Trump Fires James Comey!

[GoBills808]

This isn't the Titanic vault opening: The memo will be released in short order and its contents have been read aloud to a reporter, and comfirm d by multiple sources.

 

Could they all be lying? I guess, but it's highly unlikely. And given Trump is Trump, do you really think he met with Comey and only subtly nudged him about the Flynn investigation, being careful and tactful in his practice of diplomatic artistry not to get to close to a dangerous line?

That's why we elected him, for his subtlety and finesse.

[IDBillzFan]

This isn't the Titanic vault opening: The memo will be released in short order and its contents have been read aloud to a reporter, and comfirm d by multiple sources.

 

If it's this big and this important and this bad...any idea why Comey sat on it until two weeks after he was fired?

 

Incompetence?

[26CornerBlitz]

@AP

BREAKING: Top members of Senate Judiciary Committee request memos from former FBI director Comey, ask White House for any tapes.

[Tiberius]

 

@AP

BREAKING: Top members of Senate Judiciary Committee request memos from former FBI director Comey, ask White House for any tapes.

 

Tapes! Just wonder if he used an iphone to record a conversation would they try to get his phone?

[grinreaper]

This isn't the Titanic vault opening: The memo will be released in short order and its contents have been read aloud to a reporter, and comfirm d by multiple sources.

 

Could they all be lying? I guess, but it's highly unlikely. And given Trump is Trump, do you really think he met with Comey and only subtly nudged him about the Flynn investigation, being careful and tactful in his practice of diplomatic artistry not to get to close to a dangerous line?

Looks like Comey is !@#$ed or really !@#$ed:

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/gregg-jarrett-comeys-revenge-is-a-gun-without-powder/ar-BBBdLbm?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

 

Here is what we do know.

Under the law, Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States. Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey. (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law.

So, if Comey believed Trump attempted to obstruct justice, did he comply with the law by reporting it to the DOJ? If not, it calls into question whether the events occurred as the Times reported it.

Obstruction requires what’s called “specific intent” to interfere with a criminal case. If Comey concluded, however, that Trump’s language was vague, ambiguous or elliptical, then he has no duty under the law to report it because it does not rise to the level of specific intent. Thus, no crime.

There is no evidence Comey ever alerted officials at the Justice Department, as he is duty-bound to do. Surely if he had, that incriminating information would have made its way to the public either by an indictment or, more likely, an investigation that could hardly be kept confidential in the intervening months.

Comey’s memo is being treated as a “smoking gun” only because the media and Democrats, likely prompted by Comey himself, are now peddling it that way.

Comey will soon testify before Congress about this and other matters. His memo will likely be produced pursuant to a subpoena. The words and the context will matter.

But by writing a memo, Comey has put himself in a box. If he now accuses the President of obstruction, he places himself in legal jeopardy for failing to promptly and properly report it. If he says it was merely an uncomfortable conversation, he clears the president of wrongdoing and sullies his own image as a guy who attempted to smear the man who fired him.

Either way, James Comey comes out a loser. No matter. The media will hail him a hero.

After all, he gave them a good story that was better than the truth.

[DC Tom]

 

Your take is fine, but her judgment was vindicated. Her oath is to the law and constitution and not to who sits in the oval office for a four year term.

 

Her judgement was vindicated; her action wasn't. Her job was to implement policy as it's handed down to her, not judge on which should and should not be implemented. If she couldn't do that, she should have resigned in protest.

 

Instead, she tried to have it both ways, and got fired for it, which was entirely appropriate. (And isn't the same thing as "resigning in protest," not in government.)

 

If it's this big and this important and this bad...any idea why Comey sat on it until two weeks after he was fired?

 

Incompetence?

 

Or why it was leaked to the press rather than sent to Congress?

 

Keeping in mind this is the SAME GUY who started this whole brouhaha by claiming he was required to notify Congress of new Clinton emails on Weiner's computer in a timely fashion regardless of political considerations. But he sits on evidence of obstruction of justice, and leaks it to the press instead?

 

The gossipy way this is developing smacks of a witch hunt, irrespective of the truth of the accusations.

[Gary M]

 

The gossipy way this is developing smacks of a witch hunt, irrespective of the truth of the accusations.

 

Or the ineptness of the accused.

[DC Tom]

 

Or the ineptness of the accused.

 

The gossipy way it's being denied is due to the ineptness of the accused.

 

The accusations themselves are being slow-rolled for dramatic effect...because the alternative is that everybody opposing Trump is as inept as Trump, and I find that impossible to believe.

[Tiberius]

 

Her judgement was vindicated; her action wasn't. Her job was to implement policy as it's handed down to her, not judge on which should and should not be implemented. If she couldn't do that, she should have resigned in protest.

 

Instead, she tried to have it both ways, and got fired for it, which was entirely appropriate. (And isn't the same thing as "resigning in protest," not in government.)

 

Or why it was leaked to the press rather than sent to Congress?

 

Keeping in mind this is the SAME GUY who started this whole brouhaha by claiming he was required to notify Congress of new Clinton emails on Weiner's computer in a timely fashion regardless of political considerations. But he sits on evidence of obstruction of justice, and leaks it to the press instead?

 

The gossipy way this is developing smacks of a witch hunt, irrespective of the truth of the accusations.

Seriously, Congress is supine and only doing something because a first amendment protected press is doing its job. If it had gone to Congress it would have disappeared

[Governor]

Looks like Comey is !@#$ed or really !@#$ed:

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/gregg-jarrett-comeys-revenge-is-a-gun-without-powder/ar-BBBdLbm?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

 

Here is what we do know.

Under the law, Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States. Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey. (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law.

So, if Comey believed Trump attempted to obstruct justice, did he comply with the law by reporting it to the DOJ? If not, it calls into question whether the events occurred as the Times reported it.

Obstruction requires whats called specific intent to interfere with a criminal case. If Comey concluded, however, that Trumps language was vague, ambiguous or elliptical, then he has no duty under the law to report it because it does not rise to the level of specific intent. Thus, no crime.

There is no evidence Comey ever alerted officials at the Justice Department, as he is duty-bound to do. Surely if he had, that incriminating information would have made its way to the public either by an indictment or, more likely, an investigation that could hardly be kept confidential in the intervening months.

Comeys memo is being treated as a smoking gun only because the media and Democrats, likely prompted by Comey himself, are now peddling it that way.

Comey will soon testify before Congress about this and other matters. His memo will likely be produced pursuant to a subpoena. The words and the context will matter.

But by writing a memo, Comey has put himself in a box. If he now accuses the President of obstruction, he places himself in legal jeopardy for failing to promptly and properly report it. If he says it was merely an uncomfortable conversation, he clears the president of wrongdoing and sullies his own image as a guy who attempted to smear the man who fired him.

Either way, James Comey comes out a loser. No matter. The media will hail him a hero.

After all, he gave them a good story that was better than the truth.

Now that's silly.

 

I don't recall Comey accusing Trump of "obstruction of justice" do you?

 

Anyone?

 

I think that would be for Congress to decide.

[DC Tom]

Seriously, Congress is supine and only doing something because a first amendment protected press is doing its job. If it had gone to Congress it would have disappeared

 

No, the Democrats never would have let it disappear. Same way the Republicans never would have let his communication about Clinton stay private.

 

Instead...he wrote an internal memo intended to stay within the FBI and Justice Department? Leaving it in Sessions' hands is a much better way to make it disappear.

[grinreaper]

Now that's silly.

 

I don't recall Comey accusing Trump of "obstruction of justice" do you?

 

Anyone?

 

I think that would be for Congress to decide.

So his private memorandum content gets leaked and virtually the entire media, the left and some on the right are running with the story that Trump committed obstruction of justice and you fall back on this schit?

[Tiberius]

 

No, the Democrats never would have let it disappear. Same way the Republicans never would have let his communication about Clinton stay private.

 

Instead...he wrote an internal memo intended to stay within the FBI and Justice Department? Leaving it in Sessions' hands is a much better way to make it disappear.

I think he wrote these things after every important meeting. Paper trails and all

[Governor]

So his private memorandum content gets leaked and virtually the entire media, the left and some on the right are running with the story that Trump committed obstruction of justice and you fall back on this schit?

Comey hasn't said a word about any of it. You worried?

[HappyDays]

 

If it's this big and this important and this bad...any idea why Comey sat on it until two weeks after he was fired?

 

Incompetence?

He wants subpoenas and public hearings. It's very obvious what's he's doing. This isn't the only memo. More will come out.

[Governor]

He wants subpoenas and public hearings. It's very obvious what's he's doing. This isn't the only memo. More will come out.

His memos aren't a "smoking gun" without him being fired first, which he was expecting from the start.

 

The two events together are what makes this so bad.

[GoBills808]

His memos aren't a "smoking gun" without him being fired first, which he was expecting from the start.

 

The two events together are what makes this so bad.

Why would you fire a guy to whom you had, just days before, possibly committed a breach of ethics and who happens to run the largest domestic investigatorial and data collecting agency in the country?

[DC Tom]

I think he wrote these things after every important meeting. Paper trails and all

 

I don't doubt it...but the sentence I wrote after that is the key counterpoint to your earlier observation.

Why would you fire a guy to whom you had, just days before, possibly committed a breach of ethics and who happens to run the largest domestic investigatorial and data collecting agency in the country?

 

Because you're a !@#$ing idjimit who never bothered to learn anything about federal ethics laws, so you think being an 800-lb gorilla (orangeback, not silverback, of course) in the boardroom means you can be one in the Oval Office.

[GoBills808]

 

I don't doubt it...but the sentence I wrote after that is the key counterpoint to your earlier observation.

 

Because you're a !@#$ing idjimit who never bothered to learn anything about federal ethics laws, so you think being an 800-lb gorilla (orangeback, not silverback, of course) in the boardroom means you can be one in the Oval Office.

That is the likeliest of scenarios. It's either that or Comey actually had something on him re: the Russia connection.

 

But after reading what he apparently said to Lavrov and Kislyak...yeah, I think it's safe to confirm the guy is a five alarm moron. Just wowsa.

[DC Tom]

That is the likeliest of scenarios. It's either that or Comey actually had something on him re: the Russia connection.

 

But after reading what he apparently said to Lavrov and Kislyak...yeah, I think it's safe to confirm the guy is a five alarm moron. Just wowsa.

 

Another point in favor of that explanation is that Trump has always insisted the Russia investigation is much ado about nothing. So he either fired Comey because he (Trump) was lying all this time, and thereby impulsively and precipitously exposes his own statements as lies. Or he fired Comey for some other reason, impulsively and precipitously...and not realizing that it would make his previous statements look like lies. Which, either way...five-alarm moron.

 

And another reminder...not eight hours before Comey was fired, Congressional Democrats were calling for his head because of the discrepancies in Comey "misled" the Senate Judiciary Committee with his testimony, which required written "clarification" from the FBI. HOW !@#$ING EASY would it have been to wait a couple of days and ask Comey to resign for his mishandling of the Clinton case as evidenced by his clearly inconsistent testimony. Get what you want, get a politcal win by giving Senate Democrats what they want, insulate yourself from any blowback by indirectly engaging Senate Democrats in the decision. But no...let's just poke the situation with a sharp stick, and make Comey the anti-Trump hero to people who not eight hours earlier wanted him drawn and quartered as a pro-Trump stooge.

 

It's actually pretty hard to be that stupid accidentally. You almost have to put some effort into it.