Here's Baier summarizing the encounter:
This wasn't in Baier's summary, but it's something that interests me:
BAIER: "All right in the infamous Oval Office meeting with President Trump when he asked you to stay behind one-on-one. You write in the book that you felt awkward. You didn’t like it."
COMEY: "Correct."
BAIER: "You had been one-on-one with president Obama in the Oval Office?"
COMEY: "Correct."
BAIER: "But this was different."
COMEY: "Yeah. Because he booted out the attorney general of the United States who was lingering trying to stay."
BAIER: "As opposed to the presidential photographer who President Obama boots out?
COMEY: "Sure."
BAIER: "You say you didn’t push back when he said he hoped you could see your way clear of letting Flynn go that he was a good guy. Hoped you could let it go. You say you didn’t push back and he should have known that he couldn’t do that. All right. So let’s assume that’s true that he should have known. That is it possible there was another reason why you didn’t push back and that is that you wanted to keep your job?"
COMEY: "It’s possible but it’s not the case. At least I don’t remember thinking about that at the time."
Posts
129 comments:
Calling him a weasel is an insult to weasels. Interesting watching the Democrats trying to spin this ...
Pop goes the Comey.
I'll watch it all later, but about the part you mentioned--
When Comey talked about how Trump should not have asked to speak to him alone and kicked out Sessions, the whole press acted as if it were really improper for Trump to be alone with Comey and it could have meant nothing good. I think that says a lot. Not just that Comey was making a special Alarm! to a non-alarming incident, but that our press went along with him so easily.
Comey is not hurting Trump, he's hurting the FBI. Big time. The sooner Comey gets indicted, the better.
Both sides of mouth.........
We need to get him on the Ellen show. Get him dancing...the Weasel Move.
One of his big issues that he harps on in the book was the issue of being one on one with Trump. He writes how he was worried etc. Yet it was Comey himself who initiated the initial one on one when he decided to reveal the dirty parts of the dossier
the dept of justice is not independent. president bush saying take it easy on Flynn is just as legal as lynch telling comey to call it a Clinton matter and doj immunizing every Clinton associate before interviewing regarding emails. this idea that this was legally improperly is fundamentally flawed. now that does not mean it was not improper in the sense of ethics of standard operating procedure, but those niceties ceased when Obama took over
Since Steele lied to the FBI about leaking, why didn't the FBI leverage a perjury charge against him?
BAIER: "All right in the infamous Oval Office meeting with President Trump when he asked you to stay behind one-on-one. You write in the book that you felt awkward. You didn’t like it."
Here's how Jim "Boy Scout" Comey recalls the episode in his own mind, with Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump.
"It’s possible but it’s not the case. At least I don’t remember thinking about that at the time."
The lying weasel speaks.
Trump's mistake was not to fire this a**e immediately.
Bottom line: the Director of the FBI thought he had a higher loyalty than to the result of the 2016 American election. He had a higher loyalty than to the President the people legally elected and who is still supported by half the country. But outstanding-moral-leader Comey would have been OK with Hillary Clinton. He never noticed Harvey Weinstein. The Clinton Foundation is great; Haiti got all the money intended for it. Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 because he's a great speaker. There is no Isle of Girls. I think the Director of the FBI joined the Girl Scouts and was singing around the campfire when we thought he was taking on the criminals.
I was dismayed about how incurious Comey presented himself to be about who paid for the Steele dossier. He seemed so passive about accepting information that was brought to him by subordinates and didn't ask them incisive questions about its sourcing. Frankly, he even used the Obama "I read it in the media" excuse to explain when he first learned about something that maybe didn't fit the desired narrative. It was very disturbing.
"It's possible"
Comey isn’t fit to carry J. Edgar Hoover’s frock.
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
When is going to release the memos he wrote when AG Lynch ordered him to refer to the Clinton e-mailed criminal investigation as a "matter."
Surely Comey was all in a dither about his superiors ordering an outcome of a criminal investigation.
It's amazing how the best interests of America and, indeed, of humanity itself are aligned with the best interests of James Comey......He really does come across as earnest and sincere. You believe his mannerisms, but his words are far less credible......Well, the book is selling well, and he will probably end up as the richest ex-FBI Director in history. So you can't really say his tenure in that position was a disaster. Maybe for the FBI but not for Comey.
Comey is acting perfectly in his honorable role as a co-equal Branch of Government that has become the most equal branch of government because it only has agents and processes to Keep The Secrets. Power in a Deep State has to be in the hands of the Keeper of the Secrets.
So Comey has a point. The FBI has only one function: to keep all mistakes and crimes a secret. The long PR about FBI being law enforcement is a charade used as cover.
Baier plays a clip from Trump, which just seems sad, blathering and uninformed.
This guy is a textbook narcissist. Let him keep doing this book tour. The more he talks, the more his narcissism is exposed.
Baier's effort to equate the Federal Attorney General and a photographer seemed like a stretch. What exactly was the photographers role in law enforcement?
Baier's effort to equate the Federal Attorney General and a photographer seemed like a stretch. What exactly was the photographers role in law enforcement?
He's not equating them in any way. He's pointing out Comey had no problem being alone with Obama, and Comey is trying to pretend its who the president dismissed that made the difference.
At a few seconds after the 4 minute mark, Baier has asked Comey about why he let Sheryl Mills sit in on Hillary's interview, Comey seems to slip.
He says, "She was no longer a subject in our investigation. The agents had scrubbed [brief hesitation] her conduct very carefully by that point and she was no longer a subject."
Scrubbed?
Why are Comey's memos and recollections accepted as factual?
"the dept of justice is not independent. president bush saying take it easy on Flynn is just as legal as lynch telling comey to call it a Clinton matter and doj immunizing every Clinton associate before interviewing regarding emails. this idea that this was legally improperly is fundamentally flawed. now that does not mean it was not improper in the sense of ethics of standard operating procedure, but those niceties ceased when Obama took over"
The only reason that I could see that Comey meeting one-on-one with Trump would be improper is if he were under investigation. Comey, of course, assured him that he wasn't. And, from that, Trump couldn't be expected to see such a meeting as improper. Of course, Comey wasn't being completely forthright with Trump there, and it turned out he seriously shaded the truth, esp about the Steele Dossier. Trump, of course, didn't know that Comey was doing so at the time, so had no reason to see any problem with the meetings.
Great interview. Good to see Comey's sophisticated bias, and how much damage such a bias can cause. He was not well-liked in the FBI. Good riddance.
I've noticed in life that people who make a big deal of telling you what they are not and criticizing others for that same failing are usually projecting, and honestly don't see the hypocrisy. These people will also be exceptionally defiant when you confront them with it. Comey is one of them.
Comey's pretty good, but Cosby was even better in his role as the kindly and humane father. Cosby positively radiated goodness. Comey's performance is not at that level.
“I didn't consider it part of an FBI file. It was my personal aid to memoir.”
Which tells us that, besides being a narcissistic hypocrite and a lying weasel, Comey is also a poseur.
What did we do to deserve to be ruled by such people?
After a very admirable 35 years of service to this nation, Flynn was pursued and charged for lying about something that was not even illegal. The fact that Comey, Lorretta Lynch, Hillary, McCabe, Strzok, and many others have not been charged for far more serious crimes tells you everything that's wrong with this country. None of those people deserve the honor of shining the shoes of someone like General Flynn, or General Petraeus.
"I was dismayed about how incurious Comey presented himself to be about who paid for the Steele dossier. He seemed so passive about accepting information that was brought to him by subordinates and didn't ask them incisive questions about its sourcing. Frankly, he even used the Obama "I read it in the media" excuse to explain when he first learned about something that maybe didn't fit the desired narrative. It was very disturbing"
I go back and forth between believing that some of his high level people, led by his #2, Andy McCabe, were running him around in circles, keeping him in the dark, as the naive front man, and actively conspiring for Crooked Hillary, and against Trump. So much of the time, he just comes across, to me, as a big doofus. Right now, I think that the cabal run by Yates and McCabe had him completely bamboozled in regards to the Dossier. That maybe he actually believed it, didn't know that it was Clinton funded opposition research (that much of the information was probably illegally collected by rogue employees within his organization, etc), and that the contents so horrified him and his morality, that he would be willing to engage in a bit of insubordination. (Here's a thought - maybe the Dossier was aimed primarily an Comey, and not the public). In any case, finding that McCabe and his cabal were routinely keeping him in the dark, running him around in circles, that the Dossier was bogus, etc, would seemingly have caused a serious case of cognitive dissonance with Comey.
And, then some days, I believe that he was at the center of the scheme, their "insurance policy", and that no one who could be placed in such a high position, supposedly through merit, could be that stupid and naive.
Who can justify that Trump's lawyer had his office raided, while Hillary's lawyers felt comfortable and safe deleting thousands of subpoenaed emails and got away with it in front of the whole world?
I've said before how much I like Brett Baier. Along with Chris Wallace, he's the best that FNC has to offer, and his weekly show is the best on the channel.
Apart from perhaps -- in a way so minor I can't understand it -- a few instances of there being a perception difference between Comey's regard for Obama and Comey'e regard for Trump, is there a substantive thing here? Trump fired Comey. That's the real thing. The rest is up to a group of investigators, of which Comey is not a part.
Comey's been as open as can be, answering tough questions. Is Trump going to do an interview like this with Brett Baier? Trump has actually invited Brett Baier to play golf recently. (Baier was the captain of his NCAA golf team at DePauw.) Presumably, Baier isn't an Official Tool of The Deep State. All that Baier would do, is ask equally hard questions of Trump as he did of Comey.
As for a difference in treatment between Obama and Trump; I think I would, if I were in a position of power and dealing personally with the president in the Oval Office. I think Barack Obama is a somewhat slick Chicago/Cook County ward politician, who cannot much be trusted apart from his baseline of left-wing politics. But who is also a lawyer and one-time law school instructor. A stable, intelligent person who is also a progressive Democrat. (The "progressive Democrat" part being neither a guarantee of sanity, nor a mark of insanity as much as I disagree with progressive Democrats.)
But Donald Trump is a pure freak. The guy who spoke to reporters as "John Miller" and "John Baron." The guy who sued Tim O'Brien for libel. The figurehead of the Trump University fraud. A guy with a public record of lies and such historically and hysterically weird statements that is so long, you'd need a spreadsheet.
You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
"Where you are going" being the important part.
ARM is trying hard. Nice try, ARM.
"You always write up big projects as you go." The project being to let Hill and her underlings skate, it was important to draft the exoneration early and carefully.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
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Just curious: How many criminal investigations have you worked? Hundreds? Fewer than one?
ARM is right about one thing. Exonerating Hillary was a big project.
We live in a banana republic where "The Party" is protected and our laws do not apply to them.
This is what "Hold my beer! Watch this!!" looks like when you wear a suit to work.
Writing up the details of an investigation, for easy consumption by those not intimately familiar with the details, is done early. These might be called "status reports" or some such.
Writing conclusions before the investigation wraps is highly unusual.
Blogger Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
Including writing up the conclusion before determination of facts is complete? Jeez, ARM, are you a climate scientist or something?
Congressman Louie Gohmert has published a 48-page article titled Robert Mueller: Unmasked, which provides a lot of dirt about the dishonest, despicable Special Counsel who is whitewashing the FBI and poisoning our country's politics.
A recurring theme in Gohmert's article is Mueller history of leaking information to journalists in order to cause trouble for people whom Mueller does not like.
For example, here's how Mueller's FBI treated Congressman Curt Weldon, a vocal critic of the FBI.
[quote]
... “Each of Weldon’s ten previous re-elections had been by sizable margins. Polls showed he was up by 5-7 points [in the fall of 2006]. Three weeks prior to the election, however, a national story ran about Weldon based upon anonymous sources that an investigation was underway against him and his daughter, alleging illegal activities involving his congressional work.
Weldon had received no prior notification of any such investigation and was dumbfounded that such a story would run especially since he regularly briefed the FBI and intelligence agencies on his work.
A week after the news story broke, alleging a need to act quickly because of the leak, FBI agents from Washington raided the home of Weldon’s daughter at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning… Local TV and print media had all been alerted to the raid in advance and were already in position to cover the story. Within hours, Democratic protesters were waving “Caught Red-Handed” signs outside Weldon’s district office in Upper Darby.
In the ensuing two weeks, local and national media ran multiple stories implying that Weldon too must have been under investigation. Given the coverage, Weldon lost the election…
To this day, incredibly, no one in authority has talked to Weldon or his daughter about the raid or the investigation. There was no follow up, no questions, no grand jury interrogation, nothing.
One year after the raid the local FBI office called Weldon’s daughter to have her come get the property that had been removed from her home.That was it…The raid ruined the career of Weldon and his daughter.”
.... The head of the FBI at the time was Robert Mueller. ...
[end quote]
https://www.scribd.com/document/377409983/Gohmert-Mueller-UNMASKED#fullscreen&from_embed
Pages 5-11
The FBI is a dangerous organization to keep around.
There will be another Comey, or much worse.
You could use a dedicated counterintelligence bureau, spycatchers like Britains MI-5.
But without the overbroad internal duties of the FBI, which gets it into all these problems.
Interesting and annoying attempt to hijack the thread.
Use of the word “freak” describing Trump as a way to trigger other commenters.
On Obama’s public persona / image - a lot of his negative history / comments got covered up/ ignored by the MSM. Same with his wife.
Trump I see as a promoter, and a very successful one. Sometimes a bit over the top. I’m still amazed he is President, and getting anything done with 90% negative press, the resistance, uniparty, and deep state all against him.
"The fact that Comey, Lorretta Lynch, Hillary, McCabe, Strzok, and many others have not been charged for far more serious crimes tells you everything that's wrong with this country. None of those people deserve the honor of shining the shoes of someone like General Flynn, or General Petraeus."
Careful here, at least with Peter Strzok. The indications are very strong that he was offered a deal, and flipped, along with Lisa Page, early last summer. I am thinking late June to early July. The key here is their text messages. OIG used them against McCabe around then, and then turned them over to Congress. Probably already had USA Huber involved by then, because he would have been required to offer them a deal, and a deal would have had to have been in place before Congress would have seen those text messages, and probably before they were used against McCabe. In any case, both Strzok and Page very likely signed plea deals with Huber at that time. As has been pointed out, you can pretty much tell who the cooperators are, because they are still employed by the DoJ or FBI, and they are still employed because the OIG still needs them.
Here is my theory about what happened. The OIG was tasked by Trump, via AG Sessions, or maybe DAG Rosenstein, to track down some of the leaks. This was, I believe, maybe March of last year, several months after Trump took office. They started at the top, and asked Comey, who said that he hadn't done so, and hadn't authorized it. Asked McCabe, who responded the same. Then, they asked Lisa Page ("Special Counsel" in the IG report), and she responded "sure, I did it, and McCabe authorized the leak to the WSJ". Who to believe? The answer is found in the thousands of text messages between Strzok and Page. Maybe she gave up the text messages to the OIG. Maybe the OIG just started digging through them, to find the truth, since they were DoJ property. The problem with Strzok and Page is that, even if they were legally justified in that one case leaking to the WSJ reporter, other questionable things turned up in those text messages. One thing, for sure, is that they attempted to use their federal offices to affect an election, and that is arguably a Hatch Act violation.
This morning The Conservative Treehouse posted an article titled "New Batch of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page Messages Released", which includes analysis of Strzok-Page texts following the firing of "Crazy Comey the Leaker", which occurred on May 9, 2017.
The CTH article includes the following passages.
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[May 10th, 2017] 05:29 am Page to Strzok: “We need to lock in {redacted} in a formal chargeable way soon”.
It’s highly likely the redaction is “POTUS” (secondary option could be “FLYNN”) “We need to lock in POTUS (Trump) in a formal, Chargeable way soon”
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[May 17th, 2017] Lisa Page mentions reviewing Benjamin Wittes Lawfare website (James Comey BFF and leak conduit) for “arguments to chronicle” on behalf of Special counsel advocacy.
NOTE: This is interesting because Lawfare Blog also mentions the “Insurance Policy”.
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[May 17th, 2017] Date of Mueller appointment. Discussions of [Special Counsel] team being assembled. Strzok notes “emailing with Aaron”. Well that’s Aaron Zelby former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s Chief of Staff who was selected for Special Counsel position. He’s also a partner at WilmerHale, and Strzok mentions to Page that she might find herself working at WilmerHale if she plays her cards right.
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Toward the end of the release a more thorough picture emerges of who was selecting Robert ["The FBI Whitewasher"] Mueller’s team and why. Andrew McCabe was key player along with James Baker. ...
The conversation does highlight an aspect we have previously discussed. Robert Mueller did not select the “small group” to work with him; but rather the DOJ/FBI “small group” appears to have selected him.
Specifically Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are discussing who is best ideological ally to help their Mueller Special Counsel team “get Trump”
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Predictably right when those juicy tidbits about the Mueller agenda are surfacing the text message release abruptly stops on May 23rd, 2017.
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https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/27/new-batch-of-peter-strzok-and-lisa-page-messages-released-pdf-included/
Comey would make the world's worst plumber.
“My faucet is leaking.”
“That’s not a leak.”
You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
That's the issue ARM, the document he wrote early in the investigation said they were going to acquit.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan at 7:49 AM
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
Did "Crazy Comey the Leaker" begin writing up also an indictment of Hillary Clinton in order to get a sense of where the case might be going?
Ray said...
Use of the word “freak” describing Trump as a way to trigger other commenters.
Do they need a safe space?
Chuck's name should function as Trigger Warning. They can then ignore his comments and go about their day unmolested by big bad Chuck.
"Predictably right when those juicy tidbits about the Mueller agenda are surfacing the text message release abruptly stops on May 23rD"
Which would seem to tie into my OIG leak investigation timeline theory.
It's a sad day in America, when a former director of the FBI can't take his million dollar retirement fund, go to California, and shut the fuck up.
Kevin said...
That's the issue ARM, the document he wrote early in the investigation said they were going to acquit.
This is not what Comey said. He said that close to the end of the investigation he was told by his investigators that it was very unlikely that any prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton.
Paraphrasing:
Baier asks Comey if Trump was so terrible, why didn't he quit?
Comey answers that he'd never quit his job as FBI Director, no matter how terrible Trump was. Comey answers to a higher power, the power of the FBI as an institution.
Comey believes the FBI is more important that America? No, I think Comey believes his own power as the head of the FBI is more important that anything else. His power is intrinsically linked to the power of the organization he represents.
And I think that's the real issue at the heart of his memos, this book, and his tour. His firing turned him from someone into no one, in his own mind.
A person with a strong set of values and a higher loyalty would never see themselves that way.
Several have commented on FBI corruption. I contend that it has been corrupt from the git-go 100 years ago. But to take it to today, why does this not get more play? It is not like the sordid FBI-Whitey Bulger stuff was unknown. It was known long ago.
Why is nobody asking about how we can trust an FBI that can engage in this level of corruption? Why is nobody shouting about Mueller's involvement?
Comey just continued the FBI's century of corruption. People should be hammering him for it.
Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/conflicts-of-interest-and-ethics-robert-mueller-and_us_5936a148e4b033940169cdc8
This was from a year ago, June 9/ 2017.
John Henry
On Obama’s public persona / image - a lot of his negative history / comments got covered up/ ignored by the MSM. Same with his wife.
"Ignored," I agree with. "Covered up," I do not agree with.
But of course the reason that you and I know about things like Michelle Obama's dubious/inflated legal career, the Obamas' dubious house loan in Hyde Park, the agresive leaking of Jack/Jeri Ryan divorce file, the Clinton/Lynch tarmac meeting, etc., etc., etc., is because all of those things WERE reported in more conservative media.
Why do you and the Rush Limbaughs of the world get so worked up about "the MSM"? Why doesn't Rush make a $20m dollar donation to National Review and the Media Research Center? Is the Fox News Channel not serving up what you want, in terms of information? Rush Limbaugh's radio program is Number 1 in the country.
The more he talks, the worse Comey sounds.
This is the guy we were constantly assured was Mr. Integrity and a LIFE LONG REPUBLICAN.
What's so funny, is you can go back to October 2016, and you can find all the Democrats saying Comey was a Right-wing extremist, a blot on the FBI, and a Trump plant.
Then when Trump fired him, they were outraged!
Some Cartoon showed a liberal in prius with a "Save Jim Comey" bumper-sticker plastered over an old "Fire James Comey" one.
Kevin said...
Paraphrasing:
Baier asks Comey if Trump was so terrible, why didn't he quit?
Comey answers that he'd never quit his job as FBI Director, no matter how terrible Trump was. Comey answers to a higher power, the power of the FBI as an institution.
...
No, Comey's answer was literally the one correct answer. Comey took an oath, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So his answer is Constitutionally correct, statutorily correct, and legally correct in every other way. He was serving a 10-year term as Director. He serves, technically, at the pleasure of the President as the leader of the executive branch under Article II. And when the President fired him, Comey left. Comey didn't call out U.S. Marshalls to arrest the President or to surround the White House. Comey left; he went home, and wrote a book, and now he is answering questions about his book.
You fucking Trumpkins seem to want an Executive Branch that looks more like Venezuela than the United States.
Brennan the commie CIA director is now saying he "Thinks" Putin has dirt on Trump.
This guy is scum. Clapper the liar, Brennan the commie, and Comey the fool.
What an intelligence trio!
He said that close to the end of the investigation he was told by his investigators that it was very unlikely that any prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton.
Apparently that was true, in the middle of the election it was very unlikely any prosecutor in the Obama Justice Department would bring a case that essentially made Trump President.
And they didn't. Even though she had her own server with 110 pieces of confidential information on it. There was no doubt in anyone's mind she had committed the crime of which she was accused.
But Comey wrote the memo on May 6, months before anyone had questioned Hillary. Somehow everyone at the DOJ could gauge her "intention" before they even interviewed her.
The FBI director is part of the DoJ and the executive branch. He's appointed by the POTUS, and serves at his pleasure.
Trump had a right to ask Comey about anything he wanted and demand he meet with him anytime he wishes. Like all Government employees - Comey could refuse - and then be fired for insubordination.
DoJ "policy" isn't law, and isn't binding on the POTUS.
... serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes.
This is part of Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller's history of leaking. In this case, though, Mueller did not leak to journalists -- rather, he participated in a scheme to leak information to the boss of a criminal gang.
That episode in Mueller's history of leaking was, I assume, unique.
Before he died, longtime Byte columnist Jerry Pournelle intimated that he had it from good sources that Trump’s firing Of Comey while he was in California afforded the Trump team a chance to seize Comey’s computers yielding a rich trove of data which Trump and Sessions would use in due time. I’ve been waiting months to see if this bears out. So far, nothing concrete has emerged that would signal Trump has good dirt on Comey but Trump seems awfully confident in going after him. His “Comey is a leaker and a liar” tweets are reaching a crescendo.
There is more here than meets the eye.
Comey also didn't release the information they'd found more documents on Anthony Weiner's server until he had looked at the polls and concluded Hillary was going to win anyway.
That Comey was "Memoralizing" his meetings with trump and then CC-ing: McCabe, Baker, and half the FBI, while not doing the same with Obama, just shows what a snake he was.
For months we've been waiting for the IG reports which were *supposedly* blow the lid off. *Supposedly* they will be issued in May, but given past history, I guess that really means August or September.
Lifelong Incel Chuck is just mailing it in today. Not even trying to pretend to be a republican today.
"James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General: We can't have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. It ain't legal. And worse than that, by God it ain't right."
"James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General: You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat."
Absence of Malice was a great Paul Newman film about leaking. The DA (Dreyfuss) leaked false info about Paul Newman's character that caused him to lose his business. Leaked it purposely, one might say for "a higher loyalty", to catch some mobster.
A great movie all around but Wilfred Brimley, as James A Wells, stole the show with his inquiry.
John Henry
It occurs to me that "great Paul Newman film" may be redundant. Every Paul Newman film I've ever seen is great.
This was one of them.
John Henry
Blogger rcocean said...
The more he talks, the worse Comey sounds.
True that.
Mueller too.
That is why, much as I would like to see this process end and President Trump allowed to get on with MAGA, I think he is doing the right thing by just playing rope-a-dope and letting them hang themselves. Even with all the bullshit, President Trump has been doing a pretty good job getting on with it.
If he takes action against Mueller, no matter how deserved, he will cause a massive shitstorm.
If he let's it play out, even LLR Fopdoodles will see what is going on and will be calling for Mueller's head. Eventually even Congress will start complaining.
Then, if Mueller is smart he will declare victory and go home. If he is not, the outcry will grow so loud that President, with great reluctance and sorrow, will take action.
John HEnry
Darkisland said...A great movie all around but Wilfred Brimley, as James A Wells, stole the show with his inquiry.
YT: Absence of Malice scene
I've read most of the transcript but haven't watched yet. Seems like a VERY good interview by Baier. Is he always that good? Really puts George Steppypeppy and Chuck Todd to shame (although in fairness a halfway decent unbiased highschool newspaper reporter could probably also do that).
Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
no one who could be placed in such a high position, supposedly through merit, could be that stupid and naive.
Why not, Bruce? After all, look at his former boss. The man is too stupid to tie his own shoelaces let alone run a business empire and TV show yet he he was able to manipulate and collude his way into the presidency.
Why could not someone less stupid, because everyone is less stupid than President Trump, manipulate his way to head of the FBI?
John Henry
Chuck said.... Comey left; he went home, and wrote a book, and now he is answering questions about his book.
Hmm, are you possibly skipping something Comey did in the middle of your list there, Chuck? Something kind of important and germane to this discussion? Something related to his leaving...maybe occurring before he left and around the time he "went home?"
This morning The Conservative Treehouse posted an article titled "New Batch of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page Messages Released", which includes analysis of Strzok-Page texts following the firing of "Crazy Comey the Leaker", which occurred on May 9, 2017.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/27/new-batch-of-peter-strzok-and-lisa-page-messages-released-pdf-included/#more-148572
Mike is right. This is interesting. Takes awhile to dig through this new trove of text messages, esp since a lot of acronyms are used. One of the key points here is that Mueller didn't appoint a lot of his team, but rather the "scheme team", meeting in DD McCabe's office, did. Which, of course, is why Strzok got involved (after interviewing both Crooked Hillary and Gen Flynn). Interesting, he complains about his boss, Bill Priestrap, questioning why he (Strzok) had his fingers in everything. Of course, Priestrap is the one person central to this whole scheme, who is still employed, and still in his original position - even after Comey admitted that Priestrap was the one to advise him to not report the FISA applications to the Gang of Eight, as required by law.
HD: "Hmm, are you possibly skipping something Comey did in the middle of your list there, Chuck? Something kind of important and germane to this discussion? Something related to his leaving...maybe occurring before he left and around the time he "went home?"
LLR Chuck is in pitch perfect lefty talking point harmony today!
Again. As always.
Unexpectedly.
One other thing that the Movie Absence of Malice does is to make fools of the press.
After the DA Strike force leaks info on Newman's character, Newman starts leaking on his own. He finds a repeater (Sally Fields) who is gullible enough to believe him. Then starts "leaking" false information to her which she gets printed in her newspaper. Information implying that the DA is guilty of campaign finance and other shenanigans. Gets the DA fired.
So much for newspapers.
(Repeater, above, is not a typo.)
John Henry
Bruce Hayden at 9:20 AM
"Predictably right when those juicy tidbits about the Mueller agenda are surfacing the text message release abruptly stops on May 23rD"
Which would seem to tie into my OIG leak investigation timeline theory.
It appears that Sundance was mistaken about that. The texts from May 23 to June 23 were released earlier.
Blogger rcocean said...
That Comey was "Memoralizing" his meetings with trump and then CC-ing: McCabe, Baker, and half the FBI, while not doing the same with Obama, just shows what a snake he was.
That and we are expected to take these memos as truth because Comey wrote them. Since when do we accept that with any kind of validity?
I don’t think I have watched Fox News or ever listened to Rush. I do read a lot.
My issue with the MSM is how biased they are and the huge impact they have on the electorate. By presenting their views as normal, it creates a left echo chamber.
Fox counter balances this some.
WSJ opinion page some.
NRO some.
And now you have google, twitter, and Facebook supportingbthe msm viewpoint.
News is supposed to be facts, and it’s become propaganda.
An unexpected positive of a GOP President is it forces the press to do their job.
"Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going."
What a steaming pile. It wasn't a project. It was an investigation. And he wrote the final result. It would be like a jury member saying he was going to vote guilty before opening remarks.
Blogger HoodlumDoodlum said...”I've read most of the transcript but haven't watched yet. Seems like a VERY good interview by Baier. Is he always that good?”
His 5pm (CT) show is the only straight-news program worth watching.
“It appears that Sundance was mistaken about that. The texts from May 23 to June 23 were released earlier.”
Maybe even better for the timeline. Do you know where there is a copy of the text msgs for that missing month?
Baier: when did you learn about the crime or the collusion that launches the investigation?
Comey: Collusion is not a word that I'm familiar with
[Crosstalk]
Baier: what is the crime?
Comey: you open an investigation to see if any Americans are in cahoots with ...
So collusion is a word only the media uses and at the FBI they use the term cahoots?
ca·hoots: colluding or conspiring together secretly.
Silly.
Comey is still pushing the “Republicans started the Steele Dossier” line? My jaw dropped over that exchange.
Chuck said...Comey's been as open as can be, answering tough questions.
Yeah. I mean, he's answering, sure. When he gives different answers at different times, though (such times to include in front of Congress) maybe the fact that he's answering isn't the most important thing.
Are people still pretending Comey's a straight shooting unbiased professional? That was the line from NeverTrumpers way back but every day brings new evidence that he's just terrible (either a liar/shady swampish mainpulator, incompetent, or both) and even most of the NeverTrump TruCon brigades have admitted that the more we find out the more the guy seems like a sleaze. And as someone who potentially broke some laws, too!
But maybe there are lots of people who still admire Comey and think he's a good guy.
Comey would have been alone with Obama even if the photographer had been there, because a photographer isn't really a person, in the fullest sense.
If Comey is telling the truth about not knowing that the dossier was funded by the DNC until he learned of it in the press with the rest of us in October 2017- something his subordinates definitely knew in October of 2016, then his firing is justified on just pure, fucking incompetence.
However, I am almost 100% sure he is lying about this, and he is doing so because he is planning his court defense for when he gets his lying ass indicted.
Also, the bit about his leaks not being leaks is total fucking horseshit- if he really believed that his leaks were not leaks of work product, then why did he use a cutout to the NYTimes? Leaking the way he did, through a third party, is solid evidence of his consciousness of guilt. If he really believed his own horseshit, he would have leaked directly to the NYTimes without a cutout and with attribution.
Trump should have fired this piece of shit on January 20th 2016.
The biggest lie that Comey has told so far is that he and Trump have different values. They have the same values, namely, the truth is what I can get you to believe.
I sat in an office next to a notoriously crafty litigator for 20 years, and his number one trick was to sow confusion and dismay on the other side. He had at least three different narratives going on simultaneously all the time, and as the the trial date approached his opponents tried more and more desperately to pin him down. He was very slippery.
Reporters, who swim in a sea of confirmation bias (they have a story to tell) will never get Comey to come face to face with the facts in any coherent manner. Which facts? How many memos? Whose memos? When? Who? I never said that. You must have misunderstood. My friend? He's my lawyer. Oh that guy? He's my lawyer, too. I believe in honesty, truth, and justice. I was a private citizen. Those aren't memos, they are personal aides de memoire. Trump must be hiding something. How do you know the DNC paid for the research? Republicans did, I thought. I don't know. I didn't know then, and I don't know now. You just told me that, I don't know that. Etc., etc., etc.
For anyone still wondering, cops don't have to tell you the truth. But anything you say may be taken down and used against you. Comey isn't under oath when he talks to Cooper or Baer, and they are not government employees. But ask yourself, did Comey's words have the ring of truth? He was head of the FBI. If he didn't know something, don't you suppose he didn't want to know it? Did he want to be hanged for signing those FISA warrants? No reporter is ever going to get a straight story out of Comey. But maybe the IG pushed hard. Or maybe not.
One other thing is clear: Wray has cleaned out the top ranks of the FBI through firings and early retirements. That speaks volumes.
”However, I am almost 100% sure he is lying about this,”
I’m 100% sure.
The entire FBI needs to be disbanded with multiple criminal referrals in the upper branches. They are delusional and corrupt.
HoodlumDoodlum said...
Chuck said.... Comey left; he went home, and wrote a book, and now he is answering questions about his book.
Hmm, are you possibly skipping something Comey did in the middle of your list there, Chuck? Something kind of important and germane to this discussion? Something related to his leaving...maybe occurring before he left and around the time he "went home?"
Oh dear, I DID forget. Comey went to a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe, got an adult film star to come to his hotel room after a party, had unprotected sex with her, and then two weeks before departing he paid her $130,000 through a phony Delaware corporation to stay quiet about it. It was the third or fourth time Comey did something like that. Using non-disclosure agreements that named him as "David Dennison."
Or am I mixing this story up with another one?
LLR and #StrongDemDefender Chuck: "You fucking Trumpkins seem to want an Executive Branch that looks more like Venezuela than the United States"
We HAVE an executive branch that looks like Venezuela, and the Chavez/Maduro-ites and their LLR allies have been attempting to overturn an election result they don't like.
But then again, when you elect a "magnificent" leftist like obama who decides now would be a wonderful time to weaponize the entire federal bureaucracy against his political opponents, what else would you expect.
Needless to say LLR Chuck is fully on board with the leftists and their LLR allies seeking to overturn the election by any means necessary.
And if that means conjuring up a fake collusion story with which to kick off additional (this wasnt the first time) domestic spying operations and running actual Operations against their political opponents, well, that's just fine with Chuck and his pals.
Comey just admitted to half a dozen counts of perjury and several violations of the espionage act in front of millions of people. Conspiracy is pretty much a given considering that when you leak something you want in the media you have to conspire with at least one other person.
People defending Comey and rooting for trump to be impeached are just outing themselves as Stalinist shitheads.
The game is over. The leftists have lost. The public does not believe Trump did anything worth Being impeached for.
Notice how quickly our "Sidney Blumenthal Republican" Chuck pivots away from the collusion story and Comey's blatant lies to dredge up more lefty talking points.
As we get closer to Horowitz' reports being issued expect LLR Chuck and his lefty allies to ramp up the distractors in order to protect their Venezuela-like activities.
Mike Sylwester:
Thanks for your post re Curt Weldon. I live near Weldon's old district and your post was news to me. Weldon had been a long time Repub Congress critter and was known for bringing home the bacon especially since to a local Boeing plant and a Sikorsky Helicopter operation in our area. And you are right, he left office under a dark cloud [the local librul newspapers were happy to dump on him] and now that you mention it, I don't remember much about him ever since the first reports of his alleged misdeeds.
So basically the FBI threw him under the bus, he survived physically but his career was destroyed.
From the future.............
May 21st 2018:
A.P
Today Department of Justice IG Michael Horiwitz released the report outlining his 14 month long investigation into the Obama DoJ's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server. In the summary introduction, Horiwitz outlines the existence of a broad conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Later that day on Althouse.....
Chuck said...
It is telling what isn't in the Horiwitz report- there is no mention that Trump slept with Stormy Daniels and paid her $130,000 to keep quiet about it.....
Drago, I'll be fine with whatever a good IG report shows; about the FBI, or anything else.
And I'll be fine with whatever a good report from Mueller's office shows.
I am telling you; if Trump doesn't get indicted/named/impeached I'll be just fine. I am not hanging on any of that. It happens, or it doesn't. I am betting on "doesn't." No matter what I might like to see.
If Trump does get impeached, I think we're going to need to put Scott Adams on suicide watch. That, or double his dosage of medical marijuana.
Yancey Ward, I'd be fine if somebody found a legal basis to indict Hillary Clinton.
What I would not do, because it is so fucking stupid, is yell "Lock her up!" at a rally when there hasn't even been an indictment or a trial.
That is why the public didn't elect you or anyone you liked in 2016, Chuck.
Achilles said...
...
The game is over. The leftists have lost. The public does not believe Trump did anything worth Being impeached for.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: a larger percentage of respondents believe that there is a basis to impeach Trump, than the percentage who would vote for Trump versus a generic Democrat.
As usual, what seems to me to be the obvious follow-up question doesn't get asked. Take this exchange for example:
BAIER: FBI protocol says your own employment agreement with the FBI prohibits “the unauthorized disclosure of any information or material from or related to FBI files or any information acquired by virtue of my official employment without prior written permission from the FBI.” Did have you written permission?
COMEY: No and I didn't consider it part of an FBI file. All the things that I talked about with Anderson.
BAIER: You wrote it as FBI director. It was work product.
COMEY: No. It was not. It was my personal aid to memoir.
Comey doesn't dispute Baier's summary of the FBI protocol so I think we can take it as accurate. Therefore "any information acquired by virtue of my official employment" can't be released without written permission. Everything he talked with Trump about was acquired by virtue of his official employment! The only reason he was talking to Trump is because he was the FBI Director! So all this personal this and personal that is utter BS but Baier doesn't ask him how he can consider the content of those memos something not acquired becase of his job.
Chuck said...Oh dear, I DID forget. Comey went to a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe, got an adult film star to come to his hotel room after a party, had unprotected sex with her,
Squirrel! Look, look over there, squirrel!!
That's pathetic, man; I know you take a lot of shit from people here but you're better than that.
The subject is Comey's interview. Your list left out Comey's actions--the ones that are actually under discussion/a major part of the interview itself (namely his leaks & accusations that he acted in an unethical and possibly illegal manner). Comey has admitted to the leaks (giving "his" memos to his friend to give to the NYTimes...which then started an official .gov investigation or two...) so it's just silly to pretend like they didn't happen or that those actions aren't worth mentioning when summarizing what Comey did.
Seriously, do better please.
Bruce Hayden,
The OIG investigation was announced on Jan 12, 2017 (pre-Trump) "in response
to requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public".
Announcement.
Chuck,
This is an area that I would value your prospective on both at the Federal and State level. Is this area even seen as a priority for the GOP?
I'm curious if the GOP is finally going to start playing the law-fare game. And the government bureaucracy seems to be aiding the fight for the most part against the GOP. And the many judges seem to be becoming part of the resistance, and making decisions based more on politics, than the law. Is there finally going to be a MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction detente happen to stop this? Or is the GOP going to become as partisan as the Democrats? The Democrats seemed to have built an entire infrastructure of lawfare. The Christian Right seems to be doing some push back, as does the NRA.
Curt Weldon is a bit shocking. It reminds me of the Wisconsin raids. Or the Manafort raids, where his wife was physically searched in her bed.
Those are all intimidation, and those bother me a lot more than a consensual sex encounter 10+ years ago (however STUPID it was). Bill Clinton's non-consensual sex bothers me a lot more.
There is a long list of Republicans, where this type of thing just happens to them. Amazing how one sided this seems to be.
The only Democrat I remember this happening too was Menendez, and that seemed to be payback for his opposition to the Iran Deal.
Chuck said...
Oh dear, I DID forget. Comey went to a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe, got an adult film star to come to his hotel room after a party, had unprotected sex with her, and then two weeks before departing he paid her $130,000 through a phony Delaware corporation to stay quiet about it. It was the third or fourth time Comey did something like that. Using non-disclosure agreements that named him as "David Dennison."
Or am I mixing this story up with another one?
Nobody would care about any of that. The only reason you care is it is a tool that would give your democrat allies more power.
Chuck said...
Achilles said...
...
The game is over. The leftists have lost. The public does not believe Trump did anything worth Being impeached for.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: a larger percentage of respondents believe that there is a basis to impeach Trump, than the percentage who would vote for Trump versus a generic Democrat.
If that was true they would have impeached Trump already. If those polls were even halfway honest Clinton would be president.
Just like you always wanted.
But you know it is a lie just as they know it is a lie.
Liar.
“The OIG investigation was announced on Jan 12, 2017 (pre-Trump) "in response
to requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public"”.
Of course, at that point, they were still operating under the prohibition by DAG Sally Yates that the DoJ National Security Division (NSD) and its FBI equivalent were off lmits to the OIG. And, of course, that is precisely where the miscreants had accumulated. Not just the FISA warrants, but the Crooked Hillary email scandal, the Steele Dossier, and even the FBI interview of Gen Flynn, were all off limits to the OIG, for that reason. It was only when Yates was fired that the investigation of these matters could really commence.
I posted that in contradiction to your timeline. Trump was not involved in the decision to investigate the leaks as it began before he took office.
"There is a long list of Republicans, where this type of thing just happens to them. Amazing how one sided this seems to be"
The dems could not get away with it without the knowing and wink wink approval of the lifelong republicans.
They are the ones who give cover and succor to the leftist elements pulling this nonsense.
And in the case of LLR Chuck, happily so.
Ray,
I won't cut-and-paste your whole comment; I'll try to reply directly and in plain language.
I think that if you review the history of Judicial Watch and Citizens United and the National Federation of Independent Businesses and F.I.R.E., you'll see some pretty good lawfare. I approve of almost all of it.
I'm not an NRA member; but I mostly agree with the NRA. On lots of things, the more technical it gets, and the more we get into details of exacting legislative language, the more I agree with the NRA.
About the search of the Manaforts at home; my understanding is that they patted them both down for weapons as would be standard procedure in a search. (Maybe they had info about Manafort owning firearms.) And then left them alone to do the search.
I was as critical as any of Althouse's commenters, on the entire operation of Wisconsin's John Doe law. We have nothing like that law here in Michigan. I had never heard of such a thing before the Wisconsin story broke.
I don't think that anyone is going to get prosecuted for consensual sex, adultery or not, from more than ten years ago. I promise you, Trump will not be prosecuted for that. But Michael Cohen might get prosecuted for an illegal campaign donation, for paying Stormy Daniels to shut up for the benefit of the campaign.
John Edwards was prosecuted in a similar case. So add Edwards to your list of Democrats along with Menendez. Add Michigan (Kevorkian) attorney and one-time Dem candidate for governor, Geoffrey Fieger on campaign finance charges.
And yes, Ray, it does seem to me that the prosecution list is a bit one-sided. But there's a long list of inner-city Dem corruption cases. Because, no doubt, every big-city politician is a Democrat, and many of them are dirty with corruption.
Blogger who-knew said...
The only reason he was talking to Trump is because he was the FBI Director! So all this personal this and personal that is utter BS but Baier doesn't ask him how he can consider the content of those memos something not acquired becase of his job.
--A good follow up question would be
"So..making personal copies of this information makes it somehow more appropriate or even legal to leak?"
Thanks Chuck!
I am big fans of Judicial Watch and FIRE. Judicial Watch should get a lot more recognition, than they do. My knowledge of them comes from mention by InstaPundit.
Citizens United is backed by the Koch Brothers (I did not know that).
Democrats seem to be way ahead of the GOP on corruption, but I see that as the result of inner city dysfunction, or what is basically a spoils and one party system. Be nice if the GOP was competitive in inner cities, real electoral competition helps good government.
Campaign Finance Charges seem to be a bit biased on the actual sentences given. We will see what happens with Cohen. It looks a lot like Beria "show me the man, and I"ll find you the crime", than actual justice. Victor Hanson just had an opinion piece at NRO about double standards.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/mueller-investigation-double-standard-ignores-actual-lawbreakers/
LLR Chuck: "Yancey Ward, I'd be fine if somebody found a legal basis to indict Hillary Clinton"
LOL
wink wink...
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty. You always write up big projects as you go so that you have some sense of where you are and where you are going.
Sure, hack researchers and investigators do this all the time: Write the conclusion before they’ve analyzed or often even bothered to gather the evidence. That’s certainly a major reason why so many “scientific” papers are not reproducible.
Wow, Comey just sat there and acted dumb. Like Hillary and her 'I don't recall'.. 'not to my knowledge' BS Comey had his own brand of weasel words to show he was clueless as to what was going on.
The hilarious part was he saying he gave the stuff to a 'friend', a professor, to give to the NYT and the professor leaked it, but hey... HE didn't leak anything!
What a crock!
The idea that Comey and the FBI shouldn't have begun writing up the case before meeting with Clinton is a bit nutty
--
When he has to invent/inject pseudo-legalese like "intent" to reverse all the reasons for prosecuting, yes it is "nutty"...putting it mildly.
Right Paul,
Not much different from using "drug mules"
Right - Trump is honest and Comey's a liar. Welcome to life in backwards world.
These Republicriminals have no idea how the fuckn law works.
These Republicriminals have no idea how the fuckn law works.
Did your world view just crumble to dust? How did that make you feel?
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