Comey : Political Hack Like All the Other Swamp Creatures

LET'S RECAP COMEY'S TESTIMONY. Creepy Comey -- weak-kneed 'Yes Man' for Obama's Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- displayed all his hate-Trump biases and weaknesses last Thursday under oath. • US Senators, seeing Russian mirages around every corner, gave former FBI Director James Comey plenty of free live TV whining space to corroborate their own #NeverTrump feelings with his unfounded characterizations -- commonly called lies -- about Donald Trump. That President Trump himself was in Ohio talking to victims of Obamacare was a non-event inside the Swamp we often call the Beltway. We could guess that inside that Swampy Beltway, the Senate and all other institutions and agencies are filled with Swamp Creatures seeking to emulate President Obama and his wife, who arrived in Washington as a middle class non-rich couple and left as millionaires. Or, perhaps these Swamp Creature are thinking bigger and hoping to amass the billions of Crooked Hillary and her pervert of a husband, who sold their public service to the highest bidder -- often Russian. That, after all, is why most of them undoubtedly sought public office -- not for service but for amassing wealth. But, with all the free air time Comey had, he could not come up with any statement condemning President Trump. Instead, Comey's angry, self-serving opinion was that President Trump is a liar -- the Swamp "Gospel." The real news -- that Comey confirmed that Trump was never under investigation on Comey's watch, never interfered with the Russian investigation, and didn't order him to stop investigating General Michael Flynn -- got the usual Swamp answer : "don't bother me with the facts." And nobody is quoting President Trump, who told Comey during a meeting that "if there are people in my circle that are, let's finish the investigation." • • • WHAT COMEY SAID WAS SELF-INDICTING. We heard nothing new in the Comey hearing because Comey himself had already leaked all of it to the press. At the same time as he condemned government officials over leaking to the press, Comey shamelessly described how he, too, had leaked all his private exchanges with President Trump to the press -- and Comey never bothered to apologize or flicker an eyelash about the criminality of his actions in determining that he could personally release private Oval Office conversations with the President that are subject to executive privilege. Almost comic was Comey's admission that he told the recipient of the leaks, a Columbia law professor, to send them to the New York Times -- in the same testimony, Comey called the NYT article on Trump collusion with Russia during the campaign "not true" -- fake news. • Comey leaked everything, as President Trump’s attorney noted, except one important detail -- Trump is not, and never was, the target of any investigation involving Russia or anything else. The one thing Trump wanted to be publicly known so that he could get on with making good on his campaign promises was not leaked by Comey. Despite all the wailing by Democrats and leaks from the intelligence community and fake news in The New York Times, nobody in a position of authority ever thought Trump had improper ties to Russia. Russia may have tried to influence the election. Trump just never had anything to do with it. • The most explosive statements under oath by Comey were his mindblowing gratuitous admissions of election rigging by none other than -- former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, famous for meeting secretly with Bill Clinton on the tarmac while Clinton’s wife was under FBI investigation for her total disregard for national security. AG Lynch told Comey he could talk about the Hillary “investigation,” BUT, ordered AG Lynch, just call it a “matter.” Can we guess that the source for that order to lie came either from Lynch's boss, President Obama, or Hillary's husband, former President Bill Clinton??? • Why did Comey leak confidential information covered by executive privilege, as he had to know?? He said he wanted a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Trump-Russia collusion allegations. It was pure retaliation on Comey's part -- it was the Swamp striking back. So, let’s recap Comey’s testimony : the only verified leaker exposed, Jim Comey -- the only person we know is not and never was under investigation for ties to Russia, Donald Trump -- the only person exposed for trying to influence an election, Loretta Lynch -- the only paper accused of publishing fake news, The New York Times -- the only person who attempted to obstruct justice, Loretta Lynch, and probably Bill Clinton. • • • SOME EXPERTS SAY COMEY WAS CAREFUL NOT TO INCRIMINATE HIMSELF. “It’s clear that Comey understood the legal principles [protecting disclosures],” Stephen Kohn, a lawyer who specializes in whistleblower cases, told TheHill. But, he said, “Trump’s lawyer was also smart because he’s filing these complaints in places that don’t mean anything. It’s public relations.” Other experts disagree. Jonathan Turley, a highly-regarded constitutional law professor at George Washington University, contends that Comey could be in trouble because of his leaks. On Friday morning, reports emerged that Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is planning to file a complaint with the Justice Department Inspector General as well as with the Senate. • Comey related to the Senate Intelligence Committee his sense that the memos were "personal," saying : “As a private citizen I thought it important to share that, I wanted to get it out,” Comey said, stressing that his memos were unclassified and based on his personal recollection. • BUT, allies of President Trump have argued that Comey violated executive privilege that protects his conversations with the President. Kasowitz said Thursday that Comey had “made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President,” suggesting that he broke the law. Could Comey have shielded himself from any administrative repercussions by making the disclosures orally? Kohn and others said that, usually, former officials who want to release information are required run it past the agency in question in what’s known as prepublication review. But oral disclosures are not subject to that process -- and Comey was explicit Thursday that he asked Richman to disclose “the content” of the memos, not the memos themselves. The New York Times reported on May 16 : “The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.” • Federal law absolutely prohibit the release of classified information or information related to national defense, but so far there have been no claims that Comey’s recollections of his conversations with the President fit into these categories. However, since General Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor before he was fired, was a topic in the Trump-Comey conversations, we way yet hear more from the White House and Kasowitz on the possible national securty classified nature of what was discussed. • But, not to be deterred by a lack of facts, Norm Eisen, ethics czar under former President Obama and an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, says that if Kasowitz files a complaint as a way to fire back at Comey or to try to stifle future leakers, Kasowitz may open himself up to criminal liability : “While I think we should be careful about characterizing a complaint that hasn't yet been filed, false statements and abusive legal filings can give rise to criminal liability, including for obstruction or witness intimidation.” That is pure Swamp intimidation -- throw your own crimess back in the face of those trying to catch you. • • • WHO DO THE COMEY MEMOS BELONG TO? Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, whose questions prompted Comey’s revelation about his leaking his memos on Thursday, told MSNBC that she was “concerned” that Comey had passed the contents of the document onto the media : "If it is a government work product, it belongs to the FBI and not to him as a private citizen. I think a better way would have been to give it to our committee.” There is a question about whether the content of the memos should be considered property of the FBI or as Comey's personal recollections. Comey told lawmakers Thursday that “my view was that the content of those unclassified, memorialization of those conversations was my recollection recorded.” He said he has since given the documents themselves to Special Counsel Bob Mueller, who was appointed to lead the Russia investigation two days after the Times made public the existence of the memos. But, Comey told the Senate committee that law professor Richman still has his copies, prompting the committee to tell Comey he should provide them. • So, who actually owns what appears on the surface to be official documents because they are the work product of a govenrment official recording his recollection of a meeting with the President of the United States, prepared on government computers, and sent electronically from such a computer. How can anyone, even the FBI Director, simply declare that such documents are personal? HINT -- Comey already did just about the same thing when he exonerated Hillary from all liability resulting from her felonious misuse of classified federal documents. • • • GINGRICH CALLS COMEY'S LEAKED MEMOS DEEP STATE VENGEANCE. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Newsmax that Comey's statement about leaking information of private conversations he had with President Trump revealed that the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller was "poisoned fruit." Gingrich quoted Comey : "I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter -- didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons -- but I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." Gingrich called this "the most startling revelation" from the day's testimony : "This statement is tremendously important because it completely delegitimizes Robert Mueller's so-called independent investigation and reveals it as poisoned fruit." Gingrich also noted that Comey and Mueller, also a former FBI director, were "very close" and that 97% of donations from Department of Justice employees who contributed to the 2016 presidential election were to support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gingrich said : "So, what we have here is a fired FBI director, who leaked private material to the press, so he could get his friend appointed as a special counsel in order to take retribution on the President -- with the aid of a department full of federal lawyers who would have rather seen Hillary in the White House. And we are supposed to believe this will be an objective, unbiased investigation?" Gingrich said Comey represented the Deep State's "permanent opposition" to President Trump, saying they would stop at nothing to "keep their influence" and harm Trump's presidency : "Make no mistake : This is not about law and order, it is not about justice, it is not even about any investigation. This is about influence peddling, this is about the search for vengeance, and this is about stopping the revolution President Trump was elected to implement." • • • THE NEW YORK TIMES UNTRUE STORIES ABOUT TRUMP. Breitbart reported Saturday : "The New York Times Thursday was forced to defend itself Thursday from accusations of spreading fake news after fired FBI Director James Comey slammed an article the so-called “paper of record” published in February -- calling it “not true.” Comey was asked by Senate Intelligence Committee member Senator Jim Risch about a story that featured in the NYT on Valentine’s Day with the headline -- “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence” -- and containing the lead paragraph : "Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials." Senator Risch said : “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 answered : “In the main, it was not true....Again, all of you know this, maybe the American people don’t. The challenge -- I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information...[is] that people talking about it often don’t really now what’s going on and those of us who actually know what’s going on are not talking about it. And we don’t call the press to say, hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic. We just have to leave it there.” Senator Tom Cotton followed up, asking Comey if the story was “almost entirely wrong." Comey said "yes." • The New York Times immediately tweeted that it was “looking into” Comey’s statements. Later on Thursday, it published a report in support of its article, noting that Comey did not say what it was about the article that was false. However, the Times said it had some ideas about what Comey may have called "not true" : "One possible area of dispute is the description of the Russians involved. Some law enforcement officials took issue with the Times account in the days after it was published, saying that the intelligence was still murky, and that the Russians who were in contact with Mr. Trump’s advisors did not meet the FBI’s black-and-white standard of who can be considered an 'intelligence officer.' " Another possibility, according to the Times, was that Comey may have disagreed with the paper’s description of the evidence for the contacts with Russia -- the Times said authorities had relied on “phone records and intercepted calls” to gain evidence." However, the NYT noted that the reporters’ sources had stood by their accounts, and also pointed to subsequent reporting that it said backed up some of the claims made in the February 14 article. • Got it?? -- the NYT used a headline flat-out accusing the Trump campaign team of "repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials," when, in fact, the officials were pushing back both on the accuracy of the "murky intelligence" and questioned if those NYT sources were actually "intelligence officials" -- the officials also questioned whether the NYT "evidence" was really based on "phone records and intercepted calls." Comey seems to have got this one right -- there was nothing true in the NYT article -- but Comey made no move to correct it or to inform candidate Trump, as he could have legally, about its inaccuracies. The Deep State was at work in the Swamp. • • • THE REAL COLLUSION AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE CAME FROM ATTORNEY GENERAL LYNCH. And from her boss, President Obama and from Bill Clinton?? Comey said he was “concerned” and “confused” by orders from then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch to downplay the Clinton email investigation. During Comey's testimony, Senator Richard Burr asked Comey if his decision to make public comments about the Clinton investigation was influenced by Lynch’s “tarmac meeting” with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport. Comey's answer was a freely offered indictment of the Obama DOJ and AG Lynch and the objectivity of the Hillary investigation. Comey told Senator Burr : “Yes. In an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department." Burr then asked : “Were there other things that contributed to that, that you can describe in an open session?” Comey said the one he could speak out about was an unusual directive from Lynch : “At one point, the Attorney General had directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me. But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly.” Comey testified that he felt "queasy" by Lynch's order. • If an attempt to characterize an FBI investigation as a "matter," when in fact the FBI only does "investigations," left Comey "confused," he had no business being the FBI Director, or perhaps even a lawyer, and he certainly was not fit to stand up to the Swamp aligned against his FBI in the Hillary "matter." • This is the same Director who, according to his own sworn testimony, said his "antenna" went up just being alone in a room with President Trump. Where were his "antenna" in the face of the improper order from his boss, AG Lynch?? Where were his memos written to protect himself and the FBI in case of future criticism of his recollections about what Lynch said?? Comey had no trouble using his testimony to accuse the Trump administration of “spreading lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month. Where was his accusation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch ordered him to lie to the American public about an ongoing criminal investigation??? Where was his need to leak to the New York Times his concerns about the action of AG Lynch??? • He had no concern because he was obviously in bed with the Obama/Clinton/Lynch DOJ decision to protect Hillary from her criminal acts and from being indicted on felony charges. • And where is the mainstream media interest in this Comey reference to political uses of the Justice Department, to the collusion between AG Lynch and Bill Clinton, and to the obstruction of justice Comey suggested under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee when he testified that Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General under President Obama, pressured him to downplay the Clinton email server investigation and only refer to it as a “matter.” Comey testified Lynch wouldn’t give him an explanation. “Just call it a matter,” she said....“which confused me.” • • • DEAR READERS, this is evidence of obstruction of justice -- coming from the Attorney General, who has the power to start or stop the wheels of FBI investigations and of DOJ indictments. Comey felt the pressure and complied. His guilt is the guilt of Attorney General Lynch, who knew she could pressure Comey into submission to her order. • As American Thinker's Daniel John Sobieski stated on Saturday : "Arguably, the most interesting part of the testimony of James Comey, the cowardly lion of the criminal justice system, before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday is not that President Trump was cleared of even a scintilla of corruption and obstruction of justice but that President Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, is up to her eyeballs in both....This is far worse than President Trump asking Comey in a private conversation to wrap up the Flynn investigation after Flynn was dismissed as National Security Advisor. This was a direct order by Comey’s immediate superior to align his rhetoric with the Clinton campaign spin. This is what Comey did, calling it a “matter” and not a criminal investigation, which is the only thing the FBI does. Couple this submissive compliance to an order to help the Clinton campaign with their spin with the meeting on the tarmac between Lunch and Bill Clinton, the husband of the target of that criminal investigation, and you have an obvious case for charging Lynch with obstruction of justice." Sobieski added : "He didn’t have the authority to go before the American people and declare that the multiple felonies committed by Hilary Clinton while she was Secretary of State were not prosecutable due to lack of intent. Not only was he wrong on the law, which does not require intent, but his job is to gather evidence not to recommend prosecution or not. If Comey wanted to preserve the independence of the FBI, he wouldn’t have held the press conference giving Hillary Clinton a pass. He would have thrown the evidence on Lynch’s desk and told her to do her job. He bailed both Clinton and Lynch out and gave the Clinton campaign a boost. Lynch ordered Comey to drop the word “investigation.” Did she also order him to drop the investigation itself and take the hit for doing so? Questions still remain -- why Comey did not attend the final Clinton interview, why the interview was not recorded, why Clinton was not under oath, and why obvious follow-up questions were not asked. It would seem that Comey, perhaps at the order of Lynch, was doing everything that would benefit the Clinton campaign." • If FBI Director Comey was as honorable and concerned about the integrity of the FBI as he continually asserts, why didn't he take the completed Hillary FBI file to Attorney General Lynch, lay it on her desk and say : 'This is yours, Ma'am. The FBI doesn't do politics.' • This is the Swamp President Trump wants to drain. Consider that Comey’s exoneration of Hillary came just days after Lynch met with Bill on the tarmac. “Collusion”?? “Obstruction of justice”??? Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton says : "This is why many Americans believe the Obama administration’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton was rigged. Now it will be up to Attorney General Sessions at the Trump Justice Department to finally shed some light on this subversion of justice.” • And, Comey's professor friend has already heard from Senators Chuck Grassley (R), Diane Feinstein (D), Lindsey Graham (R), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D) -- the chairmen and ranking Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee and its National Security Subcommittee. They sent a letter Thursday to Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman demanding he provide them with the original memo he supposedly leaked to CNN on Comey’s say-so. The letter calls the memo, reported to describe President Donald Trump telling Comey to go easy on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, “relevant to the Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigative efforts.” The letter threw a wider net, also demanding all other memoranda Comey may have provided Richman and gave him only until midnight Friday. Breitbart reported the existence of the letter but could not confirm if Richman complied with the Senators’ demands. Richman reportedly went into hiding after his name hit the national news and has not been seen in his Brooklyn neighborhood since. His disappearance from view as the request for the memo pends has raised questions about the memo, the validity of which Comey swore by in his Thursday testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. • As Sean Hannity put it last weekend -- Comey is nothing more than a partisan, political hack. • Yes, Mr. President, James Comey is a Swamp Creature. • President Trump must not fall into President G.W. Bush’s trap by acting like the Mueller Special Counsel team is honorable or seeking to find the truth about a real crime. They almost certainly are not. Indeed, Comey expressed certainty in his testimony that the Special Counsel was investigating Comey’s conversations with Trump : "I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense." So, what started as concerns over Russian interference in the election now is about the interactions between Comey and Trump. • CBS News reported that Mueller reportedly gave approval for Comey to testify before Congress and that the testimony was coordinated. Comey testified that he was permitted to review his memos in preparation of his written opening statement for the Committee submitted the day before his live testimony : COMEY: Yes. I think nearly all of my written recordings of my conversations, I had a chance to review them before filing my statement. • There are many questions that need to be answered about how Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein came to appoint Mueller just a few days after the Comey leak to the NYT, and whether Comey and Mueller, directly or indirectly, had any communications regarding Trump prior to Mueller’s appointment. We now have the unsavory situation of the Special Counsel investigating and necessarily assigning credibility (or lack thereof) to Comey's testimony. The problem here goes far beyond their long professional interactions -- in 2013, The Washingtonian described the close professional history, "Forged Under Fire -- Bob Mueller and Jim Comey’s Unusual Friendship." The Boston Globe reported on May 20, 2017, that the men considered themselves friends : "The two men have had similar careers. Both have been top federal prosecutors. Both have been FBI directors. Several people who know both men say they respect each other." John Pistole, who worked for Mueller as deputy director of the FBI and also knows Comey says : “Clearly it’s a relationship based on professional colleagues, initially. But I think they would consider themselves friends. Mueller is a mentor of sorts to Comey.” The fact is that they are not at arms length. • Comey manipulated the system into getting his friend Mueller appointed Special Counsel. Now, friend Mueller will be investigating matters in which Comey is a key witness, and more, because Comey’s own actions in leaking government property raise legal issues as to whether Comey himself violated the law. Even assuming Mueller is able to separate his past with Comey from his present investigation, that relationship damages the whole purpose of having a Special Counsel who is independent in fact and appearance. Friends shouldn’t be investigating friends. Mueller should step aside to remove this taint on the Special Counsel investigation. And, after Comey's sworn testimony removing all doubt about Trump's actions being obstructions of justice, Rod Rosenstein should simply shut down the Specal Counsel investigation. There is no need for it.