Patterico's Pontifications

6/10/2017

Comey Slams New York Times

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:11 am



I’m behind the curve on all of this, because of work duties, and I did not watch Comey’s testimony until last night. But I did notice that he called out a New York Times story about Trump as always completely false. The New York Times is a partisan institution whose White House reporters are pro-Hillary hacks like Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman. If you’re embracing Comey’s testimony as true — and I do — you’re also embracing the reality that the New York Times publishes stories that are garbage. And I do.

To be quite honest, I don’t find this as concerning as a narcissistic 12-second-attention-span President who lies like he breathes. But having media institutions you can rely on becomes even more important when the occupant of the Oval Office is a cretin. We’ve had cretins there 9 years and counting, and the media is not doing much to cover themselves in glory as credible watchdogs. Sad!

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

343 Responses to “Comey Slams New York Times”

  1. So sad!

    Kevin M (752a26)

  2. What is weird is to see a lot of conservatives play up Comey’s attack on the NYT and completely ignore all the distressing things he said about the President of the United States.

    But partisans gonna partisan

    Patterico (115b1f)

  3. R.I.P. Adam West

    Icy (2211c8)

  4. Mr. Kasowitz’s smackdown of dissembling new york times propaganda slut julie davis is much more satisfying i think cause it’s a two-fer

    he nails Julie as a liar as well as sleazy lying fbi thug James Comey – the latter of which it’s clear lied under oath

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  5. When Comey called Trump a liar, it was about Trump saying the FBI was in disarray, etc. This is not a cut and dry lie.

    Comey said Trump said, “I hope you can let this go.” Was it his hope? Was it an order? Was it a suggestion?

    The most damaging accusation was that Trump cleared out the room to make the statement. You could argue that he didn’t want Comey to feel the pressure of the statement in front of the others. But more likely, it was because Trump suspected he was treading on unstable ground.

    Comey’s reaction should have been to inform Trump that the investigation would be an honest one (unlike the Hillary “matter”). Instead, Comey started to “keep book” on Trump. This is something that is done when it is suspected you are going to be run out of a job.

    Comey’s handling of the Hillary “matter” shows that he was a political hack and not worthy of running the FBI. Even his dealing with Trump is consistent with this view.

    AZ Bob (f7a491)

  6. Trump lied about who set up the dinner.

    He lied about saying he hoped Comey would let the Flynn thing go.

    He lied about demanding loyalty.

    Also he lies pretty much every time he opens his mouth.

    This is beyond rational debate.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  7. R.I.P. Adam West

    Holy childhood heroes dropping like flies!

    harkin (536957)

  8. Sneak Preview: There are NO “tapes” of Trump’s private meetings with Comey. [And, to be fair, Trump NEVER actually claimed that such tapes ever existed.]

    Icy (2211c8)

  9. the problem seems to be that Comey has no credibility because he’s such a self-serving liar himself

    a self-serving liar who has arbitrarily different standards what lead him to govern his dealings with democrats (wholesale destruction of evidence, vast grants of immunity) vastly differently than his dealings with republicans (i’m writing in my notebook that you’re a big poopy-butt and sending it to all my perverted weak-ass fbi colleagues neener neener then i’m gonna have some sleazy academic leak it to the propaganda sluts)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. He has blasphemed in the scrolls, no I guess it’s just stricken from the record.

    narciso (d1f714)

  11. When are we going to start talking about the Obama Administrations’ surveillance of political opponents, including the FBI’s abusing the rules on unmasking and the subsequent leaks to political operatives. Just asking.

    AZ Bob (f7a491)

  12. LOL, so NY Times lying post morphs into Trump bashing b/c he disputes Comey’s account of a private discussion.

    Funnier yet, Comey who has lied and covered up to help Clinton while lying and covering up to hurting Trump is somehow a decent fellow.

    Forget peak oil, peak trolling.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  13. Happyfeet making great points.

    Hillary minions get amnesty to testify and FBI gets nothing in return for that testimony.

    Comey labels it a matter to play nice-nice politics with Obama and Hillary.

    Loretta doing private secret meetings with Bill.

    … .

    Trump who is not even under investigation is treated like a criminal and gets a Special Prosecutor all cuz he wanted Comey to tell the truth.

    Interesting how this works.

    The dishonest cover up artists are given a pass while the one guy screaming at the top of his lungs for honesty fair play are vilified and being criminally pursued for semantic interpretations of “I Hope”

    Deranged society we live in and the Lawyers are where the problem starts.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  14. Via Instapundit (full Wall Street Journal article):
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tyranny-of-the-administrative-state-1497037492?shareToken=st6e599c7aada249d8869a02fc43029cdb

    The Tyranny of the Administrative State
    Government by unelected experts isn’t all that different from the ‘royal prerogative’ of 17th-century England, argues constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger.

    Sometimes called the regulatory state or the deep state, it is a government within the government, run by the president and the dozens of federal agencies that assume powers once claimed only by kings. In place of royal decrees, they issue rules and send out “guidance” letters like the one from an Education Department official in 2011 that stripped college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct.

    Unelected bureaucrats not only write their own laws, they also interpret these laws and enforce them in their own courts with their own judges. All this is in blatant violation of the Constitution, says Mr. Hamburger, 60, a constitutional scholar and winner of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize last year for his scholarly 2014 book, “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

    “Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” he says, sitting in his office at Columbia Law School. “The government can choose to proceed against you in a trial in court with constitutional processes, or it can use an administrative proceeding where you don’t have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don’t have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options.” ​

    Comey was a full player in this… he basically neutered his boss, DOJ head Loretta Lynch and become judge/jury/prosecutor.

    However one sees the latest hearings, there are lots of reasons to hate Comey and those who enabled him.

    I do not think our host would accept a sheriff supplanting the entire District Attorney office without a peep because he felt the DA was compromised by meeting with the husband of a person of interest.

    -BfC

    BfC (5517e8)

  15. I’m not defending the NYT just to defend the NYT (they lost me with the fake WMD story that helped us fall into the war with Iraq).

    But if you’re referring to the NYT story, Patterico, that claimed that Trump’s staff were talking to Russia, I still think it could be true.

    Since many of you here are attorneys, you know that you can’t prove a negative. The reporter of that NYT story claims that their source was other countries’ intelligence, not our own. So what Comey lacks knowledge of is not proof that it didn’t happen. I’m not making a claim that the NYT is correct, but I think this will eventually come out, especially since our Loud-Mouth-In-Chief is incapable of keeping his big trap shut.

    Tillman (a95660)

  16. So awesome that Trump was able to decide on Neil Gorsuch in less than a quarter minute!

    And yawn so what if…..

    NYTimes
    CNN
    Slate
    Daily Kos
    Chuck Schumer
    Deer-In-Headlights Warren
    Salon
    The Atlantic

    …all declared Trump was personally under FBI investigation before Comey was fired (which Comey himself said was false…..after letting the liars beat the false meme relentlessly, and was the main reason so many clueless lefties took time off to watch a fireworks display that turned out to be two sparklers and a kiddie smoke bomb).

    And still so glad that we aren’t saddled with a robotic, inauthentic, corrupt crime matriarch who needed 50 people to decide what to tell the public her decision to run was based on. Attention problems indeed!

    harkin (3f4d38)

  17. It doesn’t bother me if the Times was wrong because it is a newspaper, and newspapers can be wrong. Frankly, at this point I read newspapers the same way I read blog comments. They might be right and they might be wrong, but it’s worth it if it makes me think or gIves me new informTion to consider. I factor all that I read and my life experiences when I decide what to believe.

    DRJ (15874d)

  18. “Also he[Trump] lies pretty much every time he opens his mouth.”

    Is this an exaggeration or a lie? How am I to tell the difference? What does “pretty much” mean?

    It does not surprise me that a litigation lawyer would write that with neither hint of irony or self awareness.

    Fred Z (e07b6f)

  19. that’s an excellent backdrop to all this Mr. harkin

    another fun backdrop is to contrast senile torture victim John McCain’s florid tongue-laving of comey the day he was fired with his feeble, tortured performance during the recent hearing when he seemed to be at least attempting in his odd helen keller cadence to voice disparagement and criticism

    Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

    “While the President has the legal authority to remove the Director of the FBI, I am disappointed in the President’s decision to remove James Comey from office. James Comey is a man of honor and integrity, and he has led the FBI well in extraordinary circumstances. I have long called for a special congressional committee to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The president’s decision to remove the FBI Director only confirms the need and the urgency of such a committee.”

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  20. She has huge tracts of…immunity.

    I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same just to show ‘Em. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one, that stayed up!

    Monty Python and The Holy Grail

    Pinandpuller (0529df)

  21. Here’s Scott Johnson at Powerline commenting on the “relatively” benign NTY:

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/times-tips-to-irans-american-network.php

    ThOR (c9324e)

  22. Regarding Russia and the election, in what form or manner could Russian hackers have influenced the election? That is the important question and that is, also, the question no one hasaddressed.

    Michael Keohane (947544)

  23. There’s a whole host of stories re iraq that turned out to be
    untrue, ie the atta sighting in plague but only miller was held
    to acct, but not the finding third were wmds

    The Carlos slims journal has omitted distorted and out right ignored certain stories its not a legitimate news source

    narciso (d1f714)

  24. President Barack Obama emphatically denounced the conspiracy theory saying Russians successfully tampered with the American voting process.

    “We were frankly more concerned in the run up to the election to the possibilities of vote tampering, which we did not see evidence of,” he said. “And we’re confident that we can guard against.”

    During an interview with the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, Obama downplayed the hack of a private email account of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, defending his administration for revealing in October that the Russian government was connected.

    “None of this should be a big surprise,” Obama said, “Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union.”

    Obama dismissed the hack and the leaked emails as “not very interesting” and lacking “explosive” revelations. He puzzled as to why it was an “obsession” by the news media despite the knowledge that the Russians were responsible.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  25. There is no such evidence Michael, the crowdstrike didn’t examine the malware side, the dossier is fake so is this latest revelation from Ms winner

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. “Oho!” said the pot to the kettle
    “you are dirty and ugly and black
    sure no one would think you were metal,
    except when your given a crack”.
    “not so not so!” kettle said to the pot;
    “tis your own dirty image you see;
    For I am so clean without blemish or blot-
    that your blackness is mirrored in me.”
    St. Nicholas Magazine 1876

    mg (31009b)

  27. “To be quite honest, I don’t find this as concerning as a narcissistic 12-second-attention-span President who lies like he breathes.”

    – Patterico

    To which President are you referring? There are many who fit the description, along with most also-rans. Not only is President Trump not the first President to fit this description, he will not be the last – this is simply a product of the selection process. I find it inexplicable how anyone can be left breathless by 6 months of Trump’s narcissism, following immediately after the supreme narcissism of the intellectually deficient Obama. In addition, this is a bi-partisan deficiency. In the past few weeks, we have learned that the conservative icons Sasse and Amish struggle with the same deficiency. The take-away: It is who they are. All of them.

    So now, after the nation has stewed in the Russia collusion lie for the last 6 months, a Big Lie which was dreamed up by the Obama administration and then handed off to the deep state, the Democratic Party Operatives with Bylines, and Trump hating pundits of all political stripes, our concern should be over the President’s veracity in the Trump-Comey he-said, she-said? Do you see the proportionality problem here? You are, in effect, telling us to pay no attention to the Big Lie in front of the curtain and, instead, be afraid of the small lie I tell you resides behind it. Really?

    More importantly, I am unpersuaded that Trump, who has spent the first 6 months of his presidency rolling back the autocratic machination of his predecessor, is any sort of threat, except, of course, to the anti-democratic forces in both parties. One can freely admit that Trump’s style is lacking, as I do, but to suggest that there is some sort of substantive threat remains, as always, a wishful fantasy.

    Finally, if your comments above do in fact reflect your view of the Times, can we expect that you will hold back on parroting their reports critical of Trump until they are substantiated? As I’ve pointed out repeatedly in these comments: Never trust content from the NYT. Please?

    ThOR (c9324e)

  28. As has been said, Trump should know better. Comey does know better, and the fact that a self-serving, lying, show-boating sack of dog excrement was Director of the FBI – the nation’s premier law enforcement agency – pisses me off much more than Trump being Trump, i.e., what he has always been. He’s got a stellar group of people working for him and it’s time the Republican-controlled Congress stop lining their pockets and start working with the administration to improve the tax code, healthcare, relations with our allies, enact business and family-friendly legislation and put this nothing burger in the rearview mirror.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. As the American people – who elected Donald Trump – rightfully expect.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  30. 17 – “It doesn’t bother me if the all those newspapers, journals, channels and politicians flailed on a false narrative with zero named sources, smearing the president, with some even piling on that his agenda was to be ignored/resisted because of his supposed invalid presidency.”

    FYP

    ….”they might be wrong, but it’s worth it if it makes me think or gIves me new informTion to consider”

    Bonus points!

    harkin (3f4d38)

  31. I don’t really think of Trump as a liar so much as a fabulist. Like your uncle that tells you stories about the time he beat up Chuck Norris or how he had to turn down Marilyn Monroe’s marriage proposal or that he knows the real truth about Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance and he’s got the bloodstains in the trunk of his car to prove it. It’s just whatever crap pops into his head and falls out his piehole and it’s a pretty good bet he doesn’t even know from minute to minute what he just said because he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was saying. Whether or not he believes what he’s saying or whether or not he expects the listener to believe what he’s saying isn’t even an issue, it’s all just random words and phrases with no meaning or significance whatsoever.

    Jerryskids (3308c1)

  32. Who isn’t a fantasust is govt perhaps the ones who echo the ikwan talking points re north Africa and the levant:

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266945/qatar-trump-and-double-games-caroline-glick

    narciso (d1f714)

  33. ‘If you’re embracing Comey’s testimony as true — and I [Patterico] do — you’re also embracing the reality that the New York Times publishes stories that are garbage. And I do… having media institutions you can rely on becomes even more important when the occupant of the Oval Office is a cretin.’

    =yawn= Cheap partsian shot, Patterico. You’re better than this.

    In the main, it was not true,” Comey told the Senate Intelligence Commitee, disputing a February 14 story titled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.” -CNN

    This is the story Comey was referencing:

    Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence
    By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO FEB. 14, 2017

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?_r=0

    Woodward and Bernstein had a swing and a miss or two- but in the end won the ball game for Team USA.
    Example: Hugh Sloan.

    The Hugh Sloan Story

    “[WaPo City Editor Barry] Sussman arrived for work in the newsroom about 9:30 a.m. on October 24, 1972 and found Woodward already talking to a source on his telephone. He gave Sussman the thumbs up signal, covered the phone, and said, “We’ve got Haldeman.” H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and his sidekick, John Ehrlichman, were Nixon’s two top aides and advisors. They were a team that ran the White House. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, would be the biggest catch of all.

    Sources were telling the two reporters that Chapin would never have hired or paid Segretti without the approval of his boss, Haldeman. Their most important source was Hugh Sloan, the former CREEP treasurer who had resigned weeks earlier, apparently because he hadn’t approved of what was going on at the re-election committee. They talked to him time and time again, and they became convinced that he had hinted to them that Haldeman was one of the handful of Nixon operatives with access to the famous slush fund in Stans’s safe. They also understood that Sloan had told them he had testified to that effect before the grand jury. Other sources seemed to confirm the story.

    At about 6 p.m., the two reporters, along with Sussman, Rosenfeld, and Simons, met in Bradlee’s office. “Bradlee began asking questions the way a prosecutor would,” Sussman remembered. This was a new departure; story sessions on Watergate had never been like this before. For the first time, too, lawyers were called in to read the copy.

    In the end, Bradlee said, “OK, go.” The story appeared on the Post’s front page the morning of October 25 saying that Sloan had testified before the grand jury that Bob Haldeman was one of the men who had access to the secret campaign fund.

    The story was wrong.

    Throughout Watergate, Nixon Administration officials had become notorious for criticizing stories by attacking them without actually denying them. These official statements sounded like denials, but when they were carefully parsed, they did not actually contradict the allegations in the stories. Reporters even coined a term for these statements. They called them “non-denial denials.” At times, when the Administration was shown to have done what it had seemingly denied doing, officials would quietly back away from those earlier statements. At one point, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler even said that one former non-denial denial was “no longer operative.”

    When the Hugh Sloan story hit, Woodward, Bernstein and others at the Post knew there were problems because the Administration’s denials were the real thing.

    “I watched the s–t hit the fan on the CBS Morning News,” Bradlee recalled in his book. “To my eternal horror, there was correspondent Dan Schorr with a microphone jammed in the face of Hugh Sloan and his lawyer. And the lawyer was categorical in his denial: Sloan had not testified to the grand jury that Haldeman controlled the secret fund.”

    Even now, Bradlee shudders at the thought. “It was terrible,” he recalls. “So many people had been waiting for us to get it wrong, and here we did it. When you pick yourself off first base, and that’s what we did, you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

    Sussman says the story was wrong on three points–”Sloan hadn’t told the grand jury about Haldeman, Haldeman hadn’t been interviewed by the FBI as we said he had, and we had his age wrong. He was 46, not 47.”

    In the past, the White House had been forced to waffle on most of its explanations about the Post’s stories. This time, Nixon’s spokesmen jumped all over the Post with both feet. No, said Ron Ziegler at his regular morning press conference, the story wasn’t true. “I personally feel,” he said, “that this is shabby journalism by The Washington Post…. It is a blatant effort at character assassination that I do not think has been witnessed in the political process in come time.”

    As it turned out, Bernstein and Woodward had the main point right–Haldeman was deeply involved with the slush fund. But they had the details wrong. For this, they paid a heavy price.

    How did these two young reporters, so far ahead of everyone else on this story no one could see their dust, get the October 25 story so wrong?

    There were cautionary yellow lights all along the way. One of the sources, for example, an unidentified FBI agent, was asked by Bernstein, “Are you sure it’s Haldeman?” in a phone call with Woodward listening in on another line, according to Sussman’s book. “Yeah,” he replied, “John Haldeman.” After they hung up, the two reporters looked at each other. “John Haldeman?” Haldeman’s first name, of course, was Bob. So Bernstein called the source back. “You said John Haldeman, but his name is Bob.” Not to worry, the agent said, it’s Haldeman. “I can never remember first names.”

    There were more problems. Woodward and Bernstein had spent hours with Sloan, who was still reluctant to tattle on his old colleagues. He was “elliptical” in what he told the two reporters, Sussman said in his book. It was hardly a surprise, then, that the two reporters had problems writing the story. That in itself is a cautionary light. Good, clean stories tend to write themselves. Stories with problems don’t flow easily.

    The two reporters knew who their sources were–even though what they had said came up short–and they had more problems in figuring out how to handle the story’s attribution. They were faced with finding a way to make the story sound authoritative without exposing their reluctant or maybe confused sources.

    Howard Simons, the managing editor, was uneasy, and suggested, according to Sussman, that Woodward and Bernstein try to come up with another source. According to Sussman, Bernstein piped up that he knew a source in the Justice Department who might be willing to confirm such an important story. But the source was skittish, and in the end Bernstein suggested a novel arrangement in which the source would say nothing if the story was right and hang up if it was wrong. The source agreed and used the signal that Bernstein understood meant that the story about Haldeman’s involvement was correct.

    In his book, Sussman told what happened next:

    “That’s madness, Carl,” I said. “Don’t ever do anything like that. Bernstein and Woodward knew a lot more about the details of what they were reporting than I did. But here was Bernstein saying that he was able to confirm a story damaging to the President of the United States and his chief of staff through the silence of a balky source. Maybe that could work in the movies, but not in The Washington Post.”

    The story ran on schedule in the Post. A year later, Sussman bumped into the balky Justice Department source. He told Sussman that “Carl got his own signals mixed up. I didn’t give him the ‘confirm’ signal, I gave him the ‘deny.'”

    Bernstein’s arrangement with his source was too clever by half. Sussman was right to be outraged. Yet, no one blew the whistle on the story. Everyone wanted the story to be right. Everyone wanted to nail Nixon’s chief of staff.

    Publicly, the Post’s initial reaction was a statement from Bradlee that the Post stood behind its story. Internally, however, the editors and reporters knew better. They did argue that the story was “basically true” because Haldeman was really involved, even though Sloan hadn’t explicitly said so in his appearance before the grand jury. Yet, they admitted to themselves, and later publicly, and even to this day, that they blew the story. They knew that if the details were wrong, the story was inaccurate. And they vowed to examine where they had gone wrong and do better in the future. None of the principals involved in the story defends those mistakes as mere details.

    Two weeks later, on November 7, Nixon was re-elected president, defeating George McGovern by 18 million votes (60.7% to 37.5%).

    For the White House, it was retribution time. No more news for the Post; the White House dumped it all in the laps of the Star-News. Even Dorothy McCardle, the nice 68-year-old lady who covered social events at the White House for the Post, was cut off. The Post thought it was curious, too, that two of its TV stations in Florida suddenly had their licenses challenged.

    Worst of all, though, the Post fell into what Bradlee called a “black hole.” “We couldn’t get a smell of a story,” he wrote.

    Desperate to make some news, Bernstein and Woodward tried to get in touch with the grand jurors handling the Watergate investigation in late November. They came very close to being thrown in jail for their efforts. “I am sure we were all influenced by Nixon’s overwhelming re-election win, on top of our own inability to break new ground in the Watergate story,” Bradlee wrote. He went on to defend the exercise, but without very much enthusiasm. Bernstein and Woodward, in their book, conceded it was “a seedy venture” and said they wished they had never thought of it.

    Early in December, Post reporter Lawrence Meyer discovered that a White House phone used by Howard Hunt had been installed in a woman’s home in Alexandria. The telephone company said it had never seen anything quite like it. It wasn’t much of a story but it put the Post back in the game. “We won a $2 bet,” Woodward says.

    But, for all the Post’s gloom, the cavalry was on the way.

    “What you have to remember,” says Woodward, “is that while maybe everyone wasn’t reading about Watergate, we had two subscribers who were reading every word.” One of them was John Sirica, the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, a very tough judge known, not always affectionately, as “Maximum John.” The other was Democratic Senator Sam Ervin from North Carolina, a very smart country lawyer.'”

    source: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/edit/readings/watergate.html

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  34. Patterico, you really can’t expect loyal commenters to take your negative assumptions about Trump’s veracity, or lack thereof, at all seriously when your conclusions are so obviously rooted in the exhausted soil of a bitter and long standing animosity.

    Many of us are disappointed, but still respect you and wait patiently and expectedly for your return to an objective and evenhanded approach to political matters. Take a second look, give Trump a fair chance to show he’s on the right track, you just might see something worthy of your support.

    ropelight (329905)

  35. Felt got the info right out of the grand jury transcript fed it to Woodward the same day, there was no inside source in the white house, in fact it want till Charlie bates moved to the San Francisco. He didn’t ha e full access.

    narciso (d1f714)

  36. But he’s the thing e managed to put the spin on what the adminstratuon was doing , tag the little tail. Similarly comey was the agrieved party on march 10 2004, he decided fitz was needed as special counsel, Martha Stewart was public enemy and hatfill was at best an incompetent researcher at worst a racist criminal.

    narciso (d1f714)

  37. Ali soufan, an interesting character was the conduit for the levick claims re Abe zubeydah for isikoff Shane priest, but thiessen pointed out there was spin that the ig report revealed his partner Greg gaudin a former ranger want that upset that the intertogations

    narciso (d1f714)

  38. Why is this significant today because he vouchsafes for Qatar in this latest crisis, also Garrett gruff, gave him a lot of ink in his bureau history of the last decade

    narciso (d1f714)

  39. @35 ropelight

    Loyal commenters?

    Spartacvs (014a95)

  40. “Forget peak oil, peak trolling.
    Blah (44eaa0) — 6/10/2017 @ 9:35 am”

    But, Patterico is the host of the blog!

    Davod (f3a711)

  41. the exhausted soil of a bitter and longstanding animosity

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  42. Jonathan Turley on the narcissistic and ethically challenged Mr. Comey:

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/337160-opinion-the-damaging-case-against-james-comey

    ThOR (c9324e)

  43. I like your comment @35, ropelight.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  44. One of the more pleasant aspects of Comey’s presentation was his articulation; speaking clearly in complete sentences.

    Trump, not so much.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  45. #40, ask me again about that in 5 or 10 years. Maybe by then you’ll have gained enough perspective to grasp the mutual respect and the continuing obligations long term political debate imposes on participants.

    ropelight (329905)

  46. Off-topic – watching anti-sharia protestor with sign highlighting tenets of Shariah and being confronted by Feminist with sign saying “get out of my neighborhood motherf*****r.”

    Lefties gotta lefty.

    harkin (3f4d38)

  47. this video is good

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  48. “Donald Trump continues to show a remarkable ability to bring out the worst in people — supporters and critics alike.”

    – Jonathan Turley

    It is easily the most remarkable thing about Trump. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 60+ years. Trump voters got what they were asking for in spades.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  49. An empty suit who speaks in complete sentences – much like President Trump’s predecessor.

    To each his own.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  50. i don’t agree Mr. ThOR, respectfully

    President Trump brings out the worst in his critics, the most ardent of which are either propaganda sluts (the priesthood), ivy league trash, or people who fancy themselves as being perceived as people who can hang quite comfortably with ivy league trash thank you very much it’s just my parents made too much for us to get financial aid and we got a better deal in-state

    propaganda sluts like Turley feel compelled to paint with this broad “supporters and critics alike” brush, however, because they’re scared to just come out and say that the neurotic nevertrump filth are just snotty cowards afraid of losing social status in an already rapidly-declining failmerica

    that’s where i step in

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  51. Been away for awhile, see the host of this blog is still, ah, deficient in matters of the truth.

    Go ahead, ban me for noticing, I won’t be back anyway.

    Leon (56f14c)

  52. @49 Thor

    Remarkable, that you believe this quality best qualifies him for the office of chief executive.

    Spartacvs (014a95)

  53. Nice to hear from you Leon. Just a drive by then?

    Spartacvs (014a95)

  54. Oh, except for a personal note.

    Happyfeet, Ill be in Chicago for a six hour layover this fall, any suggestions on how to best experience the city under the circumstances?

    Better make it five hours, I sure as check don’t want to miss the train out of town!

    Leon (56f14c)

  55. it’s only remarkable inasmuch as you felt compelled to remark

    which, that’s kinda cheating it i think

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  56. ok so ORD or midway?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  57. What was it Orwell said about speaking the truth, S a revolutionary thing tutor potentates had propagadist like Thomas Morton, John guy reveals how Elizabeth censured one biographer who was a little to pointed a critic of her father. The Kennedy’s had schlesinfer and goodwin carter has had Bourne and brinkley Clinton an embatassment of dross

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/10/will-police-police-comey-testimonies/

    narciso (d1f714)

  58. or… at a train station?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  59. By contrast it took Irving gellman to turn put the first balanced Bio of nixon, a little over 20 years ago.

    narciso (d1f714)

  60. Mr. Leon if you’re coming into ORD, and it’s mostly daytime, I’d recommend you take a cab over to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio (this link has visitor information)

    here’s a map from ORD – it’s not stressfully far away and you won’t be worried about traffic mishaps

    here’s
    the wikipedia page so you can decide if it has value for you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  61. none of those losers are ordering anything

    nobody’s enjoying the hospitality of the place aside from leaching off the free cable

    nobody got a pitcher of sangria

    nobody got potato skins

    abd looking at all the propaganda slut cameras in the back

    i think these people are just props

    extras, if you will

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  62. *and* looking at all the propaganda slut cameras i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  63. i’m thankful everyday bernie and his burn-outs are not in the Whitehouse.

    mg (31009b)

  64. It’s not so much what I believe, but what voters in 30 out of 50 states believed. And what they believed was that Trump, with all of his shortcomings, was the preferred choice over Mrs. Clinton. After 6 months of Trump, the soundness of the choice has been confirmed – when was the last time you heard a #NeverTrump Republican say “I should have voted for Hill”? Loathing Trump is one thing; preferring Hillary is quite another.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  65. yes yes Mr. ThOR

    and you know what i suspect in my fuzzy lil yellow heart?

    hillary woulda kicked harvardtrash ted’s doleful uncharismatic snooty harvardtrash ass

    i bet she still wakes up from dreams where she does exactly this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  66. oops

    i think i meant *leeching* up at #63

    i’m homophonic

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  67. I dint mean Conrad black or Jonathan Aitken work which turns out a little hagiograohic but as cimpated tom wicker or Evan Thomas’s bathos tales

    narciso (d1f714)

  68. @7. We’re getting old.

    Remember how much ‘batsh-t’ flooded the schools and stores so fast– even the cover of Life— the stuff was everyplace. Seems routine today for films and TV but it was a fairly new experience back then– similar to the Disney Crockett phenom. And the show was so hot ABC aired two episodes a week?! Then it just flamed out– they couldn’t keep it fresh– even w/adding ‘Batgirl.’ Went to school for a time with the son of the post-production coordinator.

    It’s still campy fun to watch on retro TV channels — brings a smile.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  69. I must have seen it the 80s on some channel or other now its in ifc Just like with trek, when wrath of khan came out i recall I must have seen space seed just a few years earlier. But it was aired a decade earlier, in the white are they now theme how about judson Scott who played khans deputy jaquin?

    narciso (d1f714)

  70. Take a second look, give Trump a fair chance to show he’s on the right track, you just might see something worthy of your support.
    ropelight (329905) — 6/10/2017 @ 1:39 pm

    — The day that Trump gets “on the right track” is the day when he will truly be deserving of support.

    Icy (2211c8)

  71. it used to be a commonplace that we understood that time for this failing p.o.s. loser country was of the essence

    #waitingforted

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  72. @71–What’s still remarkable is back then, w/three newtorks and the large audiences they battled for, ABC managed to air two episodes a week. Kids just couldn’t get enough of it.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  73. i wanna serve my country get a tattoo and prance around in a military uniform while i learn how to appropriately respect trannies!

    i wanna serve my country and produce goods and services of value!

    hey!

    you got your chockit in my peabnut bubber!

    the hell i did

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  74. Well there was a lot of stimulants in the air that might have had something to do with it, or so I’ve told how else to explain laughing?

    narciso (d1f714)

  75. john mccain’s life mission has been to nurture and budgetarily cultivate the sublime puissance and terrifyingly immovable obstinance of the mighty us navy

    hrm

    guess we can chalk that one up as a fail huh

    what else you got johnny

    tick tock buddy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  76. BTW, evidence that fake news is not a modern invention
    http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/journalist.html

    This is not much to be required, and yet this is more than the Writers of News seem to exact from themselves. It must surely sometimes raise indignation to observe with what serenity of confidence they relate on one day, what they know not to be true, because they hope that it will please; and with what shameless tranquillity they contradict it on the next day, when they find that it will please no longer. How readily they receive any report that will disgrace our enemies, and how eagerly they accumulate praises upon a name which caprice or accident has made a Favourite. They know, by experience, however destitute of reason, that what is desired will be credited without nice examination: they do not therefore always limit their narratives by possibility, but slaughter armies without battles, and conquer countries without invasions.

    kishnevi (86e9bc)

  77. @77. Actually, they had a pretty good day; USS Gabrielle Giffords was commissioned in Texas today.
    Believe the news said it’s the first Navy ship named after a living woman since Martha Washington. Would have been classy if the CIC had showed up for that instead of holed up like a gopher in a bunker at his golf course in New Jersey.

    “I’ve gotta get inside this dude’s pelt and crawl around for a few days.” – Carl Spackler [Bill Murray] ‘Caddyshack’ 1980

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  78. How readily they receive any report that will disgrace our enemies

    lol

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  79. In the 1980s, Donald Trump was short on cash but eager to get Holiday Inn involved in a new casino project in Atlantic City. The construction wasn’t far along, but the Holiday Inn executives were coming to town, and Trump wanted to impress them. So he ordered a construction crew to dig up piles of dirt and drive them around on the site as energetically as possible. When the Holiday Inn executives arrived, they were impressed and agreed to invest, Trump recalls in “The Art of the Deal.”

    Donald Trump is a con artist. He conned the dumb Republicans with a similar show in the campaign, bashing ‘Lyin’ Ted’ and his JFK murdering father and his ‘ugly’ wife.

    Those who stand with Trump even today, complaining that we would pay attention to Trump’s behavior as president instead of ‘talking about Obama and Hillary’ are also con artists. Take note of who is trying to protect Trump’s con and invest in grains of salt.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  80. Abc had some wacky Saturday morning shows like land of the lost and hr puff and stuff, explain that rationally then again abc makes no sense on Saturday morning or mist mornings

    narciso (d1f714)

  81. the low-class failmerican trailer park sheeple are easily conned

    but obama taught us this

    and taught us well

    to say nothing of what we learned from the recruitment successes of the us military

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  82. Collusion is an illusion. #NeverTrump is a syphilitic hump.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  83. that has the ring of truth Mr. Colonel

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  84. Its a clique of those Japanese soldiers stranded on islands after the war, there was even an episode ofvthe six million dollar man, about it

    narciso (d1f714)

  85. Actually, they had a pretty good day; USS Gabrielle Giffords was commissioned in Texas today.

    It was a good day for anti Americans. Why on earth would the Navy name a ship after a radical left wing anti-gun nut? I guess after naming one after a communist gay community organizer all options are open. What happened, did we run out of Medal of Honor winners to honor. Oh wait, no we didn’t. I guess Gabby and Harvey have done more for America and shown more patriotism than about 3,515 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen.

    There is no end to the $hit and debasement the left will heap upon our nation. May they all rot in hell.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  86. “In the early part of his first term, Barack Hussein Obama was short on good intentions but eager to get The American people to buy in to his new “Obamacare” scam. The facts on actual implementation were abysmal (skyrocketing rates, loss of good and affordable plans), but the chief executive has a history of dishonesty and supporting big government over freedom and common sense, so he ordered a myriad of “experts” to invent piles of fake positive projections and get the democratic shills in the media to state them as “facts” as energetically as possible. When the American people were presented with this mountain of bulls**t, the ones who didn’t know any better were impressed and agreed to support it. Obama recalls in “The Art of the Steal.””

    Fyp

    harkin (3f4d38)

  87. Yes the could have named after roll who was murdered by that worm ridden filth and actually served in the navy, perhaps Chris Kyle or mike axe of lone survivor

    narciso (d1f714)

  88. I think I have the explanation, Hoagie:

    USS Gabrielle Giffords
    Beam: 31.6 m (104 ft)
    Displacement: 2,307 metric tons light, 3,104 metric tons full, 797 metric tons deadweight

    nk (dbc370)

  89. Some times it take decades for the truth to catch up

    https://www.amazon.com/President-Apprentice-Eisenhower-Nixon-1952-1961/dp/0300181051

    narciso (d1f714)

  90. “There is no end to the $hit and debasement the left will heap upon our nation. May they all rot in hell.”

    Rev.Hoagie

    A heavy price will be paid for what they’ve been trying to implement in the way of policies in the military.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  91. yes yes our fearsome dilapidated military’s gonna exact their pound of flesh

    then scribble some really rad tattoos on it!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  92. Think of his mentors Frank Davis who made thecstrongest impression was an avowed Stalinist, bill Ayers actually tried to blow American servicemen up at ft. Doc. Reverend Wright need I go on.

    narciso (d1f714)

  93. Looks like you are trying to create separation between Comey and the recipient of his leaks. Any “slam” is a fake slam to try to hide the fact that Comey and the NYT are one and the same.

    jcurtis (00837a)

  94. The NYTimes has figured it all out.

    Trump’s treatment of Comey was akin to sexual harassment!

    “As I listened to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, tell the Senate Intelligence Committee about his personal meetings and phone calls with President Trump, I was reminded of something: the experience of a woman being harassed by her powerful, predatory boss. There was precisely that sinister air of coercion, of an employee helpless to avoid unsavory contact with an employer who is trying to grab what he wants.”

    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/james-comey-and-the-predator-in-chief.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0&referer=

    Lesson: never go full retard and maybe next time refrain from letting the theatre critic write political commentary (remember that lil pixie Frank Rich?).

    harkin (3f4d38)

  95. Those who stand with Trump even today, complaining that we would pay attention to Trump’s behavior as president instead of ‘talking about Obama and Hillary’ are also con artists. Take note of who is trying to protect Trump’s con and invest in grains of salt.
    Dustin (ba94b2) — 6/10/2017 @ 7:17 pm

    — HEAR HEAR! We will never “get tired of all the winning” because his temperament, narcissism, and his inability to focus or to play well with others, those factors alone are a virtual guarantee that half of his agenda will never be implemented . . . and it isn’t necessarily the ‘good’ half that will get through.

    Icy (2211c8)

  96. You’re falling down on the job, Icy
    Rip Adnan khashoggi.

    narciso (d1f714)

  97. They’re reeling ’em in, hook, line and sinker, narciso!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  98. Using stinkbait.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  99. NeverTrumpers are past Peak Trolling

    Democrats calling now for obstruction of innocence are almost at the top of the curve.

    When the words I Hope get rolled into an obstruction charge …. grasping.

    Peak Trolling.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  100. patterico is super pissed that he didn’t get president hillary. better completely screw up the supreme court to get anyone but trump

    lollin (3320cd)

  101. he said ditto

    on another thread somewhere

    and that’s the troof

    so…

    you didn’t do your homework Mr. lollin did you

    around here we do our homework

    and oh yes

    we do our chores too

    because what part of effing adulthood do you not understand

    i feel sorry for your non-nebraskan kids

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  102. THE ARMS DEALER, WHO SOLD HIS YACHT TO DONALD TRUMP, IS DEAD? 😯

    Icy (2211c8)

  103. this house is clean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  104. patterico is super pissed that he didn’t get president hillary. better completely screw up the supreme court to get anyone but trump

    lollin (3320cd) — 6/10/2017 @ 10:45 pm

    Hillary is bad, but stay on subject. The president is accountable now. Some footnote who lost the election is not as important. This is the way you wanted it. Stop changing the subject when Trump’s administration’s disasters are discussed. It comes across poorly.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  105. jcurtis,

    Your argument that Comey and the paper he harshly criticized are the same only says something about your judgment. To you, anyone critical of your politician is the same. Patterico, Nancy Pelosi, all the same to you, because you just don’t care about anything but your team.

    I’m not even clear on why Comey sharing his notes on his meetings is a ‘dirty’ thing to do. Comey was very upfront about what he was doing and why. Accountability comes with power, and Trump’s anger is entirely because he thinks he’s above the law.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  106. nonono

    the sleazy perverted fbi-corrupted failmerican law is below President Trump

    don’t get it twisted

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  107. 108, not really. I’ve agreed with Patterico on things before. Can’t say that about Pelosi. So there you go with the strawman complaint.

    “I’m behind the curve on all of this”…yeah, so you got an excuse to fall back on, Patterico. You just weren’t up to speed when you made your comments. Some of the guys you like get it. Read some Powerline. It’s gonna end bad for you Comey defenders so my advice is that you start backing away from him.

    jcurtis (00837a)

  108. And using the Columbia guy to leak for him, does that mean Comey wasn’t the leaker? That should be an extra ten years of jail for dragging someone in to make it a conspiracy. Instead some people want to pretend that it makes Comey’s hands clean because he had someone else do the leaking. People gotta get their minds right on this.

    jcurtis (00837a)

  109. The five years prison for 18 U.S. Code § 371 is tacked on to the bigger offense. I said 10 but apparently the statute is only 5. So it’s five additional years of prison for Comey for dragging someone in to conspire.

    jcurtis (00837a)

  110. R.I.P. Roger Smith

    Film (Gypsy) and TV actor (77 Sunset Strip) – husband of Ann-Margret

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  111. jcurtis, your inability to understand what I said is remarkable. It must be frustrating trying to understand why Trump is such a consistent and enormous failure. And yet so many of us explained this to you.

    And using the Columbia guy to leak for him, does that mean Comey wasn’t the leaker?

    Comey told the truth to someone, about what he was doing, and this information was not in any way classified or wrong to share. I don’t think he should have taken this route to whistleblow, but again, he was honest. Honesty means something to me. Of course you’re one of those angry Trump fans, and therefore we do not agree on the importance of integrity.

    That should be an extra ten years of jail for dragging someone in to make it a conspiracy.

    So that’s what you’re worked up about? You want prison for someone telling the truth about the president? Remember when I warned you guys about Trump praising the Tienanmen massacre, and said Trump would be toxic for GOP respect for civil rights? Looks like you have some crow to eat.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  112. trying to sleep here but my sarcasm alarm just went off

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  113. oh. It’s Mr. Dustin.

    ok you guys play nice do me a favor see if the dog wants to go out

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  114. the sleazy perverted fbi-corrupted failmerican law is below President Trump

    I always chuckle when you defend Trump by calling someone else a pervert. This projection thing is a little too on-the-nose.

    Trump jokes about getting away with sexual assault. His wife described Trump brutally physically abusing her and raping her. Trump walks in on people getting undressed, some of whom are very young. Many professional women have complained about Trump grabbing them or otherwise being a pervert towards them. Trump bragged that he ditched the mother of his children for a younger “hot piece of ass”, and has made similar comments about actual children, that in a few years he would be dating them.

    All of this is true. Trump fans have bashed Bill Clinton for much less, but they did not sincerely believe in their morals when on the high horse. Trump is entirely without morality. We see this in everything he does.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  115. Trump does not belong to the GOP, he is no republican, the republicans are so weak they could not field a contender in 2016 and I doubt they will have a hack to back in 2020. Trump belongs to the silent majority. Your deep state is stuck in its own doo doo.

    mg (31009b)

  116. the whole trump sex thing

    let’s just bracket that out cause it make me uncomfortable

    let’s talk about rolling back the heavy-handed regulations!

    there’s so many, and even though President Trump’s made a lot of progress, there’s still a robust discussion what can be had about the further progress we conservatives would like to see

    i’ll make some coffee

    except i’m out of nespresso

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  117. *makes* me uncomfortable i mean

    oh crap i gotta go back to bed

    i’m just plum tuckered see you later

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  118. So Comey colluded with mueller before the hearing?
    Priceless. Comey should get life in prison for setting up this scam to keep obama and clinton free.

    mg (31009b)

  119. If you want a priest for a president, stay away from the catholics. Unless you want to be a altered boy.

    mg (31009b)

  120. Rube Comey has damaged the FBI forever. When he came out with the goods on clinton and then let her go, the damage was done.
    6’8″ of fried eyebrows.

    mg (31009b)

  121. Rube Comey should have to foot the bill of this investigation, not the taxpayer. This man cost us millions and lied to the public. Make this hack pay. Just a washington parasite.

    mg (31009b)

  122. Keep firmly in mind that it was none other than Barack Hussein Obama who appointed James Comey FBI Director.

    It was Comey who took his marching orders from Loretta Lynch, and it was Comey who manufactured an idiot excuse to let Hillary off the hook for her many email felonies.

    James Comey presents himself as a straight shooter, but the truth is he’s just another corrupt Democrat operative, really no different than Eric Holder or Lois Learner. They’re all in cahoots together – they’re sisters under the skin – and they’ll stab uncle Sam in the back to protect each other.

    ropelight (329905)

  123. Remember when Trump was praising Comey, when Comey sank Hillary’s campaign? Comey is the only reason Trump is president today (which probably stings folks on both sides).

    It’s amazing how partisans can just flip flop on everything, Comey just being the most recent example. Democrats hated him a few months ago, and now Trump’s fans hate him. In both cases, because Comey told the truth. They both are angry that the American people got the truth.

    Partisanship is a cancer.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  124. Past is prologue:
    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/06/comey_unmasked.html

    When I see. comey I look at the lives that could have been saved in Madrid if nit for his stunt how just miller might not have has for serve time so Stephen hatfill well.

    narciso (d1f714)

  125. Now technically if a leak is untrue it should receive the tteatnent

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/comeys-calculations.php

    narciso (d1f714)

  126. Partisanship is a cancer.

    Dustin (ba94b2) — 6/11/2017 @ 4:55 am

    You’re a nutcase, Dustin. Sometimes one side owns the truth. But rather than do the hard work of figuring out the truth you come down on “partisanship.”

    Brave, Dustin. Very brave. Bravo, sir. None of that nasty partisanship for us, the good and the pure. Where do I go to vomit?

    As if the truth is some sort of split-the-difference rabbit quivering in the middle.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  127. So why didn’t you pick the transam Steve?

    Comey is a little like Bruce greenwoods character in rules of engagement which resembles what might have happened if ambassador Stevens had survived

    Do this day we have only seen still frames from the dso feed.

    narciso (d1f714)

  128. This is what happens when you squander a wave:
    legalinsurrection.com/2017/06/british-election-final-results-theresa-may-pulls-out-slim-victory

    narciso (d1f714)

  129. Is this what we have been focusing on for seven months

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/06/10/the-entire-deep-state-dc-

    narciso (d1f714)

  130. It’s on mornings like this when I thankfully reflect on the fact I am not a SEAL.

    And you should too.

    I was PO’d about finding out that I couldn’t become an EOD diver without becoming a ship driver first (there’s another bullet you dodged, America). So I spent my time swimming a mile a day in Panama. I was gonna become a g-d damned SEAL.

    And then God weighed in and said, “No you’re not.” All glory is to God and now both my shoulders sound like bowls of rice crispies.

    Anyhoo, I woke up in my room at Naval Air Station Oceana unable to reach the remote. So I’m staring at BET, desperately wishing I could change the channel but like some prehistoric iguana I can’t even roll over. So I accept my fate; I’m not going to be a SEAL.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  131. Comey was blackmailed into sending that letter to Congress. It was either “do it” or we tell the world we found Hillary’s emails.

    And don’t think for two seconds, they reviewed 800,000 emails in one week.

    FBI is the epicenter of corruption.

    Said it before, say it again.

    Everything Comey does is kibuki to cover up the FBI became an extension of the DNC along with the DOJ.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  132. Dustin #117 reminds me of these evil naboobs who see a parent disciplining their child and call DIFUS.

    Virtue signaling at its worst yet all sorts of immoral and wrong at its core b/c it exposes everyone to potentially disasterous outcomes in the process.

    So Trump running around a pageant and walking in on women who get naked and change 18 times per week and 10 times on Sunday makes him a pervert ….. so I guess any person working fashion is a pervert. Arrest them all!

    And yes, Trump is violent and has killed people and raped women … cuz you just made that up and a billionaire is not a “mark” for sleazy lawyers and their clients.

    Keep dreaming boys.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  133. If in his first meeting with POTUS, Comey decided he could not trust the POTUS then why not resign?

    Methinks those “notes” were all typed out after he was fired, or learned of it.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  134. #132 So true, all the Democrats mouthing off (and McCain) knew from Comey Trump was not under investigation but they kept feeding the narrative.

    AGAIN, FACT COMEY AND EVERYONE ELSE IN DC KNEW HE WAS INNOCENT and kept going speaks to their lack of integrity and fact they would lie to preserve themselves.

    Trump might be the most honest man in DC.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  135. I wouldnt go that far he’s a blunt instrument:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/11/iran-sends-five-planes-vegetables-qatar

    narciso (d1f714)

  136. Where do I go to vomit?

    Mostly you do it here.

    “The Truth” is that the Orange Skinned Drama Queen mishandled Comey’s firing the way he’s been mishandling just about everything else since he took office. With demented tweets and TV interview rants that contradicted the rationale that Sessions and Rosenstein had fabricated for him, from the background of a White House that leaks like a sieve because the people around him are as hapless as he is, and because he’s demented buffoon with diarrhea of the mouth.

    nk (dbc370)

  137. Steve, your constant need to brag about yourself is only matched by your need to insult people you disagree with.

    I’m not a nutcase. Most of America is frustrated with Trump’s lack of character, as well as the partisanship that brought us here. Many great folks have explained the problem with partisanship and its invitation for foreign influence and other poor outcomes. Relax and allow an opinion you don’t share to exist, and even consider learning something once in a while. That’s the reason you sound the way you do. You’re too arrogant to learn from wiser folks.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  138. So Trump running around a pageant and walking in on women who get naked and change 18 times per week and 10 times on Sunday makes him a pervert
    Blah (44eaa0) — 6/11/2017 @ 6:22 am

    Yes.

    Also, it was Happyfeet who was complaining about perverts by baselessly claiming Jim Comey to be one while tirelessly licking Trump’s boots. All I did was point out his high horse is pointed in the wrong direction.

    Slow down a little bit in your zeal to scream at Trump’s critics for being “evil” and you might actually wind up understanding the comments you’re so mad about. Never go full Steve57.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  139. …..and they’ll stab uncle Sam in the back to protect each other.
    ropelight (329905) — 6/11/2017 @ 4:16 am

    That’s the sad part about it. Dustin rages about partisanship being a cancer. It is in the cause of evil. Partisanship is a cancer if it’s for communism or socialism or antifa. Partisanship in regard to an accepted political party is just common sense. But as ropelight points out when the political class, and that includes the every day workers who get their pay from our tax money, protects each other and harms us. That is the Deep State and that needs bustin’ up. We can start with government employee unions. What a$$hole came up with that idea?

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  140. How would he have removed comey exactly when he has waging a whisper campaign back through last summer there was nothing that could be considered evidence although the crowdstrike report wee taken as such by some here, same with the dossier that Mccain served as a conduit

    narciso (d1f714)

  141. Hoagie, I’m not enraged. I’m pretty damn happy actually. I was right, after all. Sure, it would be great if our politicians weren’t scummy, but that’s not likely to change much, even after Trump. Though so far, things are pointing towards a little more accountability and a less powerful executive branch, which is good for my point of view.

    You guys keep shouting at me, screaming at me, telling me how evil I am, and at the same time, you guys keep insisting I’m deranged and evil and crazy when I’m being perfectly calm and generally pretty polite.

    This is because you’re insecure and projecting.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  142. Its as if none of the lesson learned here over a decade somehow don’t matter. Ali soufan who might as well have been zubeydahs atty is another one.

    narciso (d1f714)

  143. 142.So Trump running around a pageant and walking in on women who get naked and change 18 times per week and 10 times on Sunday makes him a pervert
    Blah (44eaa0) — 6/11/2017 @ 6:22 am

    Yes.

    Sorry Dustin, that just makes him a rude man no better than any kid sneaking a peak at the girls locker room in high school. A bit immature but not a pervert. A pervert would be a man dressing/identifying as a 10 year old girl and going into kids rest rooms. You know, a Hillary voter.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  144. Dustin, nobody is shouting and screaming at you. THIS WOULD BE SHOUTING AND SCREAMING!!!!!

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  145. Could we have a counsel for fast and furious how about the looting of Nigeria that led to book harams rise I knows statute of limitations but how far back was the October surprise in estimation from the event?

    narciso (d1f714)

  146. poor hoagie.

    Nothing but bile from you. You must be an extremely sorry person. I’ve got better things to do, but I do sincerely feel sorry for you.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  147. Could we have a counsel for fast and furious how about the looting of Nigeria that led to book harams rise I knows statute of limitations but how far back was the October surprise in estimation from the event?

    narciso

    Is it a coincidence that you only believe in investigations of scandals you believe implicate the political party you disagree with? If so, that’s statistically amazing!

    Personally, I think Lois Lerner and Trump’s obstruction are both equally worthy of special investigations. The only problem is that Trump boasted about abusing the IRS against his foes. He’s reached that level of power where there’s little you can do if he’s shameless about it. The GOP’s cowardly, and will not impeach him. They just don’t care about America. The Republican party puts America second, their own party’s protection first. They are unworthy. The best and worst defense the Trump con has is to pretend the democrats are worse.

    America is tired of three months of Trump fans filibustering ‘but democrats’ every time Trump does something wrong. Trump is president. He’s accountable now. Trump’s fans are accountable now. America is ashamed of you people.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  148. We can start with government employee unions. What a$$hole came up with that idea?

    Mailmen and railroad workers in 1888. Teddy Roosevelt tried to stop it with executive orders (naturally, he was a rich jerkoff one time in charge of the civil service), but Congress and William Howard Taft gave him the finger with the Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912, and he in turn gave them the finger by running third party and giving the 1912 election to Wilson. Real smart, that TR.

    nk (dbc370)

  149. Federal unions need to be busted, but that will take a strong leader who can build coalitions, has character, resolve, works hard, and doesn’t make stupid political errors.

    Trump won’t do jack, but 2016 was the miracle opportunity for the GOP to bust the unions. Shoulda gone with Ted or Walker, but no, had to go with the loudest and most hateful guy, because so many people just don’t get beyond the shallow stuff.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  150. General flynn Is an honorable man, this is why the lAte Michael Hastings savaged hi. As with boss mccrystal throwing someone overboard who sacrificed much as with Lewis Libby is a sign we have learned nothing

    narciso (d1f714)

  151. Like many of our government betters, Comey forgot he was a public servant. The arrogance of unaccountable power drips from him like sweat from a racehorse.

    You see it in his decision to write memos after every meeting with Trump, including the first one. He never did this with previous presidents, but didn’t trust his new boss.

    Curiously for a man who claims to be nonpartisan, Comey wasn’t bothered nearly as much when a Democratic attorney general tried to meddle in the election by smothering his investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Or when the IRS went after conservatives.

    If Comey didn’t trust a duly elected president, the honorable thing would be to resign. But Comey was not honorable.”

    http://nypost.com/2017/06/10/comeys-truth-crusade-is-really-an-anti-trump-one/

    harkin (536957)

  152. The majority of Americans are embarrassed by Donald Trump
    Public see him as dishonest, hot-tempered, divisive and lacking leadership skills

    And also his supporters, who do not care when Trump is openly obstructing justice. They only care if the other political party does something like that. We’re embarrassed by y’all.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  153. Who will the media make the republicans run for president in 2020? lmao. The silent majority has their candidate.
    No republican will ever win a presidential election again. Trump is no republican.

    mg (31009b)

  154. Dustin, you wanting Comey to be a truth-teller doesn’t make him a truth-teller. Do you want proof that Comey lied and that he’s a complete nut job?

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/proof-that-james-comey-misled-the-senate-intelligence-committee.php

    jcurtis (00837a)

  155. Yes, Dustin, you’ve behaved as predicted. You’ve thrown your hands in the air because you don’t care.

    Dustin (ba94b2) — 6/11/2017 @ 7:15 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDrze-

    ]T4A1Y

    Cameo – Word Up

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  156. Dustin, you continue to parrot the Democrat’s unsubstantiated claim that Trump obstructed justice. I’ve had just about enough of your two-faced hypocracy. You whine about the evils of partisanship while at the same time push a vile partisan lie. And, you know better.

    So, I’m calling you out. Put up or shut up. Prove it or apologize for perpetuating a partisan slander. One or the other – no pussyfooting around.

    ropelight (329905)

  157. I had forgotten he had also been the one that left sandy Berger off the hook, for the pulling of govt records.

    narciso (fb1da0)

  158. Rev H. , that just makes him a rude man no better than any kid sneaking a peak at the girls locker room in high school.

    Yes, but when an adult man does it, he can be arrested, and nowadays probably be required to register as a sex offender. Especially when he’s old enough to be their (grand)father.

    But to stay even handed here

    Dustin The only problem is that Trump boasted about abusing the IRS against his foes.
    Funny, no one has yet even hinted that Trump is actually doing that, or weaponizing any other agency, since Jan 20. All we hear about are the agencies weaponizing themselves against HIM.

    kishnevi (bb03e6)

  159. I’ve spend about 30 minutes reading the 146 comments that followed this post, and I’m saddened to see that not a single comment addresses the most substantive problem about Comey’s comment on the NYT story, and how this revelation by Comey confirms the much bigger problem that we have with regard to our views and perspectives on the 6 months that Trump has been President.

    Not a single person here has acknowledged that the most critical takeaway from Comey’s confirmation is the fact that FALSE information is being leaked to the media in order to damage the Administration.

    Dozens of stories damaging to the Administration have been published which are sourced to “senior intelligence officials”, “former intelligence officials”, etc., the accuracy of which has been disputed by the Admin. I’m not suggesting that all such stories have been inaccurate, but its clear that the dominant media have been far too willing to run with stories based merely on the assertion by their sources that the information being provided is accurate. We now have first hand confirmation by Comey that these reporters have been provided inaccurate information that they have run with.

    I’m not suggesting any and all inaccurate sourcing is malicious. Much of it might be exactly as Comey described — people representing that they know much more than they actually know, and providing to reporters “facts” which are really just educated guesses and the results of sources’ surmise. But when reporters either knowingly accept that, or unknowingly fall victim to it, you have to begin to suspect an agenda at work. And the agenda here has never been in much doubt — Trump is a usurper to power, and anything that brings him down has a virtue to it by that fact alone.

    IMO, the key takeaway from this “outing” of the press by Comey is that all the destructive reporting on Trump over the last 6 months based on anonymous sources inside the administration, or from the past administration, is not only suspect, but no longer entitled to even the presumption of reliability. Their motives have never been a secret, but Comey has now confirmed that at least some of them are willing to misrepresent facts they know will end up on the front of the NYT in order to damage Trump’s administration. Its pretty obvious that the ultimate sources of this information – even if passed to the press through intermediaries — are guys like Clapper and Brennan, who don’t even attempt to hide their disdain for Trump. In their own media appearances over the past 6 months they have exposed their own antipathy for them. But Comey’s admission is, for me, a confirmation of their willingness to put forward falsehoods in pursuit of that they believe to be “the greater good.”

    I’m not saying they are the only ones, only that they sit atop the heap of disreputable and dishonorable former intelligence agency officials who have betrayed the trust that was placed in them by virtue of the positions they held.

    shipwreckedcrew (fb418b)

  160. So is there anything honorable in his record

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/07/20/sand
    y-berger-probed-over-terror-memos.html

    narciso (fb1da0)

  161. Yes, but when an adult man does it, he can be arrested, and nowadays probably be required to register as a sex offender. Especially when he’s old enough to be their (grand)father.

    Perhaps kishnevi, but if he “identifies” as a female nobody can touch him! Remember, gender is fluid. Like spit.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  162. Bad link, narciso.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  163. http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/Products.asp?mi=15711

    Barco USFS Pulaski Axe

    I actually don’t trust a Pulaski unless it’s of a certain age. Here’s the US government explaining how to sharpen and hang an axe.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22tBYD-HMtA

    An Ax to Grind – Complete Video

    Every word of it is good. This is actually money well spent. Enjoy.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  164. Keep this is mind as you see the usual suspects toddle in and do their #NeverTrump song and dance…

    “Forlorn liberals took refuge at the American Constitution Society’s national convention in Washington this week, discussing whether to encourage the growth of the “deep state” resistance inside the government or fight President Trump from outside.

    “The election of Donald Trump was an assault on the federal bureaucracy,” William Yeomans said to a room full of students and civil servants, including those recently displaced by Trump’s administration. “His values are simply not consistent with the values of people who are committed to public service and who believe deeply in the importance of public service.”

    Yeomans, an American University law professor with more than 25 years of experience at the Justice Department, was holed up inside the Capital Hilton hotel downtown on a sunny Friday afternoon leading a panel of bureaucrats and scholars divided about how best to fight Trump.

    UCLA law professor Jon Michaels said he favors filling the Trump administration with liberals opposed to Trump’s agenda.

    “We hear a lot of language about draining the swamp and this idea about a deep state that somehow was going to thwart the intentions or the political mandate of the president,” Michaels said. “I kind of embrace this notion of the ‘deep state.’”

    Michaels listed his ideas for how to ensure the success of the “deep state.” Act as a group — a department, across agency lines, as a community — rather than as an individual when pushing back against Trump from the inside, he said. Once such a coalition is formed, he suggested “rogue tweeting” or “leaking to the media” as options for fighting the president.”

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/leading-liberals-develop-blueprint-to-expand-deep-state-and-undercut-trump/article/2625576

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  165. #NeverTrump supports the witch hunt, don’t want to see any change and are apparently quite content with the America Obama left in his wake.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  166. Let us never forget that much of the animus against Trump, at least on the part pf the Liberal Establishment, is driven by the hope that they can distract people from what THEY did to lose the 2016 election. Namely; nominate a horribly unlikable, probably criminal, likely corrupt, ‘One Of Us’ bitch. I mean, Jesus! To call your opponent’s supporters insulting names, thereby ensuring they will all turn out on election day, if only to put their thumbs in your eye? This isn’t the behavior of an intelligent candidate. Or, for that matter, an adult. They couldn’t have picked a worst candidate without checking on Charlie Manson’s eligibility.

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  167. “I’m behind the curve on all of this”…yeah, so you got an excuse to fall back on, Patterico. You just weren’t up to speed when you made your comments. Some of the guys you like get it. Read some Powerline. It’s gonna end bad for you Comey defenders so my advice is that you start backing away from him.

    That’s not what I am saying, jcurtis. I am saying I was slow to react because I did not watch the testimony until Friday night, and I do not have a lot of time to give long detailed opinions right now.

    I’ll take James Comey over Donald Trump any day. I would bet my house that in any dispute where they directly accuse one another of lying, Comey is telling the truth and Trump is lying. I frankly can’t imagine how any rational person looking at their respective backgrounds could possibly disagree.

    Totally agree with Dustin: partisanship is a cancer. I don’t like seeing the way people are treating him on this thread. So he doesn’t love your Dear Leader. Neither do I. Get over it.

    Patterico (25d394)

  168. Partisanship is a cancer if it’s for communism or socialism or antifa. Partisanship in regard to an accepted political party is just common sense.

    I think he means “partisanship” in the sense that it causes people to *discard* their common sense and standards, and accept a level of dishonesty on their own side, when they would not accept 1/10 that level of dishonesty in their opponents.

    Donald Trump is one of the most prolific liars in American political history. And he’s really bad at it because he’s quite frankly an idiot with the attention span of a house fly with ADHD. Some of us have just decided we’re not defending his obvious, stupid, transparent lies. That’s all.

    Patterico (25d394)

  169. patterico is super pissed that he didn’t get president hillary. better completely screw up the supreme court to get anyone but trump

    I’m thankful that most commenters usually rise to a level of discourse above this, which is typical submoronic Internet rando blather. Even as I watch people get nasty with good people, in what seems like an unnecessary defense for a totally unworthy President, I can at least be thankful that the general level of discourse here surpasses the level we generally see at newspapers and other sites with off the charts traffic.

    Patterico (25d394)

  170. #NeverTrump supports the witch hunt, don’t want to see any change and are apparently quite content with the America Obama left in his wake.

    I am not #NeverTrump but I don’t see this Russia thing doing much to interfere with anything I care about. “Don’t want to see any change” depends on what changes are being proposed. You know what this week was supposed to be devoted to when Comey came along and stepped on the news cycle? Spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have on pork infrastructure. That’s change I can do without, thanks.

    Trump isn’t about doing anything for us. He’s about theater and drama. I see precious little actually being accomplished and the reason is obvious: Trump. Doesn’t. Care. About. Policy.

    Patterico (25d394)

  171. So there was never any evidence but comey like Chisholm like red Stevens persecutors or Ronnie Earle or the prosecutors of the cops in New Orleans was intent on making some up, that is the real story.
    The fellow who enabled judy miller to be put on jail, who left off Berger with a slap, just like as with David Radler then allowed the Barclay bros to steal Conrad black’s empire and give it over the barclays

    narciso (fb1da0)

  172. In other words, Narciso, Comey has as little creditability as Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump….

    kishnevi (413847)

  173. I think he means “partisanship” in the sense that it causes people to *discard* their common sense and standards, and accept a level of dishonesty on their own side, when they would not accept 1/10 that level of dishonesty in their opponents.

    Just because I don’t howl and scream every time Trump blunders or lies does not mean I have discarded my common sense and standards or decided to accept a certain level of dishonesty. It means that “common sense” dictates that all we have to work with is Trump and we are not going to change him now are we? Now if you believe that a coup in favor of a far left cabal of government operatives led by Hillary and/or Obama and their minions is a better situation than I guess we differ.

    You need to understand from my point of view if the left is able to topple Trump we will continue as a post American one party nation. I know a lot of leftists love the idea of one party rule. So do you want our country run by these college kids who won’t allow free speech? By the Deep State? By CNNMSMBCNBCCBSABC? By Cher, Kathy Griffin, DiCaprio and Amy Schumer? How about Pelosi, Sharpton, Maxine “The Mouth” Waters, Chucky Schumer? How fast do you think “Net Neutrality”, gun confiscation and speech codes can be implemented? How many more moslems do you believe America needs to import, a million, two million, twenty million? We took in thirty five million Mexicans we can surely do the same for those poor misunderstood members of the Religion of Peace.

    I also realize I can’t change what Trump is, but the enemies of America can change who the President is. Nothing has really changed since the primary, Patterico. When Trump won the nomination we had only two choices: a lying idiot or a lying communist. I chose the idiot. Now we still have only two choices: the same lying idiot or power in the hands of all those people (and more) I listed above.

    You might still hate the guy. You may still hate the choice. You may still (like me) hate being put into this position. But I will not be on the same team as Maxine Waters. EVER!*

    *the scream is just for Dustin. That poor abused, mistreated pinko.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  174. Actually no because he has actually used his office to deprive innocent people of theirvliberties and let criminals walk with a slap, how is that not crystal clear.

    I compare him to mark felt but felt didnt want the terrorists to win Although his actions did just that for the weatherman because of his wounded pride, like Samson he took down the temple, tell me where I’m wrong?

    narciso (7dba2c)

  175. I don’t think anybody has noticed that the conversation recounted in this New York Times story:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html

    took place on the day this other New York Times story appeared — the one that James Comey says was almost entirely wrong:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html

    That might be why he singled it out.

    At the time of his public testimony Comey had already told Senators (maybe in closed session, and definitely some time before) that the story was wrong, and one of the Senators brought that out:

    RISCH: I remember, you talked with us shortly after February 14th, when the “New York Times” wrote an article that suggested that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians. Do you remember reading that article when it first came out?

    COMEY: I do, it was about allegedly extensive electronic surveillance in their communications.

    RISCH: Correct. That upset you to the point where you surveyed the intelligence community to see whether you were missing something in that. Is that correct?

    COMEY: That’s correct. I want to be careful in open setting, but —

    RISCH: I’m not going to go any further than that, so thank you.

    In addition to that, after that, you sought out both Republican and Democrat Senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not the case. This is not factual. Do you recall that?

    COMEY: Yes.

    RISCH: Okay. So again, so the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?

    COMEY: In the main, it was not true. And again, all of you know this. Maybe the American people don’t.

    The challenge, and I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information, is the people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on, and going on are not talking about it. We don’t call the press to say, hey, you don’t that thing wrong about the sensitive topic. We have to leave it there. [There’s obviously some error here in the Politico transcript. I’ve got to look around for some better one, if there is one. -SF]

    I mentioned to the chairman the nonsense around what influenced me to make the July 5th statement. Nonsense. But I can’t go explaining how it is nonsense.

    So here we have a Senator revealing that Comey had previously called that story false privately (speaking to Senators) called that story false around the time it came out.

    Another Senator brought out that Comey had labeled that New York Times story wrong, probably referring to closed door testimony (where else could he have been asked about that and answered that it was inaccurate if the public didn’t know his answer?):

    COTTON: On February 14th the New York Times published the story, the headline of which was “Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence.” You were asked if that was an inaccurate story. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?

    COMEY: Yes.

    COTON: Do you have — at the time the story was published, any indication of any contact between Trump people and Russians, intelligence officers, other government officials or close associates of the Russian government?

    COMEY: That’s one I can’t answer sitting here.

    COTTON: We can discuss that in the classified setting then…

    Now, Comey stated that Donald Trump spent a lot of time in the February 14 meeting talking about leaks. He doesn’t go into more detail. He can have an excuse in that all of that is either classified or comncerns matters under unvestigation.

    Trump probably spent most of that meeting talking about leaks, and specifically maybe that New York Times story, and not about Mike Flynn. And that was maybe the reason he wanted to speak to him privately.

    It’s possible he thought Comey might be more honest with him in private.

    Trump might have started with Mike Flynn because he thought asking Comey to go eaay, if possible, on the Mike Flynn case was a less sensitive matter, (his real concern was malicious leaks emanating apparently from the FBI) and, according to Comey, he only mentioned it at the beginning, and close to the end, when Reince Preibus told him there were people waiting to see him.

    Comey says he never told Attorney General Jeff Sessions anything about that meeting besides the leaks.

    He also claims that he asked Sessions for him never to be left alone with Trump again and that Sessions said nothing, but Sessions says he was not silent but he told him they needed to be careful about following appropriate procedures when dealing with contacts with the White House – which is a way, probably, of saying no.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  176. #169 Tells you everything you need to know. Fact the Bureaucracy thinks themselves the good guys and the folks who don’t like it the bad guys. World is upside down.

    PURGE.

    Wanton and broad scale purge. Fire and don’t bother replacing.

    They are the enemy.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  177. marc rich should have spent life in prison. comey let him go. He has a long history with the grifters clinton.

    mg (31009b)

  178. Obstructing justice? LOL.

    That would be Comey for letting a lie flourish.

    Anyone claiming Trump is obstructing justice is simply a troll.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  179. “Trump. Doesn’t. Care. About. Policy.”

    Even if that were true – and it isn’t – The.People. Who. Work. For. Him. Do.

    Get the Republican-controlled Congress on board and we’ll see improvement.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  180. Just because I don’t howl and scream every time Trump blunders or lies does not mean I have discarded my common sense and standards or decided to accept a certain level of dishonesty. It means that “common sense” dictates that all we have to work with is Trump and we are not going to change him now are we? Now if you believe that a coup in favor of a far left cabal of government operatives led by Hillary and/or Obama and their minions is a better situation than I guess we differ.

    So many straw men in that paragraph, it boggles the mind. When has Patterico ever called for a coup? Find the quote and post the link here. If you can’t do that, then you owe our host an apology (which I am certain you will never give him).

    Chuck Bartowski (211c17)

  181. Patterico (115b1f) — 6/10/2017 @ 8:19 am

    But partisans gonna partisan

    Maybe taht’s why nobody has ppointed out that after Trump asked Comey to go easy on Mike Flynn, that’s exactly waht Comey did!

    It’s in nobody’s partisan interest to point that out.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/832013379124486148?p=v

    Jim Sciutto
    @jimsciutto

    Breaking: FBI NOT expected to pursue charges against #MichaelFlynn regarding phone calls w/Russian Ambassador, reports @evanperez

    3:45 PM – 15 Feb 2017

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  182. The five years prison for 18 U.S. Code § 371 is tacked on to the bigger offense. I said 10 but apparently the statute is only 5. So it’s five additional years of prison for Comey for dragging someone in to conspire.
    jcurtis (00837a) — 6/11/2017 @ 1:01 am

    — This is hilarious! You should take this act on the road.

    Icy (2211c8)

  183. Jim Sciutto
    @jimsciutto

    Replying to @jimsciutto

    More: FBI says Flynn was cooperative and provided truthful answers

    3:47 PM – 15 Feb 2017

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  184. Things apparently turned around on a dime:

    At 6:25 am February 15, Zero Hedge has this: (that’s Feb 15 in spite of the URL saying Feb 14)

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-14/mike-flynn-may-face-felony-charges-lying-fbi

    But by 10 pm Zero Hedge reports:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-15/fbi-reportedly-will-not-pursue-charges-against-cooperative-and-truthful-mike-flynn

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  185. What we do know is associated of rich including chagoury looted Nigeria hence bolo haram arose out of the ruin while state refused to designate it as a terror group.

    Subsequently under buhari there has been some progress less need for hashtags

    narciso (7dba2c)

  186. Comey may say, if asked, that actually they had already decided not to charge Mike Flynn, but he just didn’t want to tell that to Donald Trump on February 14. The truth may be they had 95% decided that, but not because they thought Mike Flynn was truthful – it was because they couldn’t say he was not, and because they don’t usually do that if there is no persistent attempt to deceive. Flynn was claiming by then, bad memory.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  187. i wonder if the corrupt sleazy fbi even bothered to record its interviews with this Mike Flynn loser

    they seem to just make this investigation stuff up as they go along

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  188. it’s no surprise Comey had no faith in his sleazy fbi staff to handle the Russian “matter” and begged begged begged for a special counsel to take over so the incompetent bumbling fbi could get this hot potato off their plate and go back to illegally spying on americans

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  189. Democrat holdover operatives colluded with propagandists at Democrat Party organs to goad a narcissistic idiot into reactions resulting in the appointment of a special counsel to conduct a prolonged investigation of the narcissistic idiot.

    Well played, Yosemite Sam President Trump.

    Rick Ballard (4fdfcf)

  190. Hoagie 178:

    Just because I don’t howl and scream every time Trump blunders or lies does not mean I have discarded my common sense and standards or decided to accept a certain level of dishonesty. It means that “common sense” dictates that all we have to work with is Trump and we are not going to change him now are we? 

    He will if his base decides to send Trump a message that he needs to change.

    Didn’t Trump supporters make it clear to him that they wanted conservative judges? Trump wanted judges like his sister, who is a Republican but was appointed a Third Circuit judge by Bill Clinton. (For those here who hold up PowerLine as their favorite blog because it supports Trump slightly more than Patterico, recall that the Powerline bloggers have repeatedly said that Trump’s sister is not a conservative judge.) Trump got the message about appointing conservative judges, and he can get other messages if his supporters use their heads instead of their hearts.

    In other words, he has shown he will change if his popularity with his base is on the line.

    DRJ (15874d)

  191. Steve, your constant need to brag about yourself is only matched by your need to insult people you disagree with.Steve, your constant need to brag about yourself is only matched by your need to insult people you disagree with.

    I’m quoting like less than ten books. But they’re the eight of so books that form the belief system of a billion and a half people.

    I’m not a nutcase.

    Dustin (ba94b2) — 6/11/2017 @ 6:33 am

    Yes you are. Get help.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  192. I suggest everyone start by telling Trump to get serious about immigration and the Wall, instead of tweeting how angry he is at lawyers and judges. Who does he think handles immigration cases?

    DRJ (15874d)

  193. i wonder if the corrupt sleazy fbi even bothered to record its interviews with this Mike Flynn loser

    they seem to just make this investigation stuff up as they go along

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 6/11/2017 @ 10:43 am

    Pro tip. They record every interview. Then they make notes. Then they destroy the recording. So their notes are the only official record.

    Any questions, Mr. feets?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  194. i wonder if the corrupt sleazy fbi even bothered to record its interviews with this Mike Flynn loser

    They never record interviews, but only make notes.

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/heres-the-super-secret-reason-theres-no-recording-of-hillary-clintons-fbi-interview/

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  195. pervy mitt romney’s slicked-up lil sex toy Paul Ryan has promised perv-daddy Mitt there will be no wall

    and Mitch McConnell?

    he’s not particularly eager to pass *anything* unless maybe it includes a pension increase for his corrupt pig wife

    it’s in this context President Trump’s been embracing politics as the art of the possible

    and in doing so he’s racked up far more impressive advancements of the conservative agenda than filth soldier-slaughtering george w. bush did in his two miserably ineffective and fiscally ruinous terms

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  196. Any questions, Mr. feets?

    does the corrupt comey fbi destroy evidence in an ecologically sustainable way?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  197. They never record interviews, but only make notes.

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/heres-the-super-secret-reason-theres-no-recording-of-hillary-clintons-fbi-interview/

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd) — 6/11/2017 @ 11:06 am

    You’ve never actually shared a country with an FBI agent, have you?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  198. As far as you know.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  199. There was something Google turned up about recording some interviews as of 2014.

    What I wonder is if they destroyed the recording of the Flynn-Kislyak interview after making a transcript. They only circulated a transcript.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  200. They never record interviews, but only make notes.

    that’s not my takeaway from the memo detailing the sleazy corrupt fbi’s whimsical policies on the recording of interviews [PDF]

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  201. oops i meant to say *filthy* soldier-slaughtering george w. bush

    i was going for an adjective there

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  202. I had sex with an FBI agent in the back seat of a ’68 Dodge Charger. And yes, she was a girl. As I could tell when she was wearing nothing but a badge.

    Normally I don’t tell tales out of school but this strikes me as important.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  203. Also it’s been close to half a century.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  204. In other words, he has shown he will change if his popularity with his base is on the line.
    DRJ

    You are correct of course, DRJ. However, my point was I/we cannot rely on Trump changing his mind (if he has one). We have to decide who we support based on our own observations, experiences and intuition. I won’t support any effort endorsed by Maxine Waters because to do so would be treason in my opinion. The same goes for the rest of those reprobates I mentioned and there are many more as you know. It was many years ago but I did take an oath to our country and though it may seem quaint and old fashion I still uphold that oath and have never renounced nor regretted it.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  205. Then you actually “got into” the FBI, right Steve57?

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  206. memo to file Mr. 57 recounted how he made sexy with a hot to trot fbi chick

    his recollection was that her badge remained visible throughout

    he seemed to suggest this matter would require no further investigation as “it’s been close to half a century” since this occurred

    needless to say i felt queasy at this suggestion

    please note this memo contains no classified information, and please to circulate widely

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  207. I suggest everyone start by telling Trump to get serious about immigration and the Wall, instead of tweeting how angry he is at lawyers and judges. Who does he think handles immigration cases?
    DRJ (15874d) — 6/11/2017 @ 10:58 am

    — As ever, the voice of reason around here.
    Trump has so fully committed to being the outsider, the drain-the-swamp guy, that he is rapidly heading towards a time where everyone is his enemy and nothing will get done. He spends an inordinate amount of time engaged in his they’re-all-out-to-get-me whine-fests; his most loyal supporters complain “Just let him do his job!” as Trump, rather than ignoring all of the noise and focusing on doing his job, instead joins those loyalists in harmony (“Just let me do my job!”). Secretly (or not so secretly) he probably enjoys the chaos, as it provides him with an unending supply of ‘them’ to rail against while it becomes ever clearer that The Great Negotiator maybe ain’t so great at working the art of the deal, after all.

    Icy (2211c8)

  208. Any questions, Mr. feets?
    does the corrupt comey fbi destroy evidence in an ecologically sustainable way?
    happyfeet (28a91b) — 6/11/2017 @ 11:10 am

    — Both the one copy of the memo, and the person to whom it was given, are in the wind.
    How much more “sustainable” could it be!

    Icy (2211c8)

  209. LOL

    Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York ousted by President Trump, said Sunday that he had become increasingly uncomfortable with Trump’s efforts to “cultivate some kind of relationship” with him…

    this sleazy corrupt Department of Justice is a hoot

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  210. yes yes according to Comey (so take it with a grain of salt) corrupt on-the-take ex-fbi kingpin Robert Mueller has all the memos

    the sleazy congresstrash haven’t even seen them yet cause the deep state doesn’t respect them

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  211. You are all wrong on FBI policies.

    Historically, the FBI did NOT record interviews. The agents took handwritten notes during the course of an interview — actually its FBI policy to have 2 agents present at any interview, with one agent tasked with the responsibility for taking notes.

    After the interview, the agent who was taking notes creates a “Memorandum of Interview” onto an FBI Form 302, using the contents from their handwritten notes. The draft 302 is reviewed by the second agent who sat in on the interview to make sure the content is consistent with the second agent’s recollection of the interview. Both agents present for the interview then sign off on the 302, which then goes to the supervisor for approval.

    The handwritten notes ARE preserved, and are placed in a “1A” file — which is simply a 5×7 envelope — which is labeled with the case number, subject name, name of person interviewed, name of agent, and date. That envelope is then indexed and placed in the case file for the investigation.

    The 302 is not considered the statement of the person interviewed, because that person is never given a chance to review the 302 and confirm its accuracy at the time it is made. It is considered the recorded recollection of the agent who conducted the interview

    One tactic that is used in cases that are expected to actually go to trial is to have the witness review the 302 during trial preparation, make any changes they think need to be made, and then sign the document. That becomes an adoptive admission by the witness that the Memorandum of Interview is accurate. That prevents the witness from backtracking on the witness stand and denying that they said something in the interview which the agent’s recorded.

    The FBI did adopt a new policy on making electronic recordings about 4-5 years ago. It now records subject interviews — meaning persons suspected of a crime at the time of a consensual interview. Those are electronically recorded out of concern of coerced or disputed confessions/admissions that might be made during the course of the interview so that there is an electronic recording which can be reviewed later if necessary to confirm what actually was said.

    But, as a general matter, the FBI still does not make electronic recordings of witness interviews.

    shipwreckedcrew (fb418b)

  212. So was she a Dana scully type or more like Alex parrish, the Bollywood queen?

    narciso (d1f714)

  213. I realize that’s an arbitrary range.

    narciso (d1f714)

  214. it still kinda sounds like they have a capricious and whimsical approach to these interviews

    but that’s misleading I think

    they clearly have different interview procedures and processes depending on whether or not the person they interview is a republican or a democrat

    this is a good way you can tell that the sleazy fbi agents are corrupt toads bloated with stupidity and malice

    on the other hand they put out in the back of a car at the drop of a hat

    so there’s that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  215. Now if you believe that a coup in favor of a far left cabal of government operatives led by Hillary and/or Obama and their minions is a better situation than I guess we differ.

    straw man
    ˌstrô ˈman/
    noun
    noun: strawman
    1.
    an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.
    “her familiar procedure of creating a straw man by exaggerating their approach”

    Patterico (115b1f)

  216. Come on, Hoagie. The whole “If you believe [insert 100% made-up bullshit characterization that nobody actually believes and you know it] then I guess we differ” thing is annoying. You’re better than that.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  217. The problem is like say the eickenrode notes that were lost.

    narciso (d1f714)

  218. eickenrode means “a place cleared of oak (forest),” and the illinois state tree is the white oak, which thrives in well-drained soils

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  219. Did you burn through all 4 Firestone wide oval rubbers, Steve 57?

    mg (31009b)

  220. there’s a worthy post up at Mr. Ace’s blog about the immortal Mr. Glenn Campbell

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  221. comeytose better have security

    mg (31009b)

  222. Donald Trump Jr. appears to corroborate Comey’s version of the Oval Office meeting with Trump

    http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-james-comey-oval-office-meeting-trump-2017-6

    Memo to the Trumps: silence is golden; it ain’t just for name plates and bathroom fixtures.

    “Never mind what I told you. I’m telling you!” – Captain Morton [James Cagney] ‘Mister Roberts’ 1955

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  223. trump made him some trashy stupid babies

    but when was the last president what didn’t

    eisenhower?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  224. yup that’s my best guess

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  225. Donald Trump Jr. was tweeting all through the hearing. I don’t think he was consulting his father. Here he just says that assuming what Comey said was true, that’s no directive. Trump has not said whether he said anything, but he did hint he might have tapes, and taht might have kept Comey more honest aND INDEED dONALD

    (Comey carried it oujt in any case and leaked – or some peole at the FBI leaked – that the Flynn would not be charged, but nobody has picked up on that. It was told to CNN by mid-afternoon the next day.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  226. A lifelong Republican, Eisenhower voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, citing dissatisfaction with Republican incumbent George W. Bush’s management of U.S. foreign policy.

    interesting

    he caught onto Bush well before me, and probably a lot of you guys too

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  227. boosh and the 16 year war – and counting. Better win this soon. Jetsons vs. The Flintstones.

    mg (31009b)

  228. Here he just says that assuming what Comey said was true, that’s no directive.

    that’s true Mr. F

    Donald Jr. is clearly saying that President Trump’s message to Comey was that “you gotta do your job” (you can go straight the the 49 second mark to hear the relevant bit

    bottom-feeding fake news clickbait site Hot Air says this however:

    Trump Jr: Yeah, my dad told Comey he hoped he’d go easy on Flynn. So what?

    so a lot of people are lying about this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  229. And indeed Donald Trump was largely satisfied with Comey’s testimony, disputing only two points: The Jan 27 “loyalty” request and whetehr he told Comey to drop a case – that’s nto necessari;y a denial of what Comey testified to.

    Comey wrote:

    https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15758324/read-james-comey-testimony-president-donald-trump-congress-senate

    I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

    The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide.[sic]

    Comeys prepared statement left out teh word “by” afetr teh word “Abide” Gramamtically it should have read:

    The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President’s request, which we did not intend to abide by

    But abide by it, they did.

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/fbi-not-expected-to-pursue-charges-against-flynn/index.html

    Flynn changed story to FBI, no charges expected

    By Evan Perez, CNN Justice Correspondent

    Updated 4:14 AM ET, Fri February 17, 2017

    Washington (CNN) — The FBI is not expected to pursue any charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn regarding a phone call with Russia’s ambassador, barring new information that changes what they know, law enforcement officials told CNN Thursday.

    Flynn was fired by President Donald Trump earlier this week after it was revealed that he withheld information from Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the US. A US official confirmed to CNN last week that Flynn and Kislyak discussed sanctions, among other matters, during a December call.

    Flynn initially told investigators sanctions were not discussed. But FBI agents challenged him, asking if he was certain that was his answer. He said he didn’t remember.

    The FBI interviewers believed Flynn was cooperative and provided truthful answers. Although Flynn didn’t remember all of what he talked about, they don’t believe he was intentionally misleading them, the officials say.

    Further, then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates delayed notifying the White House until after Flynn was interviewed. At that point, FBI Director James Comey did not object to notifying the White House counsel.

    There is still an ongoing, broader FBI review of Flynn and Russia-related dealings.

    This story has been updated.

    An earlier version of the story is here:

    http://ktla.com/2017/02/16/fbi-not-expected-to-pursue-charges-against-michael-flynn-law-enforcement-officials/

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/fbi-not-expected-to-pursue-charges-against-flynn/index.html

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  230. remember also Mr. F the only reason the corrupt FBI knew about Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador is because they were illegally spying on Obama’s political enemies for him, then unmasking the individuals in the conversations and comey-spreading the transcripts as far and wide as they could

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  231. Isn’t it weird that it took me til now to realize that DCSCA and happyfeet are basically the exact same person (or at least project the exact same persona)?

    Leviticus (8c06a6)

  232. @52 Leon

    I was just thinking your comment is the literary equivalent of dry firing. Any firearms or archery enthusiast will tell you it’s a good way to break a firing pin or a limb.

    It’s also no good at all in a drive by unless you want no standard to judge your accuracy.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  233. It was many years ago but I did take an oath to our country and though it may seem quaint and old fashion I still uphold that oath and have never renounced nor regretted it.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 6/11/2017 @ 11:42 am

    You and me both, bruddah.

    I’ll let you Army types content yourselves in the belief I joined the Navy to hide out. But when I joined back in the eighties it looked like the Army and Air Force was the garrison force. Gulf of Sidra, Preying Mantis, if action was to be had, you needed to join the Navy.

    My fellow squid fills you in on the details. All the Gallant Men

    pps 184-186

    “…Before we headed out to battle in the Pacific Theater, we sailed into Pearl Harbor, stopping to refuel and resupply. As you can imagine, I had mixed feelings about returning there, unsure how it would hit me. Most on the ship knew I had served on the Arizona, They had seen my scars, asked about my experiences.

    As we made our way slowly into the harbor, we passed the Arizona. I had not seen it since the morning of the attack. I could not believe my eyes. All the superstructure had been cut away. – for scrap no doubt. Where once a great ship was moored, there remained only its ghostly visage, hovering eeriliy beneath the water’s surface

    Every emotion within me started rising, quietly pooling in my eyes.

    Then something happened I wasn’t expecting, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for. A call came over the public address system, mustering all hands to the fantail. When everyone was there the captain called out, “Is Stratton here?”

    I raised my hand, “Here, sir.”

    He waived me over. Then without fanfare of any kind he presented me with a medal. The Purple Heart. The entire crew applauded. The Captain didn’t give a speech, and he didn’t ask me to give one. He just handed me the medal and that was it – a simple gesture of respect and recognition.

    I was relieved. I hadn’t been asked to speak – if I had opened my mouth , I doubt I would have been able to control my emotions. Even so, it was an extremely difficult moment for me. It would take me years to find my voice where the Arizona was concerned, but that display of unity and honor shown by my shipmates on the Stack as we glided past the remains of the Arizona was a moment of healing, any hospital treatment had been. Though I may have left Pearl Harbor on a stretcher, I had returned on a destroyer. I had recovered my strength, as had my country. I was ready to meet what was coming – and I was bringing a boatload of reinforcements with me…

    I have a tradition to uphold, Rev. To return with a destroyer and a boatload of reinforcements.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  234. speaking of america’s sleazy and corrupt fbi cia nsa intelligence trash

    there’s a creepy and obvious parallel between how cowardly corrupt comey spread around his sleazy womanish memos and the eleventh-hour directive george soros’s slimy butt boy barack obama issued

    here’s comey’s testimony:

    So my thinking was, if I write it in such a way that I don’t include anything that would trigger a classification, that’ll make it easier for us to discuss, within the FBI and the government, and to — to hold on to it in a way that makes it accessible to us.

    here’s how the new york times reported on how barack obama and the corrupt nsa cia fbi put in motion a plan to widely disseminate the fruits of their illegal spying program:

    At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government — and, in some cases, among European allies. This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American analysts to share information.

    interesting huh?

    America’s sleazy fbi nsa trash are obviously colluding with each other to destablize America’s political system

    Mr. Putin can only look on in envy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  235. @235/239=yawn= As noted on an earlier thread, perhaps west of the Hudson, the warm, subtle touch of Manhattan management techniques appear alien, but in my 25 years of working in the corporate canyons of the Big Apple, when your bosses’ boss cuts across a level or two of senior management, invites you into his big office with the nice chairs and skyline view, closes the door, sits you down and says, “I hope you’ll…” something; there’s no ambiguity; he wants the ‘something’ done– and usually in a New York minute.

    “Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?” – Arthur Jensen [Ned Beatty] ‘Network’ 1976

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  236. “I had sex with an FBI agent in the back seat of a ’68 Dodge Charger. And yes, she was a girl. As I could tell when she was wearing nothing but a badge.

    Normally I don’t tell tales out of school but this strikes me as important.”

    Steve57 (0b1dac) — 6/11/2017 @ 11:36 am

    Were there handcuffs involved? Be honest…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  237. That is interesting, happyfeet. It means they talked “around” classified material instead of “about” classified material so it could legally be dissipated to their co-conspirators without fear of reprisal. In effect they were “like” traitors…but not really traitors. Putin is proud. All those years when fools thought the commies were beaten they were moving into government jobs. I guess soon it will be the moslems turn at the DoJ, NSA etc.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  238. Yeah Steve. She had her badge tattooed on the back of her neck.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca)

  239. ““James Comey is a ‘leaker’ — but that doesn’t make him a criminal.” That’s the headline of a Washington Post story by Matt Zapotosky.

    The Post’s story tries to create the impression that, in fact, Comey is not a criminal. But Zapatosky undertakes no analysis of the law. Instead, he cites “legal analysts.”

    However, none of the analysts in question addresses the question of whether Comey committed a crime.”

    — Paul Mirengoff

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/comeys-calculations.php

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  240. I think it’s that way everywhere, DCSCA. But Comey isn’t just any powerless underling intimidated by the boss. He has the training and status to stand up to intimidation. I think he was a poor choice to get even by leaking, but it is speaking a language Trump understands. He likes to get even, too, and he often uses the media to do it.

    DRJ (15874d)

  241. @249- Don’t think it was an intimidation issue, DRJ– there was no ambiguity as ‘the junior Don’ bragged on Fox. He gave him two weeks, called about ‘that thing we had’– no action so he fired his azz. Very NY. But not very Washington; Comey swopped ends on him and it worked. You’d think the Trumps would know ‘silence is golden’ and not just for name plates and bathroom fixtures.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  242. I was just thinking your comment is the literary equivalent of dry firing. Any firearms or archery enthusiast will tell you it’s a good way to break a firing pin or a limb.

    You gotta hang around a better class of firearms or archery enthusiasts. Maybe take a couple of lessons yourself. You won’t learn how to shoot a gun properly without a lot of dry firing. And you will not break the firing pin unless your gun is a cheap piece of crap to begin with and probably not even then.

    As for archery, I’ve read that about some crossbows. It might even be true but I doubt it. Maybe break the cable. It is definitely not true about bows. Drawing and releasing for hours without an arrow is how you learn proper form and build strength. In the old days, soldiers would do it in formation and the strings would have little bells so the sergeants would know by listening if a trainee was shirking.

    nk (dbc370)

  243. @249- P.S.- FWIW, you’re a good egg, DRJ. A civil conservative w/civil conversation. Some of the assorted nuts should try it. Age mellows. Now that Batman’s dead, who’s is left to save us… 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  244. Yeah Steve. She had her badge tattooed on the back of her neck.

    Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 6/11/2017 @ 2:17 pm

    No, she was, swear to G-d, wearing it on a lanyard around her neck.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  245. I didn’t believe she was an FBI agent.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  246. @82 Dustin

    I judge a man by the context of his character.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  247. And I think if we took a vote whether it was Dustin or Steve57 who was the nutcase, it would be Steve57 who would be advised to stay clear of squirrels.

    nk (dbc370)

  248. torture trash gotta be trashy Mr. Colonel

    it’s kinda their thing

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  249. I’m hunting wabbit

    mg (31009b)

  250. Yeah, well, I’m still the guy who scored in the back seat of a muscle car with a federal agent.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  251. A female federal agent.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  252. @256- Jaysus. Doesn’t matter what side of the road you’re on, time to take his car keys away.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  253. The way theComey hearing should have gone down…

    “Mr. Comey, to be blunt, sir, your well-established pattern of public virtue-signaling even as you refuse to answer questions from both Senate and House committees about your own behavior and the behavior of the FBI, has caused us to reconsider our normal procedures. By refusing to be responsive to the American people’s elected representatives, your actions have made you appear more interested in promoting your own self-interest and/or a political agenda than in seeking justice. As a result, we will dispense of your opening statement―which was already publicly issued ahead of this hearing―and instead move on to a series of questions in seven broad categories for you to answer about the FBI’s role in this investigation and your participation in it.

    As we proceed, we would like to remind you, sir, that the FBI is a law enforcement tool created by the Congress to assist the president in the carrying out of his constitutional duty to execute the laws of the United States. It has no power apart from the powers we have granted it and it is answerable, only, to the president himself. As such, it is answerable to the Congress as the representatives of the sovereign people of the United States from whom, of course, all legitimate authority derives.”

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/11/way-comey-hearing-gone-day-one/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  254. @88 Rev Hoagie

    To your point they already have one USS “I Forgot to Duck”.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  255. I’ve indulged in my share of fantasies about how the questioning should have gone, Col. H.

    In none of my fantasies, though, do I ask argumentative questions like most of the ones in your link, because all they will produce is vague and windy counter-arguments. I assure you that Comey can hold his own in that kind of battle against any interrogator.

    This isn’t the way to to it. There’s a genuine art to structuring and asking questions in a hostile cross-examination of a capable expert witness. Doing so without a judge to preside and compel the witness when he’s being nonresponsive is even harder. Following this script, though, would have gotten only “I don’t knows” and long speeches in return, not the kind of “Oh you’ve caught me! Oh I’m hosed!” reaction that the writer of this piece seems to imagine.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  256. I do applaud the writer’s effort and creativity.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  257. Seriously, “Think of the irony of your actions.” You think that’s not going to be an opening for a five-minute self-aggrandizing speech?

    Beldar (fa637a)

  258. But Comey is a stand-up, straight shooting hombre, Beldar!

    “The FBI, CIA and NSA are eager to pose as scrupulous, disinterested arbiters of Russian meddling. They are not eager to be seen as victims and patsies of Russian meddling. To use Mr. Comey’s phrase, the performance of our national intelligence directorate is the one rock that hasn’t been turned over.

    So here’s a question for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI chief himself. Will he accept the current framing that his Russia investigation is about everything except whether his former agency was semi-wittingly duped into some of its interventions by Kremlin danglings—there’s nothing to see here, move along.

    Or will he have the courage to ask the requisite questions the FBI, CIA and NSA don’t want asked about their own, perhaps, gullibility and overeagerness to play in domestic politics because of their dislike of Mr. Trump?

    Washington’s desire to get to the bottom of Russian meddling is probably less than you imagine. If not, the places to start are the Trump dossier and the role of Russian disinformation in promoting Mr. Comey’s intervention in the Hillary Clinton email matter.”

    — WSJ

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  259. He’s a truth, justice and the American way kind of guy.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  260. Mr. Colonel’s link may not offer a useful and effective script per se, but it more than ably demonstrates what a low-caliber game p.o.s. Richard Burr brought to these proceedings, and moreover it demonstrates that this had to have been an intentional choice on the part of this sleazy execrable deep state lapdog.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  261. Let me point out something else: This testimony was all compressed into a single day. In that single day, Comey’s testimony was split in an open, televised morning session and a follow-up closed session for sensitive and confidential matters. In the morning, and presumably at least to some extent in the afternoon, the time had to be split to give an equal opportunity to, say, embarrassingly impaired Sen. John McCain, a non-lawyer who couldn’t manage many complete sentences that day, and much younger, more capable senators, some of whom have (although they seem to have forgotten) some legal training. The witness is there voluntarily, under no compulsion of subpoena, under no compulsion against calling a halt or walking away, especially if told, “We’re sorry, this is taking longer than we expected, and we need you to come back again for further testimony tomorrow.”

    It’s hard to imagine a set of conditions less well suited to a thorough swabbing out, and of course, the possibility of conducting it in a way to present an overall theme and narrative is utterly lost.

    Comey surely knew all this, planned for it, hoped for it, and was enormously gratified by it. He certainly exploited it.

    But nobody on Capitol Hill is serious about doing an effective examination of a hostile expert witness testifying under oath. They’re more serious about speechmaking to get reelected. This is a longstanding and bipartisan phenomenon, and it frustrates me mightily. Don’t misunderstand me — while this is hard to do right, there are literally thousands of able trial lawyers around the country, any one of whom could do a better job than all of the GOP senators put together. If necessary, they could literally write the questions out for the GOP senators to divide up and then read, verbatim, in order — and they’d get a better result than they did.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  262. It misses the point that hearing like Seinfeld was about nothing substantial, it was a waste of most every body’s time. As a committee concerned with intelligence.

    narciso (d1f714)

  263. Comey’s been running rings around stupid Congress-critters for years and years, ever since he graduated from line responsibility as an AUSA to an administrative responsibility with DoJ at a sufficiently high level to occasionally be sent to testify, which goes back at least to the turn of the millennium. I forget whose line it was — Jonah Goldberg’s maybe? Someone at NR I think — to the effect that Comey has been to busy making himself look like a Boy Scout to actually be one.

    Capable questioning could have made a considerable difference in the optics, and might have made a considerable difference in the fund of factual information available to the public, including a great many particulars which weren’t explored, either for lack of time or, more truthfully, because of lack of coordination among GOP senators and their respective jealousy about TV time.

    I maintain, though, as I did in the minutes after the end of the public session, that the strategic significance of Comey’s testimony was foremost in terms of artillery shells dodged. Now if Trump can STFU about this stuff in public for a while and quit stirring up new controversies by tromping on his own sword (or tiny lancet, whatever it may be), he might actually get something else done, and there’s at least a chance that might be something good for the country.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  264. I’m obliged to withhold details, but I know of a major American motion picture made in my lifetime, one which most commenters here have surely seen, which is famous for its superb and accurate courtroom scenes. They’ve been credited to the screenwriter, who’s now very famous and successful, when in fact, they were plagiarized by him from an actual trial, word for word, question for question. The parts of the movie which are the writer’s own original word are the most preposterous and not-real-life parts of the courtroom scenes, which almost are made to seem plausible by being surrounded by the plagiarized ones taken from an actual transcript.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  265. nk (dbc370) — 6/11/2017 @ 3:25 pm

    But still, Steve’s completely OT posts are usually the most intelligent posts. Certainly the most interesting.

    (This is not to disparage certain other folks, such, but not limited to , Beldar and SWC. Which are intelligent, but usually lack the entertainment value which can be found in Steve’s posts.

    kishnevi (98ea1b)

  266. yes yes I hope President Trump understands that these ridiculous dopey hearings have spurred a backlash against not just the lugubrious womanish comey but against the whole ridiculous narrative being peddled by failmerica’s risibly corrupt intelligence agencies and the CNN Kathy Griffin fake news propaganda slut media

    he needs to let this purulent jackfruit ripen and burst

    that means it’s time to go to our quiet place Mr. Trump and if we need to speak let’s use our hubcap-stealin voices for a little bit

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  267. The deep states throw mire chum in the water to Schmidt, entous it al has anything come of this, whereas sarah carter has turned up evidence of mass surveillance and unnasking of political opponents, then there’s the pursuit
    of the swan bros spy ring which seem to have worked for 1/3 of all the drmicrats one reporter is following this pashto crowder clan

    narciso (d1f714)

  268. Yes, Narciso. I’m old enough to remember a time me when “journalists” would’ve taken a keen interest in a major story like this Awan Bros thing. Now they are content with being perceived as a Fifth Column.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  269. “cross-examination of a capable expert witness. Doing so without a judge to preside and compel the witness when he’s being nonresponsive is even harder. Following this script, though, would have gotten only “I don’t knows” and long speeches in return, not the kind of “Oh you’ve caught me! Oh I’m hosed!” reaction that the writer of this piece seems to imagine.”

    – Beldar

    I learned that in my third civil deposition. The first one had an extensive record and involved a hostile DNA analyst. It went really well. The second involved a friendly and bloviating “defense” witness (a whistleblower) – it went okay, but very self-serving. The third involved a hostile defense witness. Got a lot of “I dont know about that”‘s. Didn’t land much.

    I learned some lessons.

    Leviticus (8c06a6)

  270. untainted by anything resembling a legal education, i use jackfruit as a metaphor

    you’re welcome

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  271. I took one course in con law as an undergrad and one in international business law in grad school.

    http://www.weaselzippers.us/343301-comey-didnt-tell-truth-about-leak-and-he-may-have-leaked-before

    narciso (d1f714)

  272. If Loretta Lynch is asked to testify and asks for immunity what happens?

    mg (31009b)

  273. Then she goes back to the reboot of Carmen Sandiego.

    urbanleftbehind (e6dd3d)

  274. Dammit, mg, I thought you had the video of his infamous 1976 Enoch Powell salute http://thequietus.com/articles/20701-eric-clapton-racism-morrissey

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  275. 263.

    As a result, we will dispense of your opening statement―which was already publicly issued ahead of this hearing―

    They actually did dispense with the reading of the opening statement. Comey may have released it himself, possibly in a bid to get two days worth of news coverage. At least someone wrote that he did.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  276. Now that we know that Mueller protege Comey is implicated in wrongdoing, we will get to see if his friend Mueller has the principle to step aside. Or, if he balks, whether Rosenstein has the principle to tell Mueller to step aside. Those seem like mightly long odds to me on both counts.

    That so many people will embrace corruption if it accomplishes the prime objective, is beyond disheartening. But that’s just who #NeverTrumpers are.

    All the sinners saints . . .

    ThOR (c9324e)

  277. https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/11/way-comey-hearing-gone-day-one/

    Question 1. I don’t think Comey was asked why he declined to appear before another committee, but he must have given some reasons privately during the negotiations for his appearance. Now Attorney General Sessions also declined or asked to be excused from the Appropriations Committees, where he was to present a budget, saying that it had been indicated that a lot of questions were going to be about this, and said he would testify on the same day before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he said was an appropriate forum for that, and he was sending Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to testify about the budget instead. (although he may get something about this thing too)

    Question 2:

    2. Did you also create memos for every phone call and every meeting you had with President Obama? With Attorneys General Lynch and Sessions? If you did not, why did you treat your interactions with Lynch over the Clinton email server investigation differently from your interactions with President Trump over the Russia probe?

    asked and answered. No he did not he said, and he on;y had twoo meetings with President Obama.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  278. COTTON: You said you did not record your conversations with President Obama or President Bush in memos. Did you do so with Attorney General Jeff Sessions or any other senior member of the Trump Department of Justice?

    COMEY: No. I think — I am sorry.

    COTTON: Did you record conversations or memos with the attorney general or any other senior member of the Obama administration?

    COMEY: No.

    As for why he started doing this with Trump:

    WARNER: ….Now you’ve had extensive experience at the Department of justice and at the FBI. You’ve worked under presidents of both parties. What was about that [first, Jan. 6] meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record?

    COMEY: A combination of things. I think the circumstances, the subject matter, and the person I was interacting with. Circumstances, first, I was alone with the president of the United States, or the president-elect, soon to be president. The subject matter I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI’s core responsibility, and that relate to the president, president-elect personally, and then the nature of the person. I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document. That combination of things I had never experienced before, but had led me to believe I got to write it down and write it down in a very detailed way.

    WARNER: I think that’s a very important statement you just made. Then, unlike your dealings with presidents of either parties in your past experience, in every subsequent meeting or conversation with this president, you created a written record. Did you feel that you needed to create this written record of these memos, because they might need to be relied on at some future date?

    COMEY: Sure. I created records after conversations that I think I did it after each of our nine conversations. If I didn’t, I did it for nearly all of them especially the ones that were substantive. I knew there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the Independence of our investigative function. That’s what made this so difficult is it was a combination of circumstances, subject matter and the particular person.

    WARNER: And so in all your experience, this was the only president that you felt like in every meeting you needed to document because at some point, using your words, he might put out a non-truthful representation of that meeting.

    COMEY: That’s right, Senator. As I said, as FBI director I interacted with President Obama, I spoke only twice in three years, and didn’t document it. When I was Deputy Attorney General I had a one one-on-one with President Bush been I sent an email to my staff [here again something is wrong with the Politico transcript – SF] but I didn’t feel with president Bush the need to document it in that I way. [sic] Again, because of the combination of those factors, just wasn’t present with either President Bush or President Obama.

    WARNER: I think that is very significant. I think others will probably question that…

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  279. urbanleftbehind- Forgot about that.

    mg (31009b)

  280. ThOR, you’re making the mistake I’m seeing people all over the internet making.

    Mueller wasn’t appointed to investigate or prosecute American government personnel who’ve made illegal leaks to American media sources.

    He was appointed to head a foreign intelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Comey is not a target, a subject, a witness, a participant, an investigator, or a lawyer in that matter anymore, and won’t be ever again.

    Mueller won’t be investigating Comey. If someone is — and I agree someone should, specifically re the leaking he admitted to — then there would indeed need to be a new analysis of potential conflicts of interest within the DoJ, and that might (but might not) lead to the appointment of a completely different special counsel with a completely different assignment of responsibility and power.

    I’d love it if Trump, with Sessions at his side — because Sessions isn’t recused on things unrelated to the 2016 election — announced that they’re creating a new internal division within DoJ, which they intend to staff exclusively with top personnel chosen from far-flung U.S. Attorneys’ offices nowhere remotely close to the Beltway, to focus hereafter exclusively and vigorously on investigating and prosecuting government leakers.

    But he won’t, because something like that might end up coming back to bite Trump, who has a long, long, long history of leaking and sock-puppeting even as a private citizen, and who certainly continues (like other POTUSes, certainly going back at least to FDR) to do so when it suits their own political purposes. I think it stinks, but it’s not going to change.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  281. because something like that might end up coming back to bite Trump, who has a long, long, long history of leaking and sock-puppeting

    Hahaha! Beldar remains the best commenter here.

    Those long lines of investigations demanded by Trump’s supporters are often great issues, but the intention is to protect the con on the American people. I’m sad that my political party, the GOP, has left me, but it definitely has. All those years I was agreeing about getting to the bottom of so many scandals, but I thought the issue was the scandal, not the partisanship of the scandal. Now we know better.

    Comey has made his share of mistakes, but he’s been honest about what he did, and the same people shouting he should be in prison are not bothered at all by leaks or anything else, to include Trump boasting he could shoot someone in broad daylight and his lackeys would laugh it off.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  282. 3. He’s quite clearly been trying to keep the actual text of these memos (and the originals for whatever forensic value they may have) out of the hands of the committee.

    He said he had them while he wrote hs prepared statement and then turned them over (and any and all copies) to Mueller.

    He had to admit the Columbia University Law Professor Danuel Richman (pr other intermediaries) might have one.

    4, 5, 6 7 8 9 and 10 may go as to Comey’s dishonesty, although it’s not clear what he’s being dishonest for.

    Comey claimed specifically only about the Feb 14 memo that he wrote it so as to be unclassified (which means he avoided discussing the detaila of the leaks that Trump was complaining about, or is that an excuse for why it says nothing?)

    He’s saying he wrote the Feb 14 memo with the intention that it could be leaked!

    The proposed questions don’t seem to understand that the May 16 leak (after the tweet) was about a different matter (the feb 14 meeting) than the May 11 leak. The May 11 leak, about the Jan 27 meeting, was never repeated or amplified.

    Comey also did not say that he kept memos on every meeting until I think just last week, in his prepared statement, released Wednesday.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  283. …I learned some lessons

    Leviticus (8c06a6) — 6/11/2017 @ 5:02 pm

    Lesson one. Brandy, you’re a fine girl.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVx8L7a3MuE

    Lesson two. There’s nothing you can say with a .30-06 that you can’t say with a .338 Win Mag.
    With an exclamation point.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  284. This whole brouhaha came from a dossier ordered up by a Russian akmetchu. Who either comedy or Mecca e considered paying for and a very flawed. Contractirs report, tied to the dnc which failed to exam the makware. So there is no memo and btw cimey omitted thread calls with trump out if his testimony.

    narciso (d1f714)

  285. The .338 Lapua enjoyed a brief heydey as a sniper round.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  286. FBI itself needs investigating. It is corruption.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  287. Cheap hyperbole is the steam valve of the disgruntled, I suppose. But it certainly is unattractive.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  288. It’s hard not to be on Trump’s side when one sees things like this: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/major-lawsuit-against-trump-promised-d-c-maryland-officials-n770846

    nk (dbc370)

  289. @ Dustin,

    Those long lines of investigations demanded by Trump’s supporters are often great issues, but the intention is to protect the con on the American people.

    This is most depressing of all because the motivation is not in the interest of truth and justice. Instead, it’s to nurture the worst kind of partisanship: the kind that seeks to protect that which damages conservatism most. And to make it all the more depressing is that this is what the majority of Republicans now want the GOP to be.

    Dana (023079)

  290. It sucks, Dana. I don’t think Republicans are bad people or anything. I was one for most of my adult life. We all must make compromises, and some frogs haven’t realized how hot the water got. but right now, the GOP looks so bad, and it’s going to have such a long-term effect on the course of our nation.

    Instead of 2016 being that golden opportunity for reform we were waiting for, the response to Obama we thoughtfully hoped for and almost reached, it’s pure emotion, taken advantage of by a con artist and his core haters, and it’s worse than squandered. The reaction to trump will be a much more ‘progressive’ landscape. We all know this as Trump gets more and more detached from the consequences of his leadership.

    I hope I’m wrong. Hell, I was hoping Trump would be successful for months, but at this point that’s just being polite… he’s a failed president, period.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  291. The lines have been drawn for a while now. You have to choose a side. Investigate the sideshow, see where it leads, and then expect those blinded people – whatever the catalyst for the blindness – who lined up with the malevolent forces, to own up to their mistakes and poor judgment.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  292. Bledar,

    You are wonderfully gracious when correcting my all-to-frequent errors.

    Thank you.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  293. And, of course, your insights are very helpful.

    I do like reading your comments.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  294. Thanks, ThOR. If it makes you feel better, I think Glenn Reynolds also is assuming, incorrectly I think, that Mueller is going to be investigating Comey, and certainly his commenters are (despite my efforts to explain otherwise).

    One made a very fine point, though, which I’ll reprint here along with my reaction to it there, because it’s actually something that I think you might find quite encouraging. A commenter named Solon GT was arguing that Mueller’s friendship with Comey conflicts him (Mueller) out under DoJ regs at 28 C.F.R. § 45.2 regarding circumstances when friendships and personal circumstances can require disqualification of a particular DoJ lawyer from a particular investigation or prosecution. This can include a “personal relationship,” including close friendships in some circumstances, between the prosecutor and a “person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution.”

    My response to Solon GT, as it was to you, is that Comey or other American leakers aren’t within the scope of Mueller’s present appointment as special counsel, nor likely to come within it.

    Another commenter, though, posting as “jack dobson” pointed out — correctly — the hypothetical possibility of Mueller having to deal with Comey as a witness in a hypothetical future criminal investigation into whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice in firing Comey, even if Comey were no a subject or target in his own right in anything that Mueller had authority over:

    Comey would be a material witness if Mueller pursued obstruction of justice charges, though. In that event, the rules would require Mueller to step aside. We don’t know if he has expanded the investigation beyond Russia, though.

    In response to which, I wrote:

    Finally, an intelligent observation! Thank you, Mr. Dobson! You’re exactly right, as long as the emphasis is on that “would be.”

    All lawyers, including DoJ lawyers, including Mueller in his temporary capacity as special counsel, have to continually reassess whether they have any potential or active conflict of interest, and they especially must do that when there are new parties added. When and if Mueller came to the conclusion that there is evidence GENERATED IN THE RUSSIA FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE investigation — he’s not free to just go off looking for obstruction of justice in the wind, or from anywhere —
    which is sufficient to start an obstruction of justice investigation against Trump, then he’d have to reassess his (Mueller’s) and his colleagues’ conflicts situation vis-a-vis not only the POTUS but also additional material witnesses. At that point, Mueller’s job would be to refer that spin-off criminal investigation back to Rosenstein, probably with a recommendation that Rosenstein appoint a separate special counsel for THAT.

    If you believe the Mueller is indeed a capable and ethical lawyer — and there’s not a single congressman or senator of either party who seems to have any doubts on that score, he was a consensus choice as the best possible person to be special counsel — then your signal that things have changed, and that the POTUS actually is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, would be the day Rosenstein announced that new special counsel. Until then, Rosenstein is the canary in this coal mine, and unless and until he appoints another special counsel, you can reasonably infer that Trump is still NOT the subject of an active criminal investigation in which Comey would be a material witness.

    However, I gather from your other comments here that you — unlike everyone on the Hill — have no confidence in Mueller’s ethics. You’re certainly entitled to that opinion, but if you’re correct, then despite all the endemic corruption within the Beltway, it seems like you could find at least one Congressman somewhere who’d join you in it. Is there one?

    So: Unless you think Mueller is so in the tank that he’d take on, head-on, 28 C.F.R. § 45.2 and try to cross-examine Jim Comey as a witness in an obstruction of justice indictment against Trump based solely on a newly initiated criminal investigation initiated after Comey’s firing, you can use the continued non-appointment of another special counsel as implicit confirmation that Trump’s still not subject to a criminal investigation for obstruction of justice.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  295. I know that’s not exactly a full-throated “He’s not a crook!” ringing endorsement. But yeah, he could use it in 2020: “RE-ELECT TRUMP: Still not under criminal investigation!”

    Beldar (fa637a)

  296. From Comey’s prepared statement (now adopted as sworn testimony):

    I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

    The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

    The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI’s leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

    ….

    Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

    In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

    What struck me about all this is what’s not mentioned or explained, but apparently necessarily presumed by Comey and the IC leaders with whom he had this pre-briefing discussion:

    If you or I ask the FBI whether we’re the subject of an ongoing investigation, criminal or counter-intelligence or otherwise, we’ll get the standard “The FBI, as a matter of policy, neither confirms nor denies nor comments upon yada yada yada” form letter.

    But all these folks agree that even before he was inaugurated as the POTUS, Donald Trump was indeed entitled to an answer to that question. Indeed, Comey thought Trump was entitled to the answer without even having asked it.

    Now, I don’t buy the malarky about Trump having been misled by that episode into thinking that made it okay for him to ask for details about ongoing criminal investigations like Flynn’s.

    Still, I’d very much like to ask Comey and everyone else who was at that meeting about what was said, if anything, about this being a deviation from the FBI’s normal policies. In particular: Why is it, exactly, that a new President is entitled to be free from “uncertain[ty] about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct”? Why are his rights better than or different from John Q. Citizen in this regard? How did they all come to share that same presumption?

    After pondering the subject for a few days, without having done any research on it, I’m increasingly convinced that there not only should be, but necessarily must be, such a special exception all the time for every POTUS (including POTUSes-elect). It’s not just to keep the POTUS from unnecessary distraction and fretting, although that’s a legitimate consideration. It’s based instead on the singular distinction of the POTUS as the one person at the very top of the Executive Branch pyramid — the one person who holds the power to pardon, and the one person entitled, as the Unitary Executive, to take up in his sole discretion and decision any portion of the powers he’s delegated to any of his inferior Article II officers under the Appointments clause.

    Here it is at it’s simplest, in ideal form: The POTUS must always be able to ask the AG, “Am I the subject of a criminal investigation?” and get a straight answer to that question. Otherwise he can never begin to fairly or accurately evaluate the circumstances that might oblige an ethical POTUS, believing himself innocent, might nevertheless resign from office to permit himself to be tried as a private citizen.

    We’ve never had a definitive answer to the question of whether a sitting POTUS can be indicted for a criminal offense. Many argue, and I’m among them, that he can’t be, unless and until Congress has first exercised its political remedies through impeachment, conviction, and removal from office, so that his successor can act as the Article II Executive in the criminal prosecution. By the time Nixon resigned, his impeachment and conviction were foregone conclusions, but some more noble or, simply, more realistic POTUS should have the chance to spare the country the trauma of forcing him out by giving him every opportunity to resign in advance thereof.

    I’m still puzzling some on this. But I’m increasingly convinced that it’s not inappropriate at all for a POTUS to want to know whether he’s under investigation, to ask, and to insist upon an answer.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  297. I’m no scholar, Beldar. But, I reached the very same conclusion as to a POTUS’ standing to do or say most anything with any executive appointee.

    Congress is always free to impeach if POTUS overreaches. Short of that, someone has to take free reign – and the Constitution says that POTUS is the one.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  298. If there was a criminal offense like there clearly was in the irs matter or fast and furious but we can’t ever look at that. State of limitations, smatutes

    narciso (97cd34)

  299. Did you burn through all 4 Firestone wide oval rubbers, Steve 57?

    mg (31009b) — 6/11/2017 @ 1:16 pm

    What? Did my 440 Charger have all wheel drive all of a sudden?

    No, I laid down perfect 11s courtesy of the Mopar 8 3/4″ Sure-Grip rear end.

    I only went through a lot of rear tires. The front tires weren’t bothered as they were a different size.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  300. It’s already sunk mg, look across the pond

    narciso (97cd34)

  301. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbzjC0O3H9k

    Johnny Law and the ’53.

    If you’re familiar with classic hot rod terms you’ll know about lakes, rakes, and big and littles. It didn’t exactly have big and littles as the the fron tires were pretty big. But unless all you were about was smoking the tires you needed a bigger ones on the #$$ end to lay down the effin’ law.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  302. A friend had a charger back then and he loved burning firestones.

    mg (31009b)

  303. tears, narciso.

    mg (31009b)

  304. Remember when the elites warned us Trump and his wacky supporters might not accept the results of the election? Good times.

    Colonel Haiku (db083c)

  305. A friend had a charger back then and he loved burning firestones.

    mg (31009b) — 6/12/2017 @ 5:39 am

    I was a broke college student. I could barely afford gas let alone tires. Since I could only afford one set I made sure they lasted. I still get a chuckle thinking about the guy who stole my Charger. He got got a few miles into the Santa Barbara mountains before he ran out of gas. Just far enough to make a good, hard, thirsty hike.

    All I could afford was about a quarter of a tank.

    And believe you me, a quarter tank didn’t last long in that Carter-carbed big block Mopar. You could literally watch the fuel guage needle drop.

    The funny part is I didn’t even know it was gone. One of the guys I lived with in the dorm was from North Dakota. I would venture into the mountains occasionally, mostly during quail and deer season, but this guy went into the mountains a lot to ride horses.

    So one Saturday he accosts me and sez, “Hey! What were you doing up in the hills today?”

    I’m like, “What are you talking about? I wasn’t up in he hills.”

    And he sez, “Your car was.”

    Sure enough…

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  306. At this price, you can’t afford not to buy.

    http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?products_id=17479&osCsid=l4av6aebui8rr95eqrmos59hh0

    This is an early example of the popular swivel breech rifle made by Leonard Day. It is serial number 70 and was made back in the 60’s. It is a flintlock rifle and the nicely browned lock is marked “L. Day” and stamped with the serial number. The gun features browned octagonal barrels which are 32” in length, .45 caliber and also marked with the serial number. Barrels have German silver blade front sights and open style rear sights. The full stock is curly maple and is medium to dark brown in color with some figure visible…

    f/
    I’m getting misty just thinking about it. If only I had $3 large to spare.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  307. Belfast @308 – this is exactly the argument I’ve tried to get across here for months. He must be informed, he can act in whatever manner he chooses as an expression of his policy choice, and everyone falls in line or resigns. That is the constitutional structure and a statute can’t change that. It’s the basis for Scalia’s dissent in the independent counsel case from the 1980s – Morrison I think.

    Political costs and impeachment are his downsides, not prosecution for obstruction.

    Shipwreckedcrew (27c440)

  308. “Wh*res like CNN run to the famous 1964 case The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan when attacked: if you’re a public figure, I can say anything I want about you. Go suck eggs.

    Well, not quite. That decision (mistaken in my view) does have a threshold beyond which one may not legally trespass: “actual malice.” It’s difficult to prove, to be sure, but I’d like to see an enterprising attorney step up to the plate and try. He might start with the current production of Julius Caesar, funded by CNN’s parent company Time Warner, which portrays Caesar as Trump and delights in the sanguinary spectacle (“brutally realistic”) of his murder on stage. Evidence of “actual malice”? Someone should ask John Nolte, who wrote about the rodeo clown whom CNN got fired for wearing an Obama mask in one of his performances.

    Anyway, I think it would be a good thing were CNN humiliated and sued out of existence. It performs no journalistic function, merely a destructively partisan one.

    But lawsuits are only one expedient available to a modern-day Hercules charged with dispatching the hydra that is the malignant anti-Trump Narrative. I happen to have been chatting with a well-placed and politically astute friend last night who outlined a procedure that Ronald Reagan’s aides employed with considerable success. In essence, it boils down to the advice given the world by Johnny Mercer in 1944: “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive.”

    * Every day, someone in Trump’s cabinet should go public with some positive initiative the administration is pursuing: the regulations that have been eased, the unemployment that has been cut, the jobs that have been added, the judges that have been appointed, the deals that have been made.
    * Every day, Trump’s team should call attention to his association with some aspect of traditional American life: the Boy Scouts, various sports teams, a small town that just became home to a new Ford plant, and so on.
    Your Latin teacher was right: repetitio mater memoriae: repetition is the mother of memory. The Left understands this. They repeat the same falsehoods over and over and over. The President’s friends need to respond by relentlessly broadcasting his achievements: every day, the news emanating from the White House should revolve around a different accomplishment. Do not be shy about repeating yourself. Do not worry about boring your audience. ”

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/12/trumping-the-narrative/

    Colonel Haiku (db083c)

  309. * Every day, someone in Trump’s cabinet should go public with some positive initiative the administration is pursuing: the regulations that have been eased, the unemployment that has been cut, the jobs that have been added, the judges that have been appointed, the deals that have been made.
    * Every day, Trump’s team should call attention to his association with some aspect of traditional American life: the Boy Scouts, various sports teams, a small town that just became home to a new Ford plant, and so on.

    Yes, they should be doing that. But there’s one other necessary thing, a DO NOT DO.

    *POTUS should make no response to any negative stories about him and his administration. Any defense of the administration and any attack on political opponents should be handled by staff members–the lower in the hierarchy, the better–while POTUS ignores the fray and keeps his focus on the job he was elected to do.

    Sadly, that seems to be beyond Trump’s ability…..

    kishnevi (0de685)

  310. If you or I ask the FBI whether we’re the subject of an ongoing investigation, criminal or counter-intelligence or otherwise, we’ll get the standard “The FBI, as a matter of policy, neither confirms nor denies nor comments upon yada yada yada” form letter.

    I think that may not be 100% correct.

    If someone has become a target of an investigation, they do get told.

    http://www.burnhamgorokhov.com/criminal-defense-resources/federal-criminal-process/federal-investigations-what-everyone-should-know

    Individuals frequently only find out that they are under federal investigation when one of the following things occur:

    •A federal prosecutor formally notifies you that you are the target of an investigation through a target letter.

    This links to:

    http://www.burnhamgorokhov.com/criminal-defense-resources/federal-criminal-process/target-letters-from-federal-law-enforcement

    A target letter is the means by which the federal government informs individuals that they are targets for criminal prosecution. It is frequently used in white collar cases and is often the first indication that an individual is under investigation. The United States Attorney’s Manual defines “target” as a putative defendant against whom there is substantial evidence. The target letter notifies the recipient about a number of things, including:

    •the recipient’s status as a target in a federal grand jury investigation;
    •the crime or crimes that the recipient is suspected of committing;
    •the recipient’s right to assert the Fifth Amendment; and
    •information for obtaining court-appointed counsel.

    Additionally, the target letter will caution the recipient against destroying any evidence, stating that such acts may constitute obstruction of justice, and sometimes encourage the recipient to reach out to the prosecutor to discuss the matter.

    They will send such a letter when they want to warn someone against destroying evidence, and so defense counsel later will not have an argument that any admission was involuntary.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  311. And what all this can mean is that Trump was informed only that he was not a target of an investigation, but Comey is trying to confuse people between Trump not being a “target” of an investigation and not being someone whose actions are being investigated.

    Because his actions necessarily must be a subject of ionvestigation if they are looking into collusion

    Except that that is an unlikely premise in the first place. Penetration of the Trump campaign, and Russian-influenced advice (both of a political nature – what gets votes – and of policy nature – that Ruussia is trying to defeat ISIS in Syria) given to him, is a much more likely scenario.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  312. Donald Trump was enough of a subject of interest for Comey to make notes of his version of conversations he and Trump had, in case it came up in some proceeding.

    Now why should he think that could happen?

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  313. Rush Limbaugh just said about a minute or two ago (before the break) that Comey told Trump e was not a target Maybe 3-4 minutes now.

    Rush used the word “target” So Limbaugh understood this right.

    People do get told that they are a target of an investigation. They don’t get told that they are not a target, unless they ask.

    What Comey and the FBI “leadership team” decided to do was strictly standard operating procedure, not an except for a president-elect. Maybe with this qualification: I am not sure people get told if they are atarget of acounter-intelligence investigation. Except that that often would be also acriminal investigation. also, Comey says they decded to tell him even if he didn’t specifically ask, but it seemed to be on his mind, or could be on his mind.

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  314. 201. 207. They never record interviews, but only make notes.

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 6/11/2017 @ 11:15 am

    that’s not my takeaway from the memo detailing the sleazy corrupt fbi’s whimsical policies on the recording of interviews [PDF]

    You are right, and Mediaite’s source does not bear it out, although I think the point – that the FBI never – maybe make that almost never – records witness interviews is right,.

    I didn’t have the ablity to look at the link right then. I really knew better than to cite taht website because Mediate came up on this board in 2011 in connection with Anthony Weiner.

    I think the FBI does not ordinarily tape interviews.

    That 2006 link, although entitle witness and custodial interviews, really deal only with custodial inerviews, and those, it indicates, they do, or did, record, but they did it rarely, although form the document you can’t tell how rarely.

    They didn’t want to do it because people would think lying about the nature of the evidence against someone was improper, even though it was not illegal. They didn’t want to secretly record, because Mafia people would find out pretty soon that interviews were beibg recorded (but Mafia people wouldn’t talk anyway!)

    Sammy Finkelman (a248bd)

  315. i agree inasmuch as people tend to say the reason they don’t do recordings is so the sleazy corrupt fbi agent’s account stands as the only record

    this stinks to high heaven, which is an indication of how stinky it is since heaven is very very high up in the sky

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  316. What police are best trained at is testifying convincingly for the prosecution. If there’s a recording, all that training goes out the window. The trier of fact will listen to the recording, not the policeman. You wouldn’t want to waste all those police man-hours and taxpayer money spent on the training for such a ridiculously petty thing as an honest and accurate record of a conversation, now would you?

    nk (dbc370)

  317. comey’s performance would be exhibit a i guess?

    i thought he was patently phony and disingenuous – way more on the level of an amateurish CNN Anderson Cooper fake news propaganda slut than someone you would take to be a serious law enforcement professional with gravitas

    maybe sleazy comeykins needs a refresher course

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  318. IMHO any government agent who records an interview, subsequently writes notes, and then destroys the recording (so his written account can’t be checkerd for accuracy) has committed a felony.

    The written account is thereby rendered totally unworthy of any assumption of merit and is deemed unfit for consideration in any matter whatsoever.

    In fact, the only valid assumption is that an act of obstruction of justice has been attempted.

    ropelight (f923af)

  319. d am at loss. What are you trying to say?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  320. I am at at loss. Apparently I need to be investigated because I will lovingly watch and rewatch the opening credits to “Lost in Translation.”

    Which features Scarlett Johanson’s bedonkedonk. In Slo Mo. And I don’t have a problem wiht it.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  321. “Following countdown clocks on cable outlets and dramatic claims in the media about what devastating testimony to expect, James Comey sat down before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. The hearing ended up being a bit of a let-down for critics of President Trump who hoped to get him impeached (or removed via the 25th amendment!) as soon as possible. Comey admitted that Donald Trump had told the truth when he wrote that the former FBI director had thrice told him he was not under investigation in the Russia meddling probe. Comey admitted that Trump had twice encouraged him to get to the bottom of the Russian meddling issue.

    But the media chose to run with a dramatically different narrative. That narrative was if James Comey had not proven obstruction, he came pretty darn close.

    “Is Trump Guilty Of Obstruction Of Justice? Comey Laid Out The Case,” was the big takeaway from NPR’s Domenico Montanaro.

    “Comey Bluntly Raises Possibility of Trump Obstruction and Condemns His ‘Lies’,” exulted the New York Times, describing his testimony as “a blunt, plain-spoken assessment” by a man who was “humble, folksy and matter-of-fact.”

    The New Yorker was even more breathless. “Comey’s Revenge: Measuring Obstruction,” wrote Evan Osnos. “[T]his was not a political partisan tossing off a criticism of a rival; this was a career prosecutor, who served Republican and Democratic Presidents, presenting a time line of specific statements from the President that he described as either untrue or potentially criminal.”

    MSNBC agreed. And I watched an hour of CNN the night of the hearing with the sober legal analysis of Jeffrey Toobin, who declared repeatedly that he’d never seen such obstruction of justice in the history of the world. I’m only slightly exaggerating…

    Comey is a man of rectitude, they’re currently saying. A boy scout who is very honest, and good at laying out obstruction of justice cases…

    Let’s begin with the case of one Frank Quattrone, a banker who Comey pursued relentlessly on banking related charges without fruition. But while he couldn’t find any wrong-doing on criminal conduct, he went after him for supposed “obstruction of justice” because of a single ambiguous email. Sound familiar?

    Before he was indicted, Comey made false statements about Quattrone and his intent. The first trial ended in a hung jury but the second one got a conviction.

    That conviction was overturned in 2006. Quattrone was so scarred by the harassment, he began funding projects designed to help innocent people who are victims of prosecutorial overreach or other problems. He said his motivation for supporting such projects was that at the very moment he was found guilty in the second trial, he realized there must be innocent people in prisons who lacked the financial resources to fight for justice. He also started the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

    Quattrone has noted with interest the disparities in how he was treated by Comey for a single email compared to his handling of the Hillary Clinton email server scandal.”

    http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/12/james-comey-long-history-questionable-obstruction-cases/

    Colonel Haiku (db083c)

  322. 332. ropelight (f923af) — 6/12/2017 @ 11:28 am

    IMHO any government agent who records an interview, subsequently writes notes, and then destroys the recording (so his written account can’t be checkerd for accuracy) has committed a felony.

    That’s what Friend of Bill, jay William Buford did in January, 1993, or rather something a little bit more suspicious actually, when contributing to the waarant for Branch Davidian copmpound at Waco.

    He had an interview which he said he did not record, and then he did asecond one two days later.

    http://www.constitution.org/waco/affidavt.htm

    On January 1 and January 3, 1993, Mrs. Poia Vaega, of Mangere, Auckland, New Zealand, was interviewed telephonically by Resident Agent in Charge Bill Buford, BATF, Little Rock Arkansas, who also is assisting me in this investigation. The results of Special Agent Buford’s interview on January 1, 1993, was reduced to writing and furnished to me. Special Agent Buford’s interview on January 3, 1993, was tape recorded with the permission of Poia Vaega and has since been transcribed and typewritten. Both the tape recording and the transcription was furnished to me by Special Agent Buford. Both interviews with Poia Vaega revealed a false imprisonment for a term of three and a half months which began in June of 1991 and physical and sexual abuse of one of Mrs. Vaega’s sisters, Doreen Saipaia. This was while she was a member of the Branch Davidian at the Mt. Carmel Center, Waco, Texas. The physical and sexual abuse was done by Vernon Wayne Howell and Stanley Sylvia, a close follower of Howell, on several occasions.

    It was learned From Mrs. Vaega that she and her husband Leslie were also members of Howell’s group in Waco for a short period of time in March, 1990. Upon their arrival at Mt. Carmel Center, she and her husband were separated and not allowed to sleep together or have any sexual contact.

    According to Mrs. Vaega, all the girls and women at the compound were exclusively reserved for Howell. She stated that Howell would preach his philosophy, which did not always coincide with the bible, for hours at a time. She and her husband left the compound after ten days because her husband did not agree with Howell’s doctrine but that her two sisters stayed behind.

    Mrs. Vaega also related that she was present at one of the study periods held by Howell when Howell passed his personal AK-47 machine gun around for the group to handle and look over.

    Buford probably murdered three of his own men on February 28, 1993, (in front of KWTX-TV, Channel 10 in Waco, televison cameras in fact except that the identities of all agents were disguised*) with the idea that who shiot whom would be lost in the chaos. Later, President Clinton arranged the deaths by fire of most of the Branch Davidians to protect Buford. Most people have no idea that anyone from Little Rock was even involved in the raid. Buford was one of the commanders of the 3 sets of agents involved in the raid. The set of agents he led was labeled “New Orleans.”

    ———————-
    * He led a party of 3 or 4 men into a room on the roof where there was supposedly a weapons cache – then, after his men preceded him into the room, he fired a machine gun at them. He never entered the room himself. Buford was supposedly shot himself. Clinton sent Roger Altman to a hospital to see him. On March 17, 1993 President Clinton made the false statement, in a speech to Treasury Department employees, that the three men killed had been assigned to his security at some point, which is absurd – they were BATF agents, not Secret Service agents. This was a red herring to disguise the motive Buford had for killing them, which was probably nothing more than justifying the raid in retrospect when the warrant woud turn out to be false.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  323. % clues Comey left that there’s a bigger investigation going on, according to the Daily Beast:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/5-clues-comey-just-left-behind

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  324. Here is a better, more accurate transcript of Comey’s testimony than the one from Politico that Anne Althouse had:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/politics/senate-hearing-transcript.html?_r=0

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  325. The Daily Beast 5 clues:

    1. Comey said: And I know I should’ve said this earlier, but it’s obvious — if any Americans were part of helping the Russians do that to us, that is a very big deal. And I’m confident that, if that is the case, Director Mueller will find that evidence.

    The Daily Beast unbelievably, sees this as possible American hackers, when obviously this is just the familiar collusion argument, and Comey’s actually postulating this as unlikely.

    2. This exchange:

    BURR: So if you’ve got a — a — a 36-page document of — of specific claims that are out there, the FBI would have to, for counterintelligence reasons, try to verify anything that might be claimed in there. One, and probably first and foremost, is the counterintelligence concerns that we have about blackmail. Would that be an accurate statement?

    COMEY: Yes. If the FBI receives a credible allegation that there is some effort to co-opt, coerce, direct, employ covertly an American on behalf of the foreign power, that’s the basis on which a counterintelligence investigation is opened.

    BURR: And when you read the dossier, what was your reaction, given that it was 100 percent directed at the president-elect?

    COMEY: Not a question I can answer in an open setting, Mr. Chairman.

    A hint that this was checked out by the FBI. That would have been something you could characterize as an investigation of Trump, in part. It woudl have been over, though, by January 6. Comey only used the oresent tense when speaking to Donald Trump in 2017.

    3. This exchange:

    WYDEN: Let me turn to the Attorney General. In your statement, you said that you and the FBI leadership team decided not to discuss the president’s actions with Attorney General Sessions, even though he had not recused himself.

    What was it about the Attorney General’s own interactions with the Russians, or his behavior with regard to the investigation, that would have led the entire leadership of the FBI to make this decision?

    COMEY: Our judgment, as I recall, was that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We also were aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.

    It’s been leaked that maybe this means yet anither undicloised meeting betweeen Sessions and a Russian offical.

    4. This exchange:

    WYDEN: So former Acting Attorney General Yates testified that concerns about General Flynn were discussed with the intelligence community. Would that have included anyone at the CIA or Dan Coats’ office at the DNI?

    COMEY: I would assume yes.

    That would possibly make Mike Pompeo and Dan Coates into liars because they said they did not know what Sally Yates said about Flynn. It’s nonsense though.

    5. This exchange:

    KING: I was just going to quote that. In 1170, December 29, Henry II said, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” and then, the next day, he was killed — Thomas Becket. That’s exactly the same situation. You’re — we’re thinking along the same lines.

    Several other questions, and these are a little bit more detailed. What do you know about the Russian bank, VEB?

    COMEY: Nothing that I can talk about in an open setting. I mean, I know it…

    (CROSSTALK)

    KING: Well, that takes care of my next three questions.

    VEB is close to Putin. Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, the the head of Vnesheconombank, also known as VEB. at the suggestion of teh Russian Ambassador. The bank claims that that was to discussKushner’s private business.

    Exactly why should we believe that?

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  326. Folks here who are not conversant on the subject matter are conflating and confusing the issues of being a “target” of a criminal investigation and a “subject” of an intelligence investigation.

    Apples and oranges. Your ignorance is misleading readers.

    Shipwreckedcrew (294515)

  327. Meaning of the word “is” department:

    From James Comey’s prepared statement:

    In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him.

    People noticed that this did not exlude having one in the future but I don’t think it hit anybody it excluded the past.

    They didn’t have an open counter-intelligence case on him, but did they have a closed one?

    Otherwise why this big buildup as to the distinction between a counter-intelligence investigation and a criminal investigation, and the special note that it was technically? true?

    Sammy Finkelman (1df645)

  328. 340. Shipwreckedcrew (294515) — 6/12/2017 @ 10:11 pm

    Folks here who are not conversant on the subject matter are conflating and confusing the issues of being a “target” of a criminal investigation and a “subject” of an intelligence investigation.

    I think it was Comey who did that by never using either word with respect to Donald Trump himself..

    I assumed “subject” was an earlier stage than “target” not that they were used in different kinds of investigations.

    Sammy Finkelman (1df645)

  329. Just believe what I want to believe. And can’t the politicians stop talking and start doing?

    instagram online (8d50e6)


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