Jake Tapper: Comey Not Trying To Swing Election
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Cable news host Jake Tapper assessed the political fallout after James Comey sent a letter to Congress alerting them that they had found emails connected to Hillary Clinton on a device in the possession of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Tapper tells Dom Giordano that, according to his sources, Comey would not intentionally act to direct the outcome of an election.
"One of the things that I did after this happened was I called two people I know who are or were in the FBI, two guys that I trust a great deal and think of as people with integrity, and I wanted to know what they thought of James Comey because, obviously, this was before he was about to be attacked, but it was pretty obvious the Democrats were going to start going after him the way the Republicans went after him when he didn't indict Hillary Clinton."
"Both of these guys, who don't know each other and, obviously, stay anonymous, had nothing but incredibly positive things to say about Comey. They said he was a man of integrity, he believed in transparency, politics have nothing to do with his decisions, this is just who he is. He had given a statement to Congress saying that they'd reviewed all the evidence and then, all of a sudden, that statement, made under oath, was no longer true. So, he felt like he needed to correct the record and let the chips fall where they may."
Despite the revelations, he does not believe Trump will be able capitalize on the news to flip Pennsylvania into the Republican category for the first time since 1988.
"The states I'm going to be watching on election night are Pennsylvania, which I still, as of now, expect to go blue when it comes to the presidential race. Not to say that there won't be movement in the polls in the next couple days. I don't know. But, as of now, I haven't seen anything to suggest that there's going to be major movement away from Hillary Clinton and towards Donald Trump. I'll be watching Pennsylvania. I'll be watching New Hampshire. I'll be watching Virginia and I'll be watching North Carolina. Those four states."
Tapper also feels the email controversy, coupled with other issues trending away from Democrats, will prevent Clinton from expanding her electoral map into red states.
"I think the fact that Obamacare premiums are really going to go up so much, I think it's an average of 116 percent next year in Arizona, that could really tip the balance away from Democrats. I expect Donald Trump to win Arizona. At a minimum, what it does, is it moves those 'reach' states that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were talking about going after, traditionally red states like Missouri and Georgia, Arizona, I think it takes them off the table. Now it becomes so much more important for her to keep the base that she has."