Comey's Weaknesses Made Him the Perfect Obama-Clinton Fall Guy and Victim

The Comey story continues to fill the media with Washington buzz. • • • COVER-UP SAY THE DEMOCRATS. TheHill reported Wednesday that Senate Republicans are resisting calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. Republicans, facing a full legislative agenda, worry that the Comey controversy could become even more of a media circus and distract from efforts to pass healthcare legislation and tax reform through the Senate. Senator Susan Collins, a key moderate Republican, told reporters that the uproar over Comey has already distracted from the healthcare debate, and she was visibly angry after Democrat tactics forced the cancellation of a hearing she was supposed to chair as head of the Committee on Aging -- Democrats, seizing on any opportunity to attack Trump and denigrate the GOP Congress, ramped up pressure Wednesday by blocking committee hearings and objecting to routine procedural requests in protest of Comey’s dismissal. Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer declared that Trump’s Justice Department could not be trusted to conduct an investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, which would include looking at possible links to the President’s campaign -- a reversal because Schumer just a few days ago was urging the DOJ to get to the bottom of the Russian campaign interference issue. Schumer is now demanding a closed-door briefing from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein for all senators. He’s also insisting that the administration and congressional Republicans agree to several conditions for a new investigation, including that the highest serving career civil servant at Justice, not Rosenstein, appoints a special prosecutor and that Comey testifies before Congress. Republicans, with a few exceptions, brushed off the demands. Senator Orin Hatch's response was quick : “Every time we have a problem, they call for a special prosecutor. We don’t need that." • Of course, the favorite word being bandied about by Democrats is "cover up," but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has largely kept his caucus in line by urging them not to join Democrats in demanding a special counsel. GOP lawmakers say an independent investigation would only be warranted if an ongoing probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee hits a dead end. And, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, have reported to colleagues that they have made good progress and are working well together. In repeating his rejection Wednesday of a special prosecutor, McConnell noted that Democrats in recent weeks sharply criticized Comey over his handling of an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email server and praised Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the official who penned the rationale for dismissing Comey, before confirming him by a vote of 94 to 6. Even Republicans who have offered soft criticism of Trump’s decision stopped short of joining Senator John McCain, the only Senate Republican so far to actually call for a special probe. McCain admitted Wednesday that he doen't know whether his call is getting any traction. One of his closest allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, gave political cover to Trump by arguing that a “fresh start” would serve the FBI well given recent controversies. • • • PELOSI THREATENS A FORCED HOUSE VOTE. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday urged GOP leaders to bring the legislation authorizing a special prosecutor to the House floor next week when Congress returns to Washington following a recess. If they decline, as expected, Democrats will try to force a vote with a discharge petition. Pelosi wrote to her caucus members on Wednesday : “Speaker Ryan must call up this legislation immediately upon our return next week. If Republicans continue to work to hide the truth from the American people, it will be necessary for Democrats to file a discharge petition to force a vote on the [legislation].” To force a vote through a discharge petition, the Democrats would need more than 20 Republicans to buck their leadership and sign on -- not an easy task. But the Democrats think that the Comey firing has given them new ammunition to make the debate uncomfortable for vulnerable House Republicans. And, a handful of House Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for an outside probe following Trump's decision Tuesday to fire Comey. Pelosi and other Democrats have been pushing for months to create an independent, bipartisan panel to lead an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential collusion between the Kremlin and Trump's aides. Ryan and Republicans have refused those calls, arguing that the ongoing House and Senate Intelligence Committee probes are sufficient. But, in threatening a discharge petition, it appears that Pelosi and Democrats sense a swing in the debate, one that might pressure some Republicans to endorse the discharge petition or risk facing potential political backlash if they’re seen as protecting Trump. Pelosi wrote : “Given Director Comey's confirmation of the Trump-Russia inquiry, the President’s actions raise questions about whether this dismissal was an attempt to undermine that investigation. The fireworks at the Department of Justice demand that we remove the investigation from the Trump-appointed Justice Department leadership.” • President Trump and his team are strongly denying any such link, saying Comey was fired for a series of missteps, including his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as Secretary of State, which resulted in his recommending no charges be brought. When asked at a White House photo op on Wednesday why he fired Comey, Trump said : “Very simply, he was not doing a good job.” • • • DEMOCRATS NOW LOVE COMEY. President Trump’s surprise decision to fire James Comey on Tuesday has transformed the Democrats’ unhappy relationship with the former FBI director. They no longer call Comey a treacherous partisan, and have rushed to his defense, denouncing Trump’s move in the harshest possible terms and suggesting the embattled Comey was among their chief allies in the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Democrats could hardly find enough TV cameras to sufficiently accuse Trump of political interference with the intent of halting a Comey-announced probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. If Democrats had doubts about Comey’s ability to conduct a credible review of the Trump-Kremlin connection, those sentiments faded instantly with his firing. Schumer said : “We know the FBI has been looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians -- a very serious offense. Were those investigations getting too close to home for the President?” Scores of Democrats piled on, and Pelosi charged Trump with a “brazen” act that “raises the ghosts of some of the worst Executive Branch abuses. We cannot stand by and watch a coverup of the possible collusion with a hostile foreign power to undermine American democracy,” she said. • It is almost amusing how completely the Democrat frenzy of defense for Comey is a 180-degree shift for the Democrats, many of whom have questioned his integrity -- or called for his scalp -- since October, when he publicly renewed the FBI’s investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Secretary of State. That investigation uncovered no criminal wrongdoing, but Democrats blamed Comey for shifting the momentum of the presidential contest in favor of Trump just days before voters went to the polls. Schumer told Bloomberg at the time : “I do not have confidence in him any longer.” Pelosi joined the Democrat rush to criticize Comey in October, accusing him of tossing “a Molotov cocktail” into the midst of a volatile election and suggesting he’d caved to political pressure in ways that might make him unfit to lead an independent FBI. On election night in November, Pelosi told the media : "It might just be too hot in there. He obviously was feeling a lot of heat from the Republicans." • And, when Trump decided to keep Comey as FBI Director after his inauguration, it was the Democrats who raised a new round of condemnation, demanding that Comey be replaced. Representative G. K. Butterfiled, a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said : “James Comey needs to fade away into oblivion. He embarrassed this nation; he possibly influenced the outcome of a presidential election; and he should not hold any position of trust, whatsoever, in our government." Representative Adam Schiff, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said last week : “Nothing excuses the disparate way he [Comey] handled those." Schiff was referring to the seemingly different approaches Comey took in publicizing the Clinton and Trump investigations. Schiff added : "I don’t think in any way he justified both what he did and why he treated those investigations so differently.” • Isn't it amazing how Democrats can change their tune so quickly -- proving that they are political opportunist guttersnipes interesteds only in bringing down President Trump and attacking every GOP position. Their interest in truth fades in their partisan need to save their Progressive agenda. • • • A NEW FBI DIRECTOR. With the White House starting an immediate search for Comey’s replacement, Democrats may soon miss him and his sometimes publicly announced on-again-off-again outside-the-rules approach to FBI investigations. Republicans are hoping that Trump moves quickly in naming a new FBI director, so they can get back to healthcare and tax reform. Seeking to tamp down a divisive and distracting fight over the FBI, Republican Senators have urged Trump to pick a candidate with sterling credentials and solid credibility. Confirming an FBI director is usually done with strong bipartisan support. The Senate confirmed Comey 93 to 1 in 2013. But the bitterly polarized political climate and Democrat anger over the Trump victory in November suggest the next fight could be a partisan political war. The FBI Director is nominated for a 10-year term but serves at the discretion of the President. • Newsmax's John Gizzi wrote on Tuesday that : "Minutes after James Comey became the second director of the FBI ever to be fired by the president, one of Washington DC's most durable 'games' began, the guesstimating over who President Donald Trump will select to take over the nation's 108-year-old law enforcement agency. In venues ranging from online columns to local DC watering holes, a 'Who's Who' of law enforcement officials and politicians will shortly be bandied about as possible successors to Comey." President Trump has set his goal for the new FBI Director : "The FBI is one of our nation's most cherished and respected institutions, and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement." • Early speculation, according to Gizzi, centered on former Representative Mike Rogers, onetime House Intelligence Committee chairman and himself a former FBI agent; on former New York City Police Chief Ray Kelly; and on South Carolina State Attorney General Alan Wilson, son of Representative Joe Wilson. Other speculation focused on two longtime Trump political allies, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But, both are considered controversial and would have difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Gizzi says there is a strong sentiment in the law enforcement community that Comey's replacement will be a law-enforcement "insider" currently or formerly connected with the FBI Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force. The Task Force includes all 56 FBI field offices nationwide as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. • Historically, the most-touted candidate for the FBI directorship does not always get it. Gizzi tells the story of when Jimmy Carter named the FBI director in 1977, and he had a search committee come up with the best selection. From 235 resumes, five finalists emerged. The unanimous choice of the panel was Neil Welch, former Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI offices in Buffalo and Philadelphia. Welch once said the best way to reform the FBI was "to sandbag bureau headquarters and rip out the phones." But Carter interviewed the finalists himself and instead picked US Appellate Judge William H. Webster, who was Director until President Ronald Reagan tapped him to run the CIA in 1987. • The White House says that President Trump will nominate a replacement for fired FBI Director James Comey "in the coming days." Two other possible candidates to run the world's most renowned law enforcement agency being mentioned are longshot David Clarke, the outspoken and polarizing Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, sheriff, who has been a fierce supporter of Trump, was a speaker spot at last summer's Republican National Convention, and calls himself "one of those bare-knuckles fighters" critical of what he called the "hateful ideology" of the Black Lives Matters movement; and, Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who led the House committee investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's actions surrounding the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, and who is a former federal prosecutor who specialized in drug trafficking, bank robberies and child pornography cases, and was among lawmakers critical of Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton in the email server investigation, saying other government officials would have been prosecuted if they handled classified information like Clinton did. Gowdy said after Comey's firing that though he had differences with the former FBI Director on some matters, he "never lost sight of the fact that he had a very difficult job." • • • DEAR READERS, James Comey went out with more style and grace than he ever showed as FBI Director. On Wednesday, Comey sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him : “I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.” Comey added that the FBI should continue “the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution,” describing the FBI ideal as a "rock" for the American people : “It is very hard to leave a group of people who are committed only to doing the right thing. What makes leaving the FBI hard is the nature and quality of its people, who together make it that rock for America." • I have long called for Comey's dismissal. But, reading that letter, I cannot help but wonder if James Comey was simply the latest victim of the Clinton mafia and its ruthless efforts to cling to power and money at any price. Comey seems certainly to have got caught up in the 2016 Clinton maelstrom whose energy was all directed to grabbing the ultimate reins of power for Hillary so that their pay-for-play modus operandi could reach its ultimate height in the Oval Office. If his character was too weak to resist Bill and Hillary Clinton, he should not have been FBI Director. If he started out in good faith and was compromised by Obama and his Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- with her (fake?) tarmac meeting with Slick Willie that "forced" her to hand over to Comey the Hillary email decision in order to remove Hillary's being saved as far as possible from Obama and Bill Clinton -- he should not have been FBI Director. If he finally tried to recover his reputation by twisting the FBI and DOJ rules in October to suggest that Hillary was not as clean as she pretended, he should not have been FBI Director. But, all of that aside, we can still wonder if we have just watched the fall from grace of a person chosen by Obama and the Clintons for his weaknesses rather than for his strengths -- weaknesses that were exploited to the extreme during the 2016 presidential campaign before James Comey was hung out to swing in the whirlwinds of the Clintons' fury at their political empire's collapse.