The discussion of a recent federal court ruling on Fox News’ “The Five” was derailed briefly on Wednesday, after co-host Jeanine Pirro kicked off a hard-to-follow, and very off topic argument about the political allegiances of former FBI Director James Comey.
This culminated in co-host Jessica Tarlov telling a very angry Pirro that Comey “is responsible for Hillary Clinton losing the election.”
And before you ask, no, we really can’t figure out how the conversation even got there. Maybe you can. Watch the clip below (courtesy of @ACYN on Twitter):
Under discussion was preliminary injunction granted July 4 by a Trump-appointed Louisiana federal judge. The ruling, essentially, validates claims by right wing activists that content moderation policies on social media sites mainly serve to censor conservatives on behalf of the government. If the ruling is upheld, the Biden administration (and presumably other presidents) would be forbidden from contacting social media companies regarding hate speech, disinformation and related issues.
While talking about it, Jones said he didn’t need to “make Biden the bad guy” over the issue, which is when Pirro weighed in.
“I need to make Biden the bad guy,” Pirro said. “It was Anthony Blinken, it was Jim Comey. You’re telling me Jim Comey was on Donald Trump’s side? He tried to set him up for this whole thing.”
To which Tarlov replied, “Jim Comey is almost single-handedly responsible for Hillary Clinton losing the election in 2016.”
Tarlov was likely referring to Comey’s decision, just 11 days before the 2016 election, to publicly inform Congress that the FBI had reopened the investigation into Clinton’s emails.
“You think so?” Pirro asked rhetorically. “The Americans found her to be the most untrustworthy candidate they’d ever seen.”
Of course, Comey has generally been coy about his political allegiances, aside from the fact he is a Republican. However, when he notified congress about the reopened Clinton investigation — which was subsequently re-closed and Clinton once again exonerated — he notably did not notify them that at that time the FBI had also been investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia for nearly 4 months. The existence of that investigation only became known after Trump’s electoral college victory.
