May 3, 2017

Trump Claims Comey Was the “Best Thing” to Happen to Clinton

The president accuses FBI director of giving her a “free pass.”

Andrew Harrer/CNP/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump took aim at Hillary Clinton in a pair of late-night tweets Tuesday, claiming FBI director James Comey’s decision to renew an investigation into Clinton’s emails was the “best thing” to happen to her.

Trump’s comments came just hours after Clinton pointed to Comey’s actions, along with Russia’s interference in the presidential election, for tipping the election in favor of her opponent. She also held herself accountable for the loss.

“The reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days,” she said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “If the election had been on October 27, I’d be your president.”

Comey is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, where he will likely face intense questioning over his decision to announce the newly discovered emails. Just two days before the November 8 election, the FBI concluded the trove of emails did not affect its previous determination not to bring charges against Clinton over her email handling. By then, however, voters had made up their minds.

Since defeating his opponent, Trump has repeatedly re-litigated the outcome of the election, and has refused to accept he lost the popular vote. As recently as last week, Trump gave copies outlining the “final map” of the election results to Reuters reporters on hand to interview the president about his first 100 days in office—proving both Clinton and the presidential election are still very much at the forefront of his mind.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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