Having stunned even the most liberal of liberal media outlets with his seemingly unexplainable decision not to bring charges against Hillary Clinton (thus nullifying six criminal laws), FBI Director Jim Comey faces an oversight bloodbath today in front of the House Oversight Committee.

Live Feed (due to begin at 10amET)

As The House statement reads:

Today, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) recommendation not to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for maintaining a private server, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) announced that FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Oversight Committee on Thursday, July 7, 2016.

 

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing. The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation. I thank Director Comey for accepting the invitation to publicly answer these important questions.” 

However, as we detailed earlier, what few may not know about the "deeply philosophical, religion major" is that he spent three short years (just enough for Dalio to realize 'value') being "probed" at the world's largest hedge fund – Bridgewater, peddling "radical transparency."

With legal scholars already debating Comey’s conclusions about Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server to send and receive messages on official business, a practice she has said wasn’t illegal but one that she now regrets…

“Director Comey draws a rather curious distinction,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law school professor.

 

What’s strange about this outcome is that Comey detailed what would normally be viewed as a basis for gross negligence.

Today's House Oversight Committee hearing should be full of fireworks; but as Politico warns "in attempting to set up the FBI director for an oversight bloodbath, House Republicans might get more than they bargained for" apparently because of Comey's hedge fund background…

After he left government, Comey spent three years being grilled, or “probed,” as an executive at Bridgewater Associates, the $150 billion hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio that the New Yorker has labeled “the world’s richest and strangest hedge fund.” Dalio, who regularly ranks among the 50 or 60 wealthiest people on the Forbes 400 list, has built the highly successful fund since the 1970s on a platform of “radical transparency,” a principle that encourages—actually forces—deep questioning from the ranks of all leadership decisions.

 

It was just weeks after he joined Bridgewater—whose corporate culture of high-achieving intellectuals resembles a moneyed management cult that shares more in common with the 1970s personal-improvement fad est than it does with a typical Wall Street firm—that Comey was cornered by a similarly new 25-year-old employee. The junior associate interrogated the former Justice Department official on a seemingly illogical stance that Comey had taken in an earlier meeting. “My initial reaction was ‘What? You, kid, are asking me that question?’ … I was deputy attorney general of the United States; I was general counsel of a huge, huge company. No 25-year-old is going to ask me about my logic,” he recalled. “Then I realized ‘I’m at Bridgewater.’”

 

Comey said that, even though he was excited to embrace the new way of thinking, it took him at least three months to settle in with Bridgewater’s culture. “I finally relaxed and untied the knot in my stomach that would instantly appear when someone questioned me,” he recalled. “Bridgewater’s a hard place. … It’s a place filled with really smart people who are always going to tell you the truth, and that’s hard.”

 

Inside Bridgewater, the culture of questioning is known as “probing,” a chance to understand the deeper “whys” inherent in an individual’s thinking or a corporate process. It’s a chance for everyone, from junior associates right up to Dalio himself, to force people past easy answers or glib statements into tight, rigorous thinking. “At Bridgewater, every day is a kind of after-action review, although the process goes much deeper than a typical postmortem,” business writers Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey concluded in their book. Inside Bridgewater, where the “Culture of the Probe” reigns, meetings are even recorded, to force accountability for people’s statements and commitments.

Here is the 'younger' Comey explaining how it was love at first sight with Bridgewater…

Click image for link to Comey's lovefest

As Politico concludes, the deeply philosophical Comey, a religion major from William & Mary who wrote his college thesis on exegesis, the close study of texts, found himself comfortably at home inside Bridgewater once he got over the initial shock of transferring from the insular bureaucracy of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which he’d served as general counsel.

Comey explicitly carried many of the lessons from Bridgewater, where he made millions of dollars a year, into his new role as FBI director, which pays significantly less but is for him a dream position.

 

“I went to Bridgewater in part because of that culture of transparency,” he told Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley during his confirmation hearing in 2013. “It’s something that’s long been part of me. I think it’s incumbent upon every leader to foster an atmosphere where people will speak truth to power. Bridgewater and the FBI are two different institutions, but I promise I will carry those values with me and try to spread them as far as I can within the institution.” Grassley, for his part, might not agree that Comey’s gone far enough in that direction: He was one of the skeptical GOP lawmakers who chimed Wednesday, calling the FBI’s decision on Clinton “suspect.”

The constant embrace of being 'probed or questioned' – ironic given that he took no questions from the media after his stunning statement this week; the focus on 'accountability' – odd given he has none at all; and his emphasis of 'transparency' – mind-numbingly hypocritical given the lack of detail on how he and his team unanimously decided no charges would be pursued – are all nothing to worry about as with seven years left in his term as FBI Director, we suspect today's 'bloodbath' will be little more than a storm in a teacup for Comey as his Clintonian protectorate appears safely in place.

The hearing is due to start at 10amET.

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