Lucy Gellman Photo
Marcus, right, at the WNHH studio.
Ed Marcus understands politics like few others. As a savvy Democratic Party leader and then supporter for more than a half century, he thought he had seen it all.
Until this presidential campaign. Even Marcus he was taken aback when FBI Director James Comey pulled an October surprise last week, announcing speculation about additional Hillary Clinton emails found on a computer that did not belong to her.
Marcus was a former chairman of Democrat State Central Committee and a formidable State Senate majority leader in Connecticut. In 1968 he served as chairman of the Democratic rules committee for the national presidential convention held in Chicago. His close ally, the late John Bailey, was the Democratic national chairman that year. This was long before the Internet, smart phones, and tweets.
Marcus said that for reasons we do not yet know, Comey issued his public announcement that his office was reviewing newly obtained Hillary Clinton emails knowing the U.S. attorney general (to whom he reports) had rules in place not to interfere with the national election.
“He had to know once he sent it out, there would be a storm,” Marcus said in an interview on WNHH radio’s “Legal Eagle” program Tuesday.
The storm came not with a Comey briefing or an old-fashioned press release, but via a tweet from a top congressional Republican who said the Clinton inquiry had been reopened when it had not been.
Did Comey actually make the decision himself? we asked. Or was it someone else?
“We don’t know. It is hard to understand the leaks coming from the FBI. Of all people, they should be leak free and in control of the situation,” Marcus said.
In a wide-ranging interview, Marcus discussed the role of the media in the election of 2016, (not good, he said), the KKK, the rise of anti-Semitism, and why, if Donald Trump loses, he may remain a part of the changing political scene in America, at least in the short term.
Marcus, the founder of the Marcus Law Firm, long a New Haven fixture now located in North Branford, noted that Comey reports to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the Justice Department, and ultimately the president. Comey ignored all of them when he sent his sketchy letter to top Congressional leaders 11 days before the election. He hasn’t said a word since.
We asked Marcus what he would do if he were the attorney general. He said Lynch should insist Comey issue a statement.
“I would have him say that he should not have made the statement and ‘I apologize for making the statement and it was a mistake on my part. And, at this point, I have no further information.’
“I would close it down — at least until the election is over. So you are not a partisan.”
He said Lynch has the power to order the statement but it is unlikely she will do so.
“Comey has just gone over overboard. He has gone overboard. Nobody has ever done anything like this in the recent memory of this country,” Marcus added.
Ditching Donald Before the Convention
Marcus said Trump never should have been the Republican’s nominee in the first place. How might the chair of the national Republican Party have stopped his nomination?
“I would have started swinging as hard as I could to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee,” Marcus said.
“A chairman of any party can’t really give someone a nomination but you can stop someone from getting the nomination. He could have stated that Trump does not express the values of our party, or filtered delegates toward others,” he said.
If Trump Loses
Assuming Trump loses, his followers are expected to respond with anger. Or worse. People are nervous, we observed.
“If anger gets translated into violence, it is up to President Obama to use enough appropriate force to stop it, to nip it in bud, to end it immediately. We are not a Banana Republic. You can’t have a country where you have violence after an election or a candidate like Trump that has said he won’t accept the results of the election. It is absolutely absurd,” Marcus said.
And what might be the impact of the Trump candidacy on American politics going forward?
“I can’t see Trump having built a movement letting go of it …. It gives him continued power to pressure the Republican Party or what is left of it. Or maybe his group becomes the Republican Party. It is possible the Republican Party might split. There could be a lot of noise from a Trump group the first year before they move out into the night. … We have had third party movements before. They make noise for a while. They have clout. But eventually they fade.”
“Might a third party indeed emerge? the Eagle asked. “It is very possible. You come back to the history of the country. There have been third parties. Maybe there would be the Trump Party. He could sell his steaks and wine and golf courses,” Marcus quippped.
The Biggest Surprise
Marcus said that above all he was surprised that the television media “gave Trump a free pass at the beginning, giving him billions of dollars in free television time.” There was little reporting on Trump’s relationship with Russia, he said, or with his former campaign manager’s relationship with Russia. “They left that story alone. … And where is the FBI on Trump’s dealings with Russia, with the hacking?”
In the end, he said, Comey’s October surprise has been “absorbed by the electorate. It may be that it will affect 1 or 2 percent of the vote. But I think when this Tuesday comes, people will realize it is not Hillary’s email, it is not her computer. It is a real stretch. I think people are more intelligent than we give them credit for.”
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full WNHH interview with Ed Marcus.
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If I may, let's try and add a little sense and a little humor to our life, on this eve of the rise of fascism in America:
Here is the best evidence that the media is against Mr. Trump:
Michelle Obama gave a speech and the media was all elated with her speech. Than Mrs. Trump gave the exact same same speech and the media was critical of her.
God only help us (God always "saves America", right?). This maybe the last laugh for the next four years as we live through the rise "American National Socialism".
Thus Spake Moshe Gai