But I want to focus on something that happened in the end. The interviewer, Chris Wallace, quoted the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, on the FBI's handling of the Russia/Trump investigation.
We see a video clip, with Horowitz saying: "It's unclear what the motivations were. On the one hand, gross incompetence, negligence. On the other hand, intentionality."
Horowitz doesn't decide. He leaves it open. It was either "gross incompetence" or "intentionality." So which was it? If you were James Comey, who was the director of the FBI, which would you prefer it to have been? Both are terrible, but for different reasons, and — if we knew which one — very different consequences.
Comey tries to avoid choosing. He intones what we already know, that the IG "doesn't conclude that there was intentional misconduct by these career special agents." That's part of the question asked and exactly not what is called for in an answer.
Chris Wallace repeats the question: "Gross negligence or they intended to do it. They intended to lie to the FISA court."
Comey uses the same move he used when the question was asked the first time. He tells us — again! — that the IG "doesn't conclude that there was intentional misconduct by these career special agents." Now, it's obvious that Comey is deliberately avoiding the question. He's supposed to pick. Which is it — "gross incompetence" or "intentionality"?
Wallace increases the pressure. The IG "just says it's one of two things, and he can't decide: gross negligence or it was intentional misconduct."
And Comey does it again! He says that the IG said "we are not concluding that there was intentional misconduct by FBI officials." Comey seems to hope to refocus on the language in the written report, which doesn't sound as either/or as the in-person testimony in the video clip.
Wallace refocuses on the in-person testimony in the video Wallace showed. Wallace says: "Did you hear what he just said here?"
Comey hedges: "I did. I don't know the context of that." Which struck me as ludicrously disingenuous. Suddenly, Comey doesn't understand what the conversation was about? But I guess he has a shred of hope that perhaps the IG was talking about some little subsection of all the things the FBI did wrong.
Chris Wallace says: "He was asked specifically, 'How do you explain it?' And he said, 'Gross negligence or intentionality.'" Pick one! Come on, Comey, it's one or the other. You've got to pick!
James Comey once again repeats the non-answer that the IG "doesn't find intentionality." He tacks on other unresponsive verbiage:
.... that doesn't make it any less important. As director, you are responsible for this. I was responsible for this. And if I were still there, I'd be doing what Chris Wray is doing -- is figuring out, "So, how did this happen? And is it systemic?" Because that's the scariest thought, is that --In other words, he would — only if he were still in charge — just be wondering the same thing Chris Wallace was asking: Was it gross negligence (i.e., the "systemic" bad performance of the FBI) or intentionality (special bad behavior aimed at Trump)? But Comey was in charge when all these things happen, and we're talking to him now to try to find out what happened! He should be a source of the answer, not a person who'd be getting started looking into what happened.
Wallace abandons his either/or question. The idea of Comey still being in charge prompts the question whether, if he were, and all these things had happened on his watch,"would he resign?"
Comey says "No."
Wallace doesn't ask the "gross incompetence"/"intentionality" question again, but he has a second way to try to make Comey choose. He plays a clip of AG Bob Barr saying: "These irregularities, these misstatements, these omissions, were not satisfactorily explained, and I think that leaves open the possibility to infer bad faith."
That is, the IG laid out the evidence, but refrained from making the choice between "gross incompetence"/"intentionality," so it's up to us, hearing the evidence, to do our own thinking about what to infer.
Wallace asks: "Given the repeated errors -- some would say abuses -- of the FISA process, does Attorney General Barr have a point?"
Comey says: "No. He does not have a factual basis as the attorney general of the United States to be speculating that agents acted in bad faith. The facts just aren’t there, full stop. That doesn’t make it any less consequential, any less important, but that’s an irresponsible statement."
It's "irresponsible" to say that it's possible to infer that the answer to the either/or question — the question Comey would not answer — is "intentionality" and not "gross incompetence"?
If so, then has Comey made his choice: the responsible inference from the evidence is gross incompetence? Or is it irresponsible to state that inference too? All responsible persons must forever hang on the cusp? Was it "gross incompetence" or "intentionality"? It was one or the other, but you can never say, you can never even speculate about which one it was?
The answer "intentionality" is horrible for Comey. You can see why he won't go there and why he wants to crush that option when he hears it from Barr. So why not go with "gross incompetence"? It's painful, but it fends off the horrible "intentionality" option?
If the FBI's handling of FISA warrants is — as a systemic matter — grossly incompetent, how many other FBI investigations can be called into question? How many settled cases can be reopened? How many prisoners have new hope? How many lawsuits for damages can be filed? The "gross incompetence" choice is also disastrous.
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211 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 211 of 211remember those lefty "Comey Is My Homey" 'watch-parties' ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2hUteOr3_g
Blogger AZ Bob said...
Wallace dropped the ball when he asked if Comey would resign had he still been FBI director. Comey said no, there were mistakes "more consequential" than the FISA lies.
Follow up question: Like what?
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Yeah...that stood out to me as well. Enough that I wrote down the timecode: 13:15
Wallace also allowed Comey to weasel in the notion that the dossier was more last straw as opposed to major element for FISA approval.
Comey made a few direct appeals to Fox viewers. I think he feels that the mere showing up for an interview suggests he's sincere, innocent.
Just because...
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/ex-fbi-director-comey-explains-how-he-took-advantage-fledgling-trump
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Something we've -- I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation -- a more organized administration. In the George W. Bush administration, for example, or the Obama administration.
The protocol, two men that all of us perhaps have increased appreciation for over the last two years. (The audience applauded.)
And in both those administrations there was process. And so if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House Counsel and there'd be discussions and approvals and it would be there. And I thought, it's early enough, let's just send a couple of guys over.
And so we placed a call to Flynn, said, hey, we're sending a couple of guys over. Hope you'll talk to them. He said, sure. Nobody else was there. They interviewed him in a conference room in the Situation Room, and he lied to them. And that's what he's now pled guilty to.
“What did he think they were coming over there for?” Wallace asked Comey.
“I don't think he knew,” Comey replied. “I know we didn't tell him.”
The federal judge who will sentence Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI has ordered the FBI to give him, by today, the notes written by the two FBI agents who interviewed Flynn in January 2017.
Judge Emmet Sullivan also wants to see a January 24 memo that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe wrote about his own telephone conversation with Flynn, a conversation that happened just two hours before the FBI agents arrived at Flynn's West Wing office.
This follows information in Flynn's sentencing memo to the court, which suggests that Flynn was deliberately set up:
The sentencing memo says at 12:35 p.m. on January 24, 2017, McCabe called Flynn at his West Wing office to discuss a security training session the FBI had recently conducted at the white House. McCabe's written memo detailing that phone conversation says McCabe told Flynn "that we needed to have two of our agents sit down" with Flynn to talk about his communications with Russian officials.
McCabe wrote: "I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [General Flynn] and the agents only. I further stated that if LTG Flynn wished to include anyone else in the meeting, like the White House Counsel for instance, that I would need to involve the Department of Justice. [General Flynn] stated that this would not be necessary and agreed to meet with the agents without any additional participants.”
According to Flynn's sentencing memo:
Less than two hours later, at 2:15 p.m., FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and a second FBI agent arrived at the White House to interview General Flynn. By the agents’ account, General Flynn was “relaxed and jocular” and offered to give the agents “a little tour” of the area around his West Wing office. The agents did not provide General Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 before, during, or after the interview.
Prior to the FBI’s interview of General Flynn, Mr. McCabe and other FBI officials “decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport,” one of the agents reported.
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Oh..that all important rapport. No wonder they're going with "sloppy" now.
...Peter Strzok and a second FBI agent...
Say his name. Joe Pientka.
See our past posts/ Brian Cate's take on this dude
he's the 'Ghislaine Maxwell' to Strzok's "Epstein".
why isnt he in the spotlight? Curious, unless he flipped long ago
Gotta love that Trump is beholden to transcripts while FBI snakes have "memos".
Which, when you watch Comey deliberately misunderstand plain English, is especially dubious.
Yancey: "I agree completely. I had first read descriptions of the interview at Conservative Treehouse before actually watching the interview myself, but they didn't really hold up when you actually see what Wallace did to Comey in letting Comey discredit himself. This was Wallace at his very best, and his father would have been quite proud of him despite the politics involved."
Wallace had to do that given he had just this last weekend given a speech decrying the obvious bias of the press and how that hurts the MSM when they want to push back against Trump's claims of Fake News.
So, you know, its the exception that proves the rule.
"This was Wallace at his very best"
Sad.
I think Brian and Equipment Maintenance are correct. Comey saying casually that he knows of far worse instances was IMO a warning to his higher ups that he’d take them down with him. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the Iran payoff (how much ended up in kickbacks), for instance.
Remember, Trump knew what Comey was when he fired him so ruthlessly insultingly—not in person, very embarrassingly and contemptuously. He knew Comey had gunned for him and is a dirty cop.
Comey then tried his best to retaliate and get Trump destroyed, as he has others in his past.
But as Victor Davis Hanson has opined, “Trump has animal cunning” and is smarter and more ruthless than Comey has ever come up against.
Hopefully Trumps spear carriers, Barr and Durham, will sink the blades deep. Timing is looking to shape up well too.
Embrace the power of "and." They got caught. That's grossly incompetent. They're no dummies. The deceit and abandonment of targets including known "other agency" assets was therefore intentional. That's the interagency consensus up in here.
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