Of course, Trump should not be using the Department of Justice to punish his perceived enemies, but this might be particularly true for James Comey, as Trump probably owes his first election to Comey.
The New York Times published a lengthy retrospective in the Spring of 2017 about FBI Director James Comey’s decision to revisit the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails 11 days before the presidential election in 2016. The Times headline for the story was “Comey Tried to Shield the FBI From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.” Nate Silver, the editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight and the reputed guru of opinion poll analysis, said The Times’ report showed “the case that the Comey letter – or the media’s handling of the letter – cost Clinton the election is painfully obvious.”
On October 28, 2016, Comey wrote a letter to Congress saying that the FBI had learned of “the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent” to the investigation into Clinton’s email server, which had initially been closed in July. The FBI discovered the emails while examining former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop, which he shared with his wife, Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide.
Comey’s revelation was done over the objections of career DOJ prosecutors, and in violation of a longstanding unwritten practice in DOJ to avoid overt law enforcement and prosecutorial activities close to an election, typically within 60 days of Election Day
Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, promptly released the letter. It dominated the headlines of major media outlets in the days leading up to the election. Stocks fell sharply and Clinton’s poll numbers dropped by 3 points over subsequent days, Silver pointed out a last-minute slip political scientists attributed to “the Comey effect,” according to The Times.
Three scholars, Sean McElwee, Matt McDermott, and Will Jordan, examined the data and produced several “pieces of evidence” showing that FBI Director James Comey cost Clinton the election. One piece of evidence was in the state polls. The polling averages of several polls predicted a Clinton victory; however, the pollsters did not get things wrong so much as fail, in some states, to interview voters after the Comey letter on October 28. In the seven battleground states where five or more polls were conducted between October 28 and Election Day, Trump trailed Clinton by less than one percent, virtually a dead heat. On the other hand, in seven other battleground states, where fewer than five polls were conducted and the averages included polls conducted before October 28, Trump trailed Clinton by nearly three points. Yet, Trump won five of these states. Voters changed their minds, but few polls measured it.
Then, on Election Day, Clinton lost Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan – each by less than one percentage point, and Florida by 1.2 percentage points. These four states totaled 75 Electoral votes.
McElwee, McDermott, and Jordan found another piece of evidence by comparing early voting numbers with late deciders. In 2012, Obama performed about five points better on Election Day than in absentee ballots. In 2016, absentee voting for Clinton was like Obama – 60 percent compared to 61 percent. But a lot of her support collapsed on Election Day, dropping by a net 13 points.
A comprehensive study of the polling data from the 2016 presidential election reached the same conclusion as the scholars mentioned above. The results are just as definitive, and they were stated quite succinctly – Comey’s letter saying that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server had a significant effect on the election.
Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium did this analysis. Since results differ slightly across polls, analysts get closer estimates of the actual values by averaging several polls. Wang averaged the results of 32 presidential election polls conducted between August and November 7, the day before the election. Wang’s data showed that opinion swung toward Trump by four percentage points after Comey released his letter on October 28, and about half of this was a lasting change. This change was larger than the victory margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin.
Thus, there is a strong case that Comey’s questionable actions swung the election to Donald Trump. So, although it was unfortunate for America, Trump owes Comey.
