Suppose I got to ignore political dirt shoveled my way because the digger, in addition to a shovel, had an ax to grind.
My job would be much easier, much more pleasant, a whole lot less interesting and even less important than it is already.
Now apply that outlook to law enforcement or national security.
Verifying or debunking tips brought by biased sources is not bias. Ignoring a tip you can verify or debunk because of who sent it to you would be bias in its most pure, potent form.
The president and his defenders keep arguing the information behind a warrant to spy on one of his campaign's people came from the opposing campaign -- ignoring that the surveillance was already underway. The opposing campaign paid a professional dirt-digger, to use a nasty term, to find this dirt.
I can say from experience that dirt from a professional digger is much more likely to be pay dirt than dirt from an amateur. Still, the argument goes that both the FBI, which sought the warrant, and the court that issued it should have ignored the evidence because of who brought it.
In what universe?
I cover legislative races. The stakes here are dust specks compared to a presidential race. Still, someone will dish dirt to me this year on some candidate. The dirt-disher will likely be either an opposing candidate or a supporter thereof. If the tip is plausible and on my news beat, I will check it out.
The dirt will come because this is an election year. This happens every election year. Any tipster will also call law enforcement if he thinks his tip as serious enough. Both law enforcement and I will do our jobs. Usually, this will not take long. Many a time I have told a tipster he or she has no point during the first phone call. Sometimes, though, the tip pans out. When it does, the story prints. Sometimes, a court rules. These things cannot just be ignored.
Speaking of things that cannot be ignored, our prisons would be empty if informant bias mattered. Angry ex-girlfriends, accomplices who want a bigger cut of the take, rival gang members or even accomplices who fear for their lives or are bargaining to stay out of prison; They all provide vital evidence in investigations. An investigation into whether a candidate's campaign is coordinating with foreign intelligence is no different. Talk about committing dirty tricks in a presidential race is not likely to be overheard at choir practice.
The "bias" defense reminds me of a a concrete slab on a vacant lot in the Arkansas River valley. Many years ago, the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party called me, chuckling as he did so. He told me the Republican in a state House race did not live in his district. The candidate had bought a lot in the district and was going to build a house there, but nothing but the foundation slab was on it.
I called the candidate up. Sure enough, he confirmed the chairman's account, but argued that his intent was enough to establish residency. He made the same argument to a judge shortly thereafter. The judge did not buy it and kicked that candidate off the ballot.
Here is what the judge did not -- repeat, not -- say all those years ago when then-Democratic Party chairman Ron Oliver filed suit: "Mr. Oliver is the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party. Therefore, he clearly has bias in bringing this case before this court. Therefore, we are going to ignore the evidence he presents that there is nothing at the defendant's given address but a dry, bare slab. Furthermore, we still have partisan judicial elections in this state at the time of this hearing. Because of that, I should not rule on this since I was elected as a member of a political party. It is not like I am, for instance, a federal judge independently appointed because the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, made those appointments nonpartisan precisely to avoid such a conflict."
The fall-back position on the bias argument regarding the president is, basically, the information is a smear. The FBI and the opposition are trying to "delegitimize" the president with bad information, that argument goes. Well, there is only one way to determine that: Investigate the allegations and see if they are true.
That is what the FBI does.
Commentary on 02/10/2018