Comey kept memos of his conversations with Trump and preserved them "because he presumes someone will want to see them."

The quotation is from an unnamed source in a CNN piece titled "Comey prepped responses ahead of Trump discussions."

The wording here is helpful to those who are taking different positions on whether Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice:

[Comey] was concerned that Trump's suggestion to end the Flynn probe could be an example of obstruction of justice. "It crossed his mind," a person familiar with the matter said, adding "even in its most benign form, it's an improper conversation. You're getting a little too close to the flame."

If we assume all that is true, it seems to me that Comey did not believe that the interaction thus far amounted to a prosecutable crime but that he did see hints of an intention to proceed into the area that would be criminal and he wanted to be careful and observant. Was Trump feeling him out, beginning with ambiguous suggestion and seeing how compliant and easygoing Comey might be? The subsequent summary firing makes me think that is what Trump was doing and he got his answer. Comey was going to be rigorous and independent, and that's not what Trump wanted.

This reminds me of something I've said a number of times about Trump. I don't think he is oriented toward law. The legal framework feels alien to him — a kind of problem or obstacle that must be dealt with, by your lawyers, after you decide what you want to do or — in Trump talk — what you have to do because you have no choice. I'd like to find all the old posts where I've made this observation, but here's one, from March 2016, "Trump's idea of law: 'I want to stay within the law... but we have to increase the law...'":

Perhaps George W. Bush and Barack Obama thought about law the same way, but they didn't say it like this:



As expressed in that clip: Law is respected only in the sense that you acknowledge that when the law is in your way, you'll "increase" the law. Most people would say "change the law," so I'm struck by the locution "increase the law." It's sort of like the way Bush would say things like "Make the pie higher"... but less sunny... and far more sinister...

ADDED: Here's another old post about Trump and the law. It cuts in a somewhat different way, but it shows how his perspective is that of a businessman who uses law when it's to his advantage. It was on "Face the Nation" again, a week later. John Dickerson questioned Trump about his use of H-1B visas and bankruptcy law and tax loopholes: "If you are president, why would anybody follow the laws that you put in place if they knew you were taking advantage of those laws when you were in the private sector?"

"Robert Mueller, Former F.B.I. Director, Named Special Counsel for Russia Investigation."

The NYT reports.

“I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authorities and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter,” [Deputy Attorney General Rod J.] Rosenstein said in a statement. “My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination.”

Mueller was the FBI director just before Comey. He began as FBI director on September 4, 2001, that is, immediately before 9/11. He was appointed by George W. Bush and not only continued under Obama, but was asked to stay on an extra 2 years beyond the normal 10 year term.

ADDED: I see no reason not to say this is the perfect move.

AND: NBC reports:

Former Trump aides Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort have emerged as key figures in the FBI's investigation into Russian campaign interference....

Officials say multiple grand jury subpoenas and records requests have been issued in connection with the two men during the past six months in the ongoing probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian attempts to influence the election, an inquiry that will now be overseen by former FBI Director Robert Mueller....

ALSO: This is useful: "The Comey memo offers no proof for impeachment of Trump."

"Trump, citing no evidence, accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ plot to wiretap Trump Tower."

WaPo reports.

"Citing no evidence" doesn't mean he has no evidence. What happens next?

Trump offered no citations nor did he point to any credible news report to back up his accusation, but he may have been referring to commentary on Breitbart and conservative talk radio suggesting that Obama and his administration used “police state” tactics last fall to monitor the Trump team. The Breitbart story, published Friday, has been circulating among Trump's senior staff, according to a White House official who described it as a useful catalogue of the Obama administration's activities.

What's "credible news" these days? Maybe Trump is fighting fire with fire. The Russian business is a conspiracy theory so why not distract with a conspiracy theory on top of the conspiracy theory? There was a conspiracy to plant a conspiracy, etc. etc.

But Trump is accusing Obama of wiretapping his New York office. That's a very specific charge. Presumably Trump has high-level security within his homestead. Maybe something was detected. Here are Trump's tweets this morning:

1. "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

2. "Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"

3. "I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"

4. "How low has President Obama gone to tapp* my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

#3 feels vaguely like a threat to get a criminal investigation going against Obama. This is a big move by the art-of-the-deal master. Perhaps the goal is to get his attackers to stand down.
____________________

*"Tapp" would be a good name for an app.

ADDED: Meade is saying "You over-educated professional class elites, you don't understand TrumpTweet." Most important, he says, is that Trump put "wires tapped" and "wire tapping" in quotes and that misspelling "tapp" could have been intentional. Is it some figure of speech? Is there a special way of speaking within Twitter that the grownups don't understand?

"The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by 'intelligence' like candy. Very un-American!"

Tweets Trump, quoted in a NYT article titled "Trump Condemns Leaks to News Media in a Flurry on Twitter."

Also in the flurry:

“This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign”...

And:

“Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?). Just like Russia”

Underlying NYT article on the front page right now, "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence." Excerpts from that:

The intelligence agencies... sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election. The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation....

The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort.... Mr. Manafort, who has not been charged with any crimes, dismissed the officials’ accounts in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “This is absurd,” he said. “I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.” He added, “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

"Women are not a footnote to history.... We value women who allege they have been the victims of injustice."

"It takes a great deal of courage to sue the most powerful man on the planet."

"When ‘there is serious reason to doubt’ rumors and allegations, is it libelous to publish them?"

"[I]s the publisher free to publish them on the theory that it is accurately reporting what has been alleged, even if the allegations are not accurate?"

Eugene Volokh does the legal analysis. It's complicated. You have to understand the republication rule, the “absence of malice” standard, the fair report privilege, the neutral reportage privilege, and 47 U.S.C. § 230.

[T]he legal result would turn heavily on (at least) two contested questions — whether the jurisdiction recognizes the neutral reportage privilege and would apply it to this situation, and whether § 230 is read broadly when applied to a news site’s publishing particular material that it itself has deliberately chosen.

"Christopher Steele, Ex-British Intelligence Officer, Said to Have Prepared Dossier on Trump/ Former spy is director of London-based Orbis Intelligence Ltd."

 The Wall Street Journal reports on what "people familiar with the matter say."

Andrew Wordsworth, co-founder of London-based investigations firm Raedas, who often works on Russian issues, said the memos in the Trump dossier were “not convincing at all.” "It’s just way too good,” he said. “If the head of the CIA were to declare he got information of this quality, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Mr. Wordsworth said it wouldn’t make sense for Russian intelligence officials to expose state secrets to a former MI6 officer. “Russians believe once you are an agent, you’re an agent forever,” he said.

How to do a non-fake-news report on fake news.

In the NYT: "Trump Received Unsubstantiated Report That Russia Had Damaging Information About Him."

The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies last week presented President Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump with a summary of unsubstantiated reports that Russia had collected compromising and salacious personal information about Mr. Trump, two officials with knowledge of the briefing said.

The summary is based on memos generated by political operatives seeking to derail Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Details of the reports began circulating in the fall and were widely known among journalists and politicians in Washington.

That went up at the NYT site yesterday. This morning, there's also: "Trump on Compromising Dossier Leak: ‘Are We Living in Nazi Germany?'"

President-elect Donald J. Trump continued his war with intelligence agencies, asking if leaks of a dossier of dirt meant we are “living in Nazi Germany.”...

From the moment the unsubstantiated but explosive intelligence report hit the internet, the questions arose: When and what would Mr. Trump tweet?

There's a link on "unsubstantiated but explosive intelligence" and it goes back to the first article. What's the "dirt"?

The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel. The videos were supposedly prepared as “kompromat,” or compromising material, with the possible goal of blackmailing Mr. Trump in the future.

The memos also suggest that Russian officials proposed various lucrative deals, essentially as disguised bribes in order to win influence over Mr. Trump.

The memos describe several purported meetings during the 2016 presidential campaign between Trump representatives and Russian officials to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta....

One of the opposition research memos quotes an unidentified Russian source as claiming that the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails was carried out “with the full knowledge and support of TRUMP and senior members of his campaign team.” In return, the memo said, “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue” because Mr. Putin “needed to cauterize the subject.”

So all that appears in the NYT, but it's not fake, because it's a true report — I assume — of what is in the "memos generated by political operatives."

The F.B.I. obtained the material long before the election, and some of the memos in the opposition research dossier are dated as early as June. But agents have struggled to confirm it, according to federal officials familiar with the investigation....