NY Times and Comey corrupted themselves when they decided that Trump should not be treated fairly

Michael Goodwin:

Among the casualties of our domestic political war is the abandonment of professional standards. For proof, consider how two of America’s premier institutions are being dragged through the mud because their leaders decided that standards are for other people.

I speak of the FBI and The New York Times, and the men who damaged them, James Comey and Dean Baquet. It is no coincidence that Baquet’s newspaper became an errand boy for Comey’s corrupt team of G-men. Birds of a feather, you know.

They were united against Donald Trump. Both tried to block him from becoming president, and both tried to get him removed. And are still trying.

Comey and Baquet decided their agendas were more important than the time-tested rules of behavior that built the credibility of their respective institutions. Like arrogant leaders everywhere, they believed the end justified the means.

The standards that Comey trashed are the ones the inspector general of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, cited in referring Comey for criminal prosecution. By writing memos about his meetings with Trump and leaking them to the Times, Comey created a “dangerous example” for other agents, Horowitz said.

His concern, he told Congress, was that Comey, even as FBI director, had no right to decide he was “not going to follow established norms and procedures.”

Recall that Horowitz also criticized Comey last year for “usurping the authority of the attorney general” when he announced that Hillary Clinton would not face charges over her handling of classified materials.

Those incidents have done incalculable harm to the nation’s top law-enforcement agency and prove that Comey’s self-created image of a choir boy was a sham. He was as dirty as J. Edgar Hoover but not half as smart.

And the full damage is not yet known. Horowitz and Attorney General Bill Barr are still investigating what else Comey, his disgraced former deputy Andrew McCabe and others did in their bid to stop Trump in 2016.

As for Baquet, the Times’ executive editor announced with bravado in 2016 that the struggle for fairness was over. Trump, he proclaimed, had “changed journalism,” which was Baquet’s way of rationalizing his decision to eliminate the rules that had separated news from opinion.

Instantly, the floodgates opened and Times reporters attacked Trump mercilessly, with the result that the paper jettisoned its traditions of trying to be a fair observer and instead became an active player.

Because Baquet and Comey were on the same side, Trump’s tenure has been a nonstop feeding frenzy driven by anonymous government sources and their media accomplices. Nearly from the moment of his election, the public was promised there was clear evidence that Trump was a Russian agent and traitor.
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There is more.

I still remember when the NY Times on its front page said it did not need to be fair to Trump.  Comey by his actions did the same.  They both bought the fraudulent story by Russian collusion pushed by Hillary Clinton operatives.  Neither has done any apologies for pushing a coup attempt based on a lie because both of them have an animus toward the President.  This is dangerous conduct for anyone but is especially dangerous in the hands of the media and the leader of the FBI.  They both deserve censure.