Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler
Donald Trump was alive and well in Ontario this past week and, sadly, he will likely remain so until after the provincial election on June 7th. Doug Ford started it and Kathleen Wynne did not hold back.
Ford announced that one of his first acts if he becomes Premier will be to cause an independent audit to probe Liberal government spending. He believes there was corruption and he suggested that some Liberals should be in jail if they pulled shady tricks with taxpayer’s dollars. He said, “If Kathleen Wynne tried to pull these kind of shady deals in private life, there would be a few more Liberals joining David Livingston (who was convicted of deleting e-mails related to the gas plant scandal) in jail.” It does not take a rocket scientist to equate that comment to Trump’s now-famous taunts of “lock her up”, or “crooked Hillary” when referring to his opponent in the American presidential race.
(I should add as an aside, Ford’s threat to audit Liberal spending is a specious one. There would be no point, other than vengeance; shades of Trump again. It serves no useful purpose. If he really wants to be the instrument of change, Doug Ford should look forward and not backwards.)
Following Ford’s remarks, Kathleen Wynne wasted no time in getting into the game, in fact she welcomed the opportunity. She got right down in the trenches. She called Ford a bully and a coward. She said, “Doug Ford sounds like Donald Trump. That’s because he is like Donald Trump. He believes in an ugly brand of politics that traffics in smears and lies. He will say anything about anybody, at any time, because just like Trump, it is all about him.” Some of that, to me, sounded a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
Now I don’t know if Ford wants to be compared to Donald Trump or not. He says he could not care less about Trump but acknowledged he would have voted for him had he been an American. Certainly, I have seen some aspects of Ford that remind me of the more unpleasant aspects of the American President. However, I do question the wisdom of Kathleen Wynne making this election about a comparison between Doug Ford and Donald Trump.
I have just finished reading James Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty. For those who may not remember, Comey was the Director of the FBI who was abruptly fired last year by President Trump. As a tell-all book, it was an interesting read, although I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know or suspect. However, some of the comments he made about leadership and the changes in political thinking resonated with me.
For example, he said this: “We are experiencing a dangerous time in our country, with a political environment where basic facts are disputed, fundamental truth is questioned, lying is normalized and unethical behaviour is ignored, excused or rewarded.”
While perhaps not to the same degree, I believe this attitude is creeping into our Canadian political culture. Particularly in Ontario, people are crying for change and as in America, in many instances, their need for change, their determination for change, their disgust for the status quo, outweighs their respect for more traditional values and reasoned thinking. Many want change at any cost and by playing the “Trump” card with Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne is doing little more than fostering and encouraging that reality.
In the meantime, while Doug Ford and Kathleen Wynne are fully engaged in hand-to-hand combat, the elements of an election campaign based on personalities and smear tactics, rather than on policy and vision, are becoming a sad fact. It is all cut and thrust, but where is the substance? To paraphrase a comment made by James Comey in his book, we all bear responsibility for the deeply flawed choices we put before voters.
It is hard to be optimistic about the coming election. As one reader recently commented on Listen Up!, “The whole process is just a joke. No matter whom we vote for, we lose. None of them are worth casting a vote for. Flip a coin and hope for the best?”
I am not as pessimistic as that but If I sound discouraged, I am. We have little policy or vision from the Ford campaign and nothing but more unaffordable spending from the Wynne and Horwath campaigns. At this point in time, it appears that we will be rid of Kathleen Wynne, which is as it should be. But I am not at all sure about what it is we will be left with.
To me, it is all somewhat scary.
Hugh Mackenzie
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Comey’s actions are ‘unworthy’ of the FBI, says former Assistant Director and 24-year veteran agent.
Chris E. Swecker served 24 years in FBI as Special Agent. He retired from the Bureau as Assistant Director with responsibility over all FBI Criminal Investigations. He currently practices law in Charlotte, N.C.
Through his actions during his relatively brief tenure as FBI Director and now in penning and promoting a salacious “tell all” book, it is now quite evident that James Comey’s higher loyalty is to James Comey, and James Comey alone. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, to the FBI, where I served for 24 years, or to the selfless men and women who work there – all of whom he has tossed, once again, into the middle of a political firestorm.
The ancient Greeks had a word for the excessive vanity that would cause someone to place his interests before those of his country and those of the dedicated public servants he was called to lead – it’s called hubris.
There is no other plausible explanation for his series of ill-advised actions, beginning with the then-director’s now-infamous press conference in July 2016, when he acted contrary to 28 US Code Section 547, Section 9 of the United States Attorneys Manual and over 100 years of established practice between the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). He did this in declaring, without ever consulting with a DOJ prosecutor, that Hillary Clinton was un-prosecutable in the wake of a kid gloves investigation.
His actions are unworthy of the storied law enforcement agency I served for close to a quarter of a century, and they shocked many of us who worked with and around him during his years serving in the Department of Justice.
The statutes cited above clearly state that the U.S. Justice Department and the United States Attorneys have plenary authority to make prosecution decisions. In contravention of this wisely drawn system of checks and balances, then-FBI Director Comey held his unprecedented press conference and in doing so, he needlessly injected the FBI into one of the most volatile political controversies of our time.
The public needs to understand that this is really not how the FBI operates within today’s criminal justice system. Jim Comey and his discredited inner circle in no way represent the FBI and its dedicated men and women.
Comey’s rationale that he took these actions because Attorney General Loretta Lynch was “conflicted” doesn’t hold water with anyone possessing even a rudimentary knowledge of the federal criminal justice system.
The American system was designed by our founding fathers to interject an objective party with legal training between those who are investigating and those who decide whether to invoke the legal process to deprive someone of his or her life, liberty or property.
This brilliant system, which Comey trashed, was designed to keep the FBI and other law enforcement agencies out of politics. Now his book renews the controversy to the detriment of nearly everyone but Jim Comey, who is clearly out to repair his tarnished reputation and mete out some payback for his dismissal by President Trump.
Sunday’s interview on ABC – and every action he has taken since usurping the role of the Justice Department – has only thrust the FBI deeper into the political crucible. It has also apparently reinforced Comey’s misplaced belief that he, and he alone, is better equipped than anyone else in the criminal justice system to make important decisions.
As former director of the FBI, Comey is very familiar with the recusal process and knows full well that if Attorney General Lynch was “conflicted,” the legally appropriate process was for her to delegate decision-making authority to another person inside the Justice Department. He never gave her a chance. Instead of allowing her to fulfill her responsibilities and do the right thing, Comey effectively took her off the hook and placed the FBI on it.
He also forever tainted any future prosecution of Hillary Clinton because he, the head of the lead investigative agency, had basically absolved the former Secretary of State of any wrongdoing.
Further evidence of Comey’s ego overriding sound judgment is his willingness to leak and tolerate leaks among his inner circle. Leaking information concerning sensitive investigations is a violation of federal law. As the DOJ Inspector General stated in the Andrew McCabe investigation, such leaks serve no public interest whatsoever – aside, of course, from serving the private agendas of McCabe and Comey.
Comey’s book removes any doubt that personal animus towards Donald Trump and acute sensitivity to the political environment permeated his inner circle and drove key actions and decisions. Regardless of how one feels about Trump’s presidency, Comey’s petty references to the president’s physical appearance and other aspects of his personality are far more revealing about Comey than anyone else.
He describes Donald Trump as acting like a mob boss and not “tethered to the truth.” He pronounces the president a liar and “morally unfit to be president.”
If he truly believed this was so, then Jim Comey had a golden opportunity on several occasions to act on conviction and either forcefully stand up to the president or resign on principle. The truth is that Jim Comey relished the role of FBI Director and wanted to keep his job, so he remained silent until he miraculously found the courage to speak up while out promoting his book.
Comey’s book will sell because these kinds of tabloid stories always do. There may have been a time and place for him to tell his story, but now is not that time. His “tell all” is beneath the office of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who does indeed owe a “higher loyalty” – to the criminal justice system and the mission of the FBI.
Jim Comey’s attempt at burnishing his legacy has thrust the FBI back into the political arena even as current Director Chris Wray patiently and doggedly tries – in the models of former directors Robert Mueller, Louie Freeh and William Webster – to extricate the agency from this political environment and return to established procedures and processes free of even a hint of bias or grandstanding.
The public needs to understand that this is really not how the FBI operates within today’s criminal justice system. Jim Comey and his discredited inner circle in no way represent the FBI and its dedicated men and women.
FBI Agents may have political and personal opinions but they check them at the door as they leave their homes to conduct the public’s business. FBI employees serve in a complex, global environment, many in war zones and international hotspots. They provide the most skilled and professional law enforcement services in the world. They do not deserve to have their professionalism and objectivity called into question because of the actions of Jim Comey, whose time as FBI director was an aberration.
It is very painful for this FBI veteran to say that the Comey manuscript, with its petty and gratuitous observations, self-aggrandizement and moralizing, sadly displays an ego that is loyal first and foremost to its author.
Chris E. Swecker served 24 years in FBI as Special Agent. He retired from the Bureau as Assistant Director with responsibility over all FBI Criminal Investigations. He currently practices law in Charlotte, N.C.
Bob
Your National Post article says everything it needs to about the disastrous, corrupt Liberal government of both Wynne and Dalton McGuinty. Hopefully voters will inform themselves and vote responsibly for Doug Ford and his Conservative team. He has conducted an admirable campaign even responding with admirable style when Wynne has unjustly attempted to discredit him .
Michael
A brilliant response! It is not a matter of just looking forward. It is a matter of holding this corrupt premier to account for her unconscionable, self serving, malicious treatment of the people of Ontario. She has stolen our future.
Hugh, if you actually believe that there would be no point in auditing Liberal spending, you have obviously missed the point. The people of Ontario are no longer willing to be complacent with government waste, corruption and out of control spending. This is precisely the reason why the Liberals are, thankfully, going to have their butts handed back to them. This election has everything to do with “accountability” or rather the lack thereof.
Bob,
Sad but true message in that article. Most people don’t know or won’t admit these facts. They’d rather compare Ford to Trump. Way easier to disparage the messenger than to think about the message.
This election is really about determing if the Ontario voters are as fatally stupid as they have indicated in the last two elections.
If they do not throw out the Wynne Liberals this time all hope is lost.
Based solely on looks these two are a dead and even TIE!
I guess I shall have to put down my Wonder Woman comic book and start reading the campaign literature.
Sadly, experience shows that campaign literature is not likely to become a winning party’s outcome but we can always hope.
FYI .. Some FACTS to consider and think about when YOU vote!
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/how-crushing-is-ontarios-312-billion-debt-really
Hey … If you support the uncontrolled spending, scandals (way too many to mention), vote baiting, free this and that (when nothing is free), provincial debt, increased taxes on EVERYTHING (to pay for the free stuff), new social programs that continue without a revenue stream (except more taxes) .. and .. more importantly basing the political and voting situation on another country’s leader ….instead of sticking to the facts of the province mismanagement and debt … and … YOU vote on emotion. You get what you deserve! Same old same old! and don’t complain!
I rest my case, having commented previously that Canadians will not put up with the attack-campaigning crap.
Thank you, Hugh!