russia of a double standard, that he was careful about that, not here. Is the Clinton Campaign taking a sledgehammer to an important American Institution in precisely theyve attacked donald trump of doing . Its not just the Clinton Campaign doing it. You have 50 Attorney Generals who have signed a letter, bipartisan investigation officials, people who are not affiliated with either camp who have long spent their careers as professional investigators or prosecutors signing on saying this as mr. Painter has said this is unprecedented. I do think, chris, the double standard issue is a really important one. Tonight, youve got this allegation, this acknowledgement that the fbi has opened an inquiry into Paul Manafort and his ties to russia and about a month ago there was another report by yahoo that the fbi and intelligence officials were
investigating another official tied to the Trump Campaign named carter page and who was supposed to have ties to russia. Those things are really explosive and if the fbi if comey came out and sent a letter to congress saying, yes, im investigating the fbi for this, there should be there would be incredible outrage. But you dont hear any of that happening. Let me stop you right there. The only way we have it is someone leaking it which is improper. That is definitely true. My point is, you dont have the director of the fbi coming out and confirming that. And he is the face of the fbi, which is why this is such a pickle and which is why only he, now that hes gone through this door, he needs to step through and tell us what he has. I know that it may be you know, we dont know how big the universe is, we dont know if
its just emails that huma sent saying print this or Something Like that, your cars outside. We have no idea what they are. But if it is an innocuous as i know the Clinton Campaign believes it to be, then he needs he has a duty to let the citizens know that theres nothing here, if he can. This entire episode is a reminder of what a thin line it is between the fbi independent and fbi rogue and for much of his life it was in the latter category. Thats something to keep in mind. Jennifer granholm, richard painter, thank you so much. You bet. Still to come, the new unbelievable pro trump ad from white nationalists. Thats after this break. You work at ge . Yeah, i do. You guys are working on some pretty big stuff over there, right . Like a new language for crazybig, worldchanging machines. Well, not me specifically. I work on the industrial side. So i build the worldchanging machines. I get it. You cant talk because its super highlevel. No, i actually do build the machines. Blink if what youre doing involves encrypted data transfer. Wait, what . Wowwww. Wow . What wow . There is no wow. [burke] hot dog. Seen it. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum just serve classy snacks and bew a gracious host,iday party. No matter who shows up. Do you like nuts . Chanted jew sa. [ crowd chanting jew sa ]. It will be a very, very high priority. That man has been identified as a 51yearold and he says thats the way i say usa adding, im around mexican people all the time. I speak spanish. Thats just the way i say it. Not making it up. Seeing as he ended his rant by telling reporters, were worried about the jews, okay . Trump Campaign ManagerKellyanne Conway described his conduct as deplorable. We have seen a lot of
antisemites and racists and misogynists who support the trump candidacy. Would you call that deplorable . It does not reflect our campaign or candidate. I have to push back on the adjectives that youve described. These are usaloving americans. Absolutely. Who want the country to be safe and prosperous again. The vast majority are not those who chant jew sa but William Johnson leaves a quote, the white race is dying out and attacked Evan Mcmullin who is saying hes going to defeat trump. Evan has two mommies. Hes over 40 years old, not
married and doesnt even have a girlfriend. I believe hes a closet homosexual. Dont vote for Evan Mcmullin. Vote for donald trump. In new mexico yesterday, trump falsely claimed hillary advocates, quote, open borders and certainly suggested she would allow 650 Million People to, quote, pour in, more than twice the current population, in just one week. He also cited a baseless claim sayi saying immigrants will murder americans. They have warned that hillarys radical plan would result in the loss think of this of thousands of innocent american lives and an uncontrollable flood of Illegal Immigrants across the border taking jobs and crime would be
rampant. Joining me now is jason. I guess its one of these things where you have this conversation, you point to all of these various people and say, look, its really a thing that these people are supporting trump and the trump folks say and i understand why they do, youre painting with a broad brush and the overwhelming majority are not like that. People dont stand at the rally of a Major Party Nominee chanting jew sa. Right. Right. Donald trump was a racist and gets support by racists. This has not been a question for a long time. He started this campaign by saying there are rapist mexicans and good mexicans. And this is a problem. And its not because we havent had racist president s before. We definitely have throughout american history. I would say that would be the norm, actually. Exactly. Hes not going to be the first. But hes mainstreamed it. Even the turn altright. Now we have hipster neonazis and thats considered fine and
sexy. Its dangerous no matter if he loses next week. Part of this i think is the atmosphere that is driven by the campaign, right . So theres not right. Campaigns are not responsible for everything their supporters do. Thats just a blanket, important rule. But they do not they have been slow to condemn certain things and heres Wayne Alan Root at a trump rally talking about huma abedin and Hillary Clinton. Take a listen. I have a name for the feature tv movie called Driving Miss Hillary and the ending, if we all get our wish, is like thelma louise. Hes saying we all get our wish that these other two people will die. Right. That is sort of par for the course rhetoric. Yeah. And its become normal. And i dont know, maybe thats his new trump tv show. I dont know. But what weve seen here is that whether its bill burr, a candidate in North Carolina, donald trump, the idea of causing direct violence against your political opponent is a degradation of political discourse. The suggestion that i will jail my political opponent is a degradation of political discourse. The reason we have peaceful transfer of power, people dont worry if they lose they are going to end up in a ghoul la. It makes everyone much more concerned. I would not be surprised if we see violence after this election next week and thats not something anyone wants to see. Im praying thats not the case. Richard burr in a neckandneck battle audio of him addressing it and i want to play that audio making a joke about Hillary Clinton in a gun magazine. Take a listen. Nothing made me feel any better than i walked into a gun shop i think yesterday in
there was a copy of rifleman on the counter and its got a