Comey said he shared his memo notes with a friend for the purpose of leaking it to the Press after Trump’s tweet.
But according to one report, apparently based on the public self-outing of that friend, a Columbia University law professor, the memos were given (or shown) one day before Trump’s tweet.
In the Fox News commentary following the Comey testimony, Jennifer Griffin, the national security correspondent, noted that it was the first time she had ever heard of an FBI director admitting to leaking private executive conversations carried out in exercising the functions of government, to an outsider.
Kimberly Guilfoyle noted that it is now unequivocally confirmed the truth of Trump’s tweet that Comey had told him on three different occasions that he was not under investigation in connection to the collusion with Russian though some in the campaign were.
It is also now confirmed again, now from the mouth of Comey, that there is zero evidence, zero, that any Russian government actions changed even one vote in the elections.
Comey also revealed that Trump did not try to stop any investigation into any evidence of wrongdoing by any of the people around him or his campaign in relation to the Russia-campaign investigation.
Comey’s memos quoted the president as saying “I hope you can see to let this go”, speaking of the probe into Michael Flynn. It was pretty obvious to me he was hedging in responding to the question of whether he thought Trump was engaging in “obstruction of justice”.
Now then, we can conclude a few things.
One, that Comey has done things in ways that cover his own rear-end, and not always in the best interest of the country.
Two, Trump was not trying to stop the investigation into questionable Russian connections with any of the staff around him.
Three, Comey never trusted Trump. He said he was uncomfortable when Trump sent away others from his office to talk to him alone. My question for him would be whether he had ever had a private conversation with a subordinate with no others present.
Four, Comey says he believes Trump saying he fired him because of the Russia “collusion” investigation. But Trump gave several other reasons too, which went unmentioned.
Five, possibly most important of all, Comey leaked his own notes to the Press in the “hope that it would result in the appointment of a special prosecutor.” That means he is a very dangerous man.
Six, the commentary from the Fox News panel was a bit disappointing in balance, Judge Napolitano more so for me, because I respect him so much as a champion for liberty. In his defense though, he is paid for presumably objective legal analysis, and his points sounded reasoned.
Background. Comey made a name for himself prosecuting Martha Stewart for “obstruction of justice”, because in questioning her, they could not get her on the crime for which they were supposedly interrogating her for. He said at that time he pursued the case with her to show the rich get equal treatment under the law. He demonstrated the exact opposite with his press conference during the campaign, in which he made a long list of crimes that Hillary had demonstrably committed, and at the end saying they were not enough to prosecutable because she did not “intend” to break the law. Not because she stayed within the law, but “intent”.
With that waiver for Hillary Clinton based on “intent”, he showed that he does give the rich and powerful a pass when he wants to.
THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT NOW.
I don’t know if this should happen in that venue, but Comey should get grilled for his handling of the criminal investigation into Clinton’s national security violations. My disappointment now is that nobody is asking him questions under oath about this.
He never called a grand jury.
He gave out immunity like it was cheap candy, to FIVE of the people he should have been interrogating as to specifics in conversations.
He limited his subordinates in how many emails they could look at in one laptop acquired by the FBI as part of the investigation, and to cover up the evidence that might be in the emails he agreed they would not look at, by destroying that laptop. That by itself is not a normal procedure.
Comey stopped the FBI from auditing the DNC servers in their investigations into leaks or hacks. Instead he let them hire their own cybersecurity firm to review the server and deliver a report to the FBI.
They interviewed Hillary Clinton, but not under oath.
Most of the legacy media is saying Comey came off good from this and Trump not so much, even somewhat Fox News. I don’t see it that way. Even more so, Comey’s inept handling of the Clinton email investigation was never mentioned.
What do you expect.
The other day Megyn Kelly interviewed Vladimir Putin. When Putin was asked about Russian interference in the American elections, his answer was more or less to snicker. In so many words, he said it didn’t make much difference at all who got elected in the USA.
That was another way of saying he realized that there are influences and powers in the U. S. government –and in the political campaigns– that overwhelm any attempt to change the course of the powers-that-be in any meaningful way.
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