Random Politics & Religion #24

He could lay off Twitter for one day

Let's not imagine a world of impossibilities.

On n Thursday morning, James Comey returns to a very familiar forum, and a very familiar conundrum. The former FBI director will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his observations of the FBI's investigation into possible Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election, and especially whether any attempt to influence him by President Trump played a role in his abrupt termination. Comey has an opportunity here to publicly air any grievances over his firing, free of the professional requirements for discretion during open investigations.

So, will what he has to say make any bit of a difference? The problem for Comey is that both Democrats and Republicans have spent nearly a year attacking him for failing to exercise professional discretion when it mattered, and politicizing the FBI as a result. So whether his testimony will have any sway depends on whether he can overcome his massive credibility problem.

For a moment, it was unclear whether Comey would get to testify at all. Last week, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway suggested that Trump might invoke executive privilege to keep Comey from discussing a meeting between the two that took place in early February. This meeting in particular is of intense interest, as Comey will apparently tell Congress that Trump asked him if the FBI could drop its investigation into Michael Flynn after his resignation as national security adviser.

This unusual set of circumstances would have made executive privilege a problematic claim for Trump, at least politically, as it would have signaled that Trump thought there was something to hide. Trump himself has publicly discussed this conversation he and Comey had, and indeed ridiculed Comey on Twitter over it not long after firing him. Of course, Comey no longer works for the federal government either, so he has no incentive to refrain from public comment — and lots of incentive to stick it to Trump. It's this dynamic, as well as the possibility of official obstruction of justice, that has captured Congress' (and the public's) interest.

While the White House thought better of a privilege claim, Comey's testimony could be limited in other ways. Thanks to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to retain Robert Mueller as a special counsel on the Russia-influence probe, Congress has to tread lightly when it comes to the ongoing investigation. Mueller has already absorbed the Flynn matters as part of his investigation, which means that Comey might be a material witness. Fox News reporter Chad Pergram noted that committee chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.) plans to confer with Mueller first to "work out what's in-bounds/out-of-bounds in public" testimony, which suggests that Comey might not get to discuss everything that's on his mind.

At the same time, Comey might have to field some uncomfortable questions, especially if he now characterizes the February meeting with Trump and his own later firing as an attempt at obstruction of justice. After all, Comey testified to Congress a week before his termination that he had never been pressured to end an investigation for political purposes, almost three months after the Trump meeting took place. Why didn't he report it at the time, or when he first got fired, rather than waiting for the invitation from the committee to testify?

Unfortunately for Comey, he dissipated his credibility with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill during the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton. He outraged Democrats by publicly characterizing the conclusions of the investigation, and angered Republicans by not pursuing a prosecution over the secret email system and the serial mishandling of classified data. Having already done that once, Comey did it all over again just days before the election in a move which Democrats insist cost them the presidential election. And just before he was fired, Comey defended all of those actions, leading some Democrats in Congress to call for his termination.

The Trump administration may have (wisely) foregone the privilege claim, but they apparently plan to remind everyone of Comey's credibility issues. Rosenstein will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee the day before Comey, in part to brief them on the decision to appoint Mueller. However, it doesn't take too much imagination to predict that Rosenstein will also review his memo to Trump about the need to act in some manner after Comey's usurpation of Department of Justice authority in both of his public actions in the Clinton case — and to remind some on Capitol Hill of their previous demands to terminate Comey for those transgressions, as well.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently sent Comey a letter requesting answers to seven questions related to his meeting with Trump, along with any memos he wrote contemporaneously to record the contents of their conversation and any other such memos written after meetings with then-President Barack Obama and officials at the Department of Justice. According to online news site Circa, Comey politely declined to answer those questions on the basis of now being a "private citizen." If that's true, some on the Intelligence Committee might question why Comey wants to talk to them about Trump but not to the Judiciary Committee.

In other words, we can expect a lot of drama this week on Capitol Hill. Whether any of it moves the needle on these controversies remains to be seen, but given the damage done to Comey before this, don't expect to hear much that will stick.

Just had my morning coffee, whats the Trumpocalypse today?

Sources say today that he rift between Trump and Sessions is reaching peak levels! Unnamed sources insist sessions has offered to resign.

Drumpf is once again finished!

The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will no longer allow prosecutors to strike settlement agreements with big companies directing them to make payouts to outside groups, ending an Obama-era practice that Republicans decried as a “slush fund” that padded the accounts of liberal interest groups.

In a memo sent to 94 U.S. attorneys' offices early Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would end the practice that allowed companies to meet settlement burdens by giving money to groups that were neither victims nor parties to the case.

Sessions said the money should, instead, go to the Treasury Department or victims.

“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people—not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in a statement.

Well, that sounds particularly aggressive of Sessions. No wonder he is threatening to quit his job.

Abe Lincoln didn't die for this.

In some circles in Hollywood, he hasn't died yet.

Abe Lincoln didn't die become an immortal vampire hunter for this.

+

I have, in the three-plus years leading [the agency], to the best of my knowledge, never been directed to do anything I believed to be illegal, immoral or inappropriate … or have felt pressure to do so."

Don't you know when somebody said "Trump never directed me to do anything illegal" it really means in the mind of a liberal/democrat "Trump told me to shoot somebody on 5th Avenue today and yesterday. Also, he told me this was under Putin's orders too."

In the meantime, we can take the lack of evidence as an indication that he is guilty.

You do know you just triggered eliroo, right?

/incoming "But, Clinton's emails!" accusation/counterpoint

Comey statements regarding his upcoming testimony have been released. CNN is quite busy whipping up this nothing burger into something but at least seems palatable.

Amongst the details comey fully admits he told trump that he was not under direct investigation.

James Comey's prepared opening statement
7 page .pdf

Enjoy.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.”

...

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. 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. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role. After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President’s request.

I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen.

So the president demands a loyalty oath and not so casually suggests a favorable leak be made that publicly exonerates him. Also makes several "non-requests" (that are requests) for the Flynn investigation to be softened. Meanwhile, the FBI feels that the AG et al are so compromised that they can't be consulted with any of this. Totally nothing what big deal wow.

Totally nothing what big deal wow.

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.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it

I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that

Hahaha that's the part you focus on. The trivial ***that corroborates nothing of real consequence. We've known Trump wasn't under direct investigation for a while now. If you're willing to accept those parts as true then you'd also need to accept the rest.