To hear the Trump team tell it, the media’s biggest sin was reporting on potential collusion and obstruction of justice. When special counsel Robert S. Mueller III concluded there was no criminal conspiracy and punted on obstruction, all of it was immediately rendered foolish, overzealous speculation. Reporters who circumspectly detailed key events months and years before Mueller did publicly were suddenly lumped in with pundits who had declared President Trump to be a guilty man.
But many of the same people who objected to this exercise were happy to publicly convict James B. Comey of something he’s now been cleared of. They did so using an unfounded allegation that’s now proved baseless.
A long-anticipated inspector general’s report on Thursday found Comey violated FBI policy by failing to turn over memos after Trump fired him and later leaking details of the memos to the New York Times through an intermediary. Importantly, though, the Justice Department won’t prosecute Comey.
View the complete August 30 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.