Former FBI Director to Testify Thursday!

14 Responses to Former FBI Director to Testify Thursday!

1. Chris says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 12:14 pm

   My opinion on Comey is the same as yours, Jack. When he was investigating Hillary the left hated him. As soon as he cleared her, he was impeccable again, but then the right hated him. Then he broke the news that he was reopening the Hillary investigation and the tables flipped again. I don’t think he should have done that–it turned out the Abedin emails had nothing to do with Hillary–but thinking he did so intentionally to hurt Clinton is absurd, yet many lefties said it anyway. Now righties are once again saying he’s corrupt because he’s investigating Trump. At this point the only logical conclusion is that he is a nonpartisan guy just trying to get the truth.

   It’s funny that Trump thinks only the MSM and lefties want him to stop tweeting. He should read this blog and many other conservatives who are telling him to stop.

   Reply
2. J. Soden says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 12:23 pm

   The Senate Intelligence Committee (an oxymoron) testimony by Comey tomorrow will be a nothing-burger. He’s become almost as much of a camera-hog as Obumble. Comey could read bedtime stories to Clowngress and the media presstitutes would kiss his feet.

   And missing coverage due to all the Comey hoopla are other stories of much more importance.
   For one: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-newly-released-emails-reveal-classified-information-transmitted-hillary-clinton-unsecure-server-clinton-foundation-employees/

   And others: http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/07/top-intel-community-officials-deny-that-trump-pressured-them-on-russia-probe/

   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448370/wealthy-democrats-class-warfare-rhetoric-laughable-hypocritical

   http://nation.foxnews.com/2017/06/07/fast-and-furious-report-slams-holder-doj-deception-gun-running-scandal

   Reply
   • Tina says:

     Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 9:03 pm

     Good reading at The Federalist, “James Comey’s Latest Statement Is An Indictment Of Comey, Not Trump”:

     Not only does Comey’s statement corroborate Trump’s claim that the former FBI director told him three times that the president was not being investigated by the FBI, it also reveals the Beltway game Comey was playing with the investigation.

     In his statement, as my colleague Mollie Hemingway noted earlier today, Comey acknowledges the accuracy of Trump’s claim</b? — included in the letter announcing Comey’s firing — that Comey had on three separate occasions informed Trump that he was not being investigated by the FBI. The corroboration of the claim by Comey himself is by far the most newsworthy nugget from the lengthy statement. But several other claims from Comey also do far more to indict Comey than they do to implicate Trump.

     The most damning aspect of Comey’s prepared testimony is his admission that he deliberately refused to inform the public that Trump was not being personally investigated by the FBI. Comey’s justification for this refusal to publicly disclose material facts — that those facts might change — is laughable, especially in light of Comey’s 2016 two-step regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton.

     “I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change,” Comey claims.

     Recall that in 2016, Comey had no problem 1) publicly exonerating Hillary Clinton despite the fact that the authority to charge (or not charge) someone with a crime lies with federal prosecutors, not the FBI; 2) using the same press conference to excoriate Clinton’s behavior; 3) telling Congress that the investigation of Clinton was closed; and then 4) announcing days before a presidential election that the FBI had reopened the case and was once again investigating Hillary Clinton. Yet we’re supposed to believe that James Comey had grave moral concerns about disclosing facts that may be subject to change? Please.

     If anything, Comey’s latest statement only highlights why Trump was justified in firing Comey in the first place. Comey, according to his own testimony, repeatedly told Trump that the president was not being investigated by the FBI. Not only that, Comey also told Congress that Trump was not being personally investigated. How on earth is it inappropriate, in light of those facts, for the president to ask for those facts to be made public by the very individual asserting them? Trump’s exasperation looks far more justifiable given the behavior to which Comey admits in his own testimony, largely because Comey’s tortured explanation for refusing to publicly explain those facts, even after disclosing them to Congress, holds so little water.

     “I explained [to Trump] that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump,” Comey writes. “I reminded him I had previously told him that.”

     Rather than elevating Comey’s moral stature, the statement he provided only makes him look smaller, and makes the game he was playing that much more obvious. According to his own testimony, Comey repeatedly told the president that the FBI was not investigating him. That’s exactly what you’d expect from a careerist looking to keep his job. It’s why Comey, in his own tortured words, pledged “honest loyalty” to Trump during a private meeting.

     If the conversation with Trump had really bothered Comey all that much, he would’ve walked out and quit on the spot. Instead, he did what all ambitious bureaucrats eager to keep their jobs do: he stayed, he pledged his loyalty, and he went home and wrote up a self-serving CYA memo just in case. Here’s how Comey describes what happened:

     [Trump] then said, ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied, ‘You will always get honesty from me.’ He paused and then said, ‘That’s what I want, honest loyalty.’ I paused, and then said, ‘You will get that from me.’ As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase ‘honest loyalty’ differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further.

     Really, Jim? Really? That’s how you’re going to try to argue around the fact that you personally pledged your loyalty to the president, only to decide after you were fired that it made you feel icky? And your rationalization of the whole thing is that maybe you understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently than the president?

     Not until after he was fired did Comey suddenly decide to inform the public of all these interactions that he said made him so uncomfortable. Comey’s similar refusal during his tenure to inform the public that the president was not being investigated is also clear evidence of the keep-my-job-at-all-costs game he was playing (if this game looks familiar, it’s the exact same one he played when he took the fall for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s refusal to prosecute Clinton in 2016). What better way to insure yourself against being fired than to give the impression that you are overseeing a grave investigation of potential wrongdoing by your boss?

     The public impression that Trump was being criminally investigated, amplified by the president’s critics in the media, was effectively Comey’s get-out-of-jail-free card. The former FBI director likely assumed that no president would be crazy enough to fire a man whom the public believed to be investigating the president. Only a madman would fire that guy, right? Everyone in Washington knows how this game is played. They all know the tune by heart.

     Unfortunately for Comey, Trump had no intention of playing that game and dancing that dance. What really happened is that Trump was wise to Comey’s con and finally had enough of it. He figured out what Comey was doing — deliberately refusing to correct a factually inaccurate impression of the FBI’s ongoing investigation as a means of protecting his job — and called his bluff.

     Comey’s own words reveal in lurid detail the game he was playing</. They reveal that Trump’s claims about the investigation, and his claims about Comey’s characterization of the investigation, were completely accurate. They reveal that Comey was giving one impression to the president and Congress in private and deliberately allowing an entirely different one to gain currency in public. Comey’s mistake wasn’t in thinking the Beltway two-step was the best way to keep his job. His mistake was assuming that Trump wouldn’t dare to stop dancing. (emphasis mine)

     Reply
3. Tina says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 1:45 pm

   Jack I don’t “hate” Comey, this isn’t personal. But I sure am perplexed at the way he ran the investigation into Hillary’s private server. And I’m even more than perplexed at his conclusion.
   Putting aside whatever political ramifications there might have been, what this has done in terms of the rule of law and the confidence we have in our government is acute.

   Comey just released his opening statement. What is the purpose if not to create a circus atmosphere? (He’s not the first to have done it) Headlines:

   TMZ, “James Comey Makes Damning Allegations in Opening Statement …”

   The Hill, “Comey offers dramatic details of Trump meetings in opening statement”

   Yahoo-The Wrap, “Comey to Testify Trump Pressured Him to Shut Down Flynn Investigation”

   San Diego Tribune, “Read former FBI Director Comey’s eye-popping opening statement for hearing”

   Read Comey’s statement here.

   Comey’s “notes” read more like an actor trying out for a part in a movie than a journal entry.

   I think this hearing is another example of trial in the court of public opinion. It’s being waged by those left and right that can’t stand the fact that the people chose someone who isn’t in the club…they hated Reagan in like fashion. The only difference is that Reagan had the experience and the temperament to better handle it and the media was still respectful of the office.

   I want an FBI and a Justice that does the job according to the law.

   I was extremely impressed by Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of NSA this morning. Both clearly said that at no time did they feel pressured and both appropriately declined to discuss details of their private conversations in open testimony. See here:

   “In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything that I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate. And to the best of my collection … I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so,” Rogers told Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate panel. … “In my time of service … I have never been pressured, I have never felt pressure, to intervene or interfere in any way, with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relationship to an ongoing investigation,” Coats testified Wednesday.

   It’s perfectly normal for the president of the United States to speak with those serving under him. This nothing burger has been raised to the level of high drama, a la Alinsky. Behind the headlines there is organization, some of which goes back to the summer of 2016. Headlines and solicitations (I will not provide links):

   January 20, 2017, Washington Post: “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun”

   “Impeach Trump Now”

   Petition · The People: Impeach Donald J Trump · Change.org

   Impeach Trump – The Petition Site

   Donald Trump Impeachment: How Quickly Could It Happen – Politico, 04/17/16

   Will Trump Be Impeached? | Vanity Fair, November 2016

   July 26, 2016, Huffington Post, Republicans Should Call For Donald Trump’s
   Impeachment

   Representative Al Green Calls For Trump’s Impeachment ..

   Rep. Joaquin Castro: House will impeach Donald Trump

   Reply
4. Libby says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 2:23 pm

   “I’ll betcha that at this very moment President Trump is wishing he had not called Comey a nutcase.”

   Alas, he hasn’t even got that much sense. His ego vanquishes sense every time. Cause Comey is not a nutcase; he is a lawyer, and the good ones remember their early training which dictates that you “memo to file” ANY interaction you might have with ANYBODY that might prove problematic down the line. Consequently, Comey has memorialized all his interactions with that most untrustworthy of beings, Donald Trump.

   And as litigious as The Donald is, you’d think think he would have noted this lawyerly habit … but apparently not.

   Reply
   • Tina says:

     Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 1:27 pm

     Turns out Comey isn’t a “good one.” He admitted he didn’t take notes in meeting with Obama or Bush and only took notes on his meeting with Trump.

     His notes, if you can call them that, do not sound lawyerly at all, rather, like an amateur writing a novel.

     Trump has been vindicated more often than Comey…something that must stick in your craw!

     Reply
5. Libby says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 2:29 pm

   Oh, and Jack, you may not be aware, but the phrase “fair and balanced” has been so degraded by a certain news agency that, until the generations have repaired the damage, it can now only be used satirically.

   Reply
   • Tina says:

     Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 9:06 pm

     It’s been “degraded” for only one segment of the population.

     The rest of us know EXACTLY what it means having witnesses the partisan and biased reporting of the MSM for decades!

     Reply
6. Libby says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 4:37 pm

   There’s a commentator on CNN that I actually try to avoid, Chris Cillizza, cause it’s pretty obvious they hired him to keep the pot boiling, but this is a good summation:

   James Comey’s 7-page opening statement in advance of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday about his relationship with Donald Trump in the months before the president fired him as FBI director reads like a novel.

   It’s the sort of document that will go down in the annals of political history — a sweeping condemnation of Trump’s conduct in regard to both Comey and the ongoing federal investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn. (You can read the whole thing here or my analysis of the whole thing here.)

   But, there’s one exchange between the two men in the testimony that stood out to me as a perfect encapsulation of how radically different they are. Here it is in its entirety:

   “Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied, ‘You will always get honesty from me.’ He paused and then said, ‘That’s what I want, honest loyalty.’ I paused, and then said, ‘You will get that from me.’ As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase ‘honest loyalty’ differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term — honest loyalty — had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.”

   Talk about two ships passing in the night.

   Trump, aggressive and oblivious to the rules of engagement, making a direct pitch to the FBI director for loyalty — and suggesting strongly that his future employment depended on the answer.

   Comey, all nerdy bureaucrat well aware of the lines being crossed, insisting all he could offer Trump was his honesty.

   Trump, a deal-maker used to always getting his way, hearing what he wants to hear and deciding the agreed-upon phrase “honest loyalty” means Comey is good with the deal.

   Comey, knowing he wasn’t good with any sort of deal, says nothing to “end a very awkward conversation.”

   And, scene.

   Everything you need to know about the two men is contained in that single exchange. Everything. As is all the evidence you need to understand why they would never have any sort of working relationship.

   ****

   The thing is, how can it be a “bombshell” when we knew it all already?

   Reply
7. Pete says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 6:45 pm

   I agree with you Jack. And keeping Trump off his cell phone should be the White House staffers number one priority.

   I’ve read that Comey began logging his conversations with Trump immediately after their first meeting. That’s exactly what I do when I get that gut feeling that something could go wrong. The practice has saved my ass more than once.

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8. Tina says:

   Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 9:38 pm

   Andrew McCarthy:

   The president has the constitutional authority to order that an investigation be closed. Under the Constitution, all of the power in the executive branch is vested in a single official—the president of the United States. Every other executive branch officer is a subordinate, an inferior officer who is delegated to exercise the president’s power at the president’s pleasure. The FBI is not a separate branch of government, granted immunity from direction by political superiors. Nor, as important as it has become, is the FBI a necessary agency of government—i.e., there is no provision for it in the Constitution, and the nation managed to survive quite nicely in the nearly century-and-a-half of constitutional governance before the Bureau was created in 1935.

   The reality, under our law, is that the president—not the FBI director, not the attorney general—is the chief executive law-enforcement official in the country. When FBI supervisors and United States attorneys exercise executive discretion to shut down investigations and prosecutions—something that happens every day, throughout the country—they are exercising the president’s power, not their own. Obviously, the president can have no less discretion in this realm than his subordinates do.

   Thus, as a matter of constitutional law, the president has as much unilateral power to shut down an investigation as he does to issue a pardon to someone who has been convicted after an investigation, or to commute the sentence of a convicted federal prisoner. The exercise of these powers is unreviewable by the courts. If they are heinously abused, the remedy is for Congress to impeach the president, not for the president’s judgment to be disputed in a judicial proceeding.

   Comey knows all this. But he also knows that Trump did not want to be seen as the decision maker. The president did not want to use his own indisputable power to shut down any investigation of Flynn. He wanted Comey to decide to shut the investigation down. He wanted the public to perceive that the FBI, the professional investigators, had determined there was no merit in any potential prosecution of Flynn. No doubt, he hoped Comey would arrive at that determination on his own, but the president was not above a nudge in the desired direction.

   Sound familiar? It should, because it is what happened in the Hillary Clinton emails probe.

   Comey had to know this. He also had to know that the Obama Justice Department, headed by Loretta Lynch (who had been elevated to public importance when Mrs. Clinton’s husband, President Clinton, appointed her to a coveted U.S. attorney’s position in New York), was never going to authorize an indictment of Hillary Clinton.

   President Obama did not direct the FBI and the Justice Department to shut the investigation down. But he did make it known that he did not want his former secretary-of-state to be prosecuted. The then-president, a Harvard-educated lawyer, asserted for all the world, including his subordinates, to hear: He did not believe Clinton should be indicted for mishandling classified information in the absence of evidence that she intended to harm the United States – notwithstanding that there is no such intent requirement in the relevant criminal statute.

   Obama could have ordered the investigation to be closed. But he did not want it to appear that he had put his political thumb on the scales of justice. He wanted it to appear that the FBI had done a thorough investigation at the end of which Mrs. Clinton was cleared. Comey had to know this. He also had to know that the Obama Justice Department, headed by Loretta Lynch (who had been elevated to public importance when Mrs. Clinton’s husband, President Clinton, appointed her to a coveted U.S. attorney’s position in New York), was never going to authorize an indictment of Hillary Clinton. (continues)

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9. TruthToPower says:

   Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 4:42 am

   Why are you even giving this clown show credit?

   yes the Russians attacked our elections but they are not the reason HRC lost.

   No one wants the truth they just watch their fav station on the TV Box and follow the clown show.

   truth will not be found by sitting in front of the TV set.

   Again Who are the Awan Bros for 10K Alex?

   that could be the biggest security risk we have. And the DCCC / DNC are front and center

   US Cheating by both sides created this election sham. Rove played HRC as well.

   This DEM Russia Russia Russia is the same as the GOP benghaaaaazzzzziiii!

   Where the real truth and problems that happened are never talked about, just fake Stories and fearmongering to hide their crimes.

   Reply
   • Tina says:

     Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 1:30 pm

     Comparing Russia fake news to the actual scandal/failure of leadership that represents the tragedy of Benghazi shows just how ignorant you are.

     Reply
10. TruthToPower says:

    Saturday, June 10, 2017 at 4:43 am

    And No the Russians did not get into anything that affected the elections

    Reply