Friday, April 13, 2018

James Comey's book falls into the hands of reporters days before publication. And here we go.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Donald J. Trump asked Director James B. Comey of the F.B.I. to investigate and knock down a lurid but unverified report that placed Mr. Trump years earlier in a Moscow hotel suite with prostitutes, explaining to Mr. Comey that the fantastic story was untrue and was painful and distressing to his wife, Melania Trump.

By Mr. Comey’s accounts, Mr. Trump, then the president-elect, disputed the so-called Steele dossier, a document compiled by a former British intelligence officer that detailed an allegation in which Mr. Trump watched prostitutes urinate on each other. Mr. Comey writes that Mr. Trump insisted that “there’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me” in part because he is a self-professed germophobe. “No way.”

Here was Comey's take on Trump's overall personality: 

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Mr. Comey writes in the book, saying his service to Mr. Trump recalled for him the days when he investigated the mob in New York. “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.”

Nothing startling about this revelation, we have all seen evidence of that ourselves.

Comey also makes a few other observations:  

“His face appeared slightly orange, with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles,” Mr. Comey writes of his impressions during that first in-person session. He said Mr. Trump had “impressively coifed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his.”

Comey also mentions that Trump is smaller in stature than he first thought, and had smallish hands.

He also writes that Trump  builds a “a cocoon of alternative reality” around himself and those who serve him.

Much of the book is devoted to Comey's fear about how the Trump  presidency is damaging the country: 

“We are experiencing a dangerous time in our country,” he writes, “with a political environment where basic facts are disputed, fundamental truth is questioned, lying is normalized and unethical behavior is ignored, excused or rewarded.”

Comey also touches on why he felt he had to announce that the Hillary Clinton email case was reopened only a little over a week before the election.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Comey has said that he made the public announcement in part because he was concerned concealing the FBI's investigation would imply bias. However, in the book Comey acknowledges that he assumed at the time that Clinton would win the election. 

“Certainly not consciously, but I would be a fool to say it couldn’t have had an impact on me,” he wrote of the assumption, according to ABC News. "It is entirely possible my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls. But I don’t know.”

So it appears that Comey was concerned about protecting the FBI's reputation, and felt that Clinton was far enough in the lead that his announcement would not change the outcome.

If only that had been true.

There were reports that the Trump team was coming up with a strategy to deal with Comey's book, but it appears that Trump himself went with "unhinged."
Trump might be right about that "botch jobs" comment as anything that might have helped to get HIM elected is likely going to be seen as a humongous mistake.


34 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:34 AM

    All the reviews say this book is a real pisser.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:46 AM

      The book will be a #1 best seller no matter what the Republicans try to put out there! I have already ordered my copy.

      Watch these Republicans in action - what an evil bunch of human beings beginning w/the jerk in the white house!

      Vote Republicans out of office across the country (national, state local levels) in November and in 2020!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous1:09 PM

      James Comey’s Book Pre-Sold Almost 200,000 Copies, Source Says
      That number includes both digital and hardcover pre-sales.


      https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-comey-book-sales_us_5ad0f1fde4b0edca2cb987ce

      Delete
    3. Anonymous1:25 PM

      Trump Calls For James Comey To Be Imprisoned During Meltdown Over Book

      https://www.politicususa.com/2018/04/13/trump-calls-for-james-comey-to-be-imprisoned-during-meltdown-over-book.html

      Delete
    4. Anonymous1:26 PM

      Read highlights from former FBI Director James Comey’s new book

      https://www.politicususa.com/2018/04/13/read-highlights-from-former-fbi-director-james-comeys-new-book.html

      Delete
    5. Anonymous1:50 PM

      "pisser" Does it include the DVD of the prostitutes?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous2:39 PM

      @1:25 " deeply troubling aspect of Trump’s tweets is that he is trying to use the DOJ to prosecute someone who he views as an enemy."
      "This president believes that he is above the law and that he is the government."
      " it is the un-democratic view of presidential power that should infuriate every American."

      Delete
  2. Anonymous6:57 AM

    Slimmy blue balls, you go lOOk in the mirror you tiny djt $hitgibbon!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:04 AM

    I have to wonder if the repugs leaked this book some how - to try and undermine sales - giving them a few days to bash it, and the juicy bits to be leaked...
    plus Comey did himself a real disservice sinking to the low of referring to trump's "small hands" -- gives the repugs and trump all they need to dismiss the whole book as a person vendetta and childish

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:29 AM

      They won't undermine sales - they'll enhance them by all the crap they are putting on the airwaves - beginning with what's his face in the white house!

      My book is ordered - suggest everyone do the same. Expand your knowledge!

      Delete
  4. Anonymous7:23 AM

    " Trump asked only one question, Comey writes: “You found there was no impact on the result, RIGHT?"
    "Comey recalls being struck that neither Trump nor his advisers asked about the future Russian threat, nor how the United States might prepare to meet it. Rather, he writes, they focused on “how they could $PIN what we’d just told them.”"he wasn't surprised that the Russians got him elected. His only reaction was to figure out how to spin it and protect the illusion of his own popularity.

    In their book "Russian Roulette," David Corn and Michael Isikoff remind us that after this meeting, Trump tweeted, “Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results.”

    The report did not say that."
    "Which really does speak to what we call "consciousness of guilt." It's as if Trump's reaction was, "Yeah, I knew that, but I didn't know anyone else did, so we have to clean that up.""

    https://crooksandliars.com/2018/04/comeys-new-book-most-shocking-story-one

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7:34 AM

    Trump calling anyone else "an untruthful slime ball" is really something else. I can't believe this is the current state of the presidency in this country.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous7:43 AM

    Trump assuredly will not be reelected. What an asshole!

    I have ordered Comey's book and can hardly wait to read it! I believe him and always have!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous7:57 AM

    i don't read books like this but everyone has the right to write what they wish. Free country for the time being.
    However, whatever Comey sez about why he threw Hillary under the bus doesn't sit well with me yet.
    Comey gambled and got stuck with the monster now in the White House. In his next life, I hope Comey learns from this.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous8:24 AM

    NOW THIS:
    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/cnns-jake-tapper-busts-trump-disgraceful-motives-behind-scooter-libby-pardon/

    "“Calling @Comey a ‘proven LEAKER & LIAR’ while you’re about to pardon Scooter Libby, who leaked the identity of a covert CIA employee and was convicted for lying about it to the FBI — well, that’s quite a thing,” Tapper wrote."
    “Also fwiw, Libby was prosecuted by one of @Comey’s best friend’s, Pat Fitzgerald, and the recusal of then-AG Ashcroft and appointment of Fitzgerald as Special Counsel were proposed by then-DAG Comey,” "

    FUCKUdickCHENEY!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:45 AM

      DONE!
      https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/official-trump-pardons-scooter-libby/

      Delete
  9. Anonymous8:28 AM

    "“The price of a lawyer seems like a small price to pay,” Prakash said about the apparent value Russia could gain by finding more out about the U.S. intelligence apparatus."'Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, better known around the world as “Putin’s chef,” was one of the 13 Russians charged by Mueller in February with funding the social media operation intended to tip the 2016 election’s scales in favor of President Donald Trump. Prigozhin’s company, Concord Management and Consulting, also was one of the three Russian entities charged in the probe. The company hired two Washington, D.C. lawyers seemingly with the intent of defending itself in court, according to official court documents filed Wednesday in federal court.

    Legal experts said Concord’s apparent attempt to challenge Mueller’s charges could be a way for documents and details about the special counsel’s investigation to be released in discovery. Russia could potentially glean information about how the U.S. gathers intelligence and even about its sources, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, a professor of law and Miller Center Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia, told Newsweek.'
    "Motions in another case brought by Mueller's team have already resulted in additional disclosures. Attorneys representing embattled former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a motion to dismiss the numerous financial charges levied against him last month, claiming Mueller’s team had been given a “blank check” to go after the longtime lobbyist."

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/putins-chef-expose-mueller-us-intel-methods/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:44 AM

    I called my senator's state office and told them that I considered the GOP's attack on my Justice Department, my FBI and Comey treason. And that I expected him to stand up or resign.

    GeorgiaPeach

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hedgewytch11:56 AM

      I've been writing them and telling them the same thing - for months now. Lisa better not come back and give us her concerned hand-wringing without actually doing anything - AGAIN.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous9:45 AM

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-pee-tape-could-be-real-says-comey?ref=home

    Xxx2 "The most infamous section of the Steele dossier, which was full of salacious claims involving Trump and Russia, included a totally unverified claim that the now-president paid prostitutes in 2013 to PEE on a Moscow hotel bed where Barack and Michelle Obama once slept."
    " Friday on Good Morning America, Comey said for the first time that the near-mythical tape could really exist.

    “I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” said Comey,
    in one of the
    MOST extraordinary sentences ever broadcast on breakfast television. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.”"

    ReplyDelete
  12. WA Skeptic9:56 AM

    Reading the Twitter rants of that lying, dumb-fuck Traitor as he squeals and screams makes my little heart go pitty-pat with glee.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:09 AM

      "We are bringing back our factories, we are bringing back our jobs, and we are bringing back those four beautiful words: MADE IN THE USA!"

      Delete
  13. Anonymous10:06 AM

    Funny...if you google "is urine..." the first thing that comes up is "sterile".
    And no.

    I confess I had to look this up, as it had been a popular myth when I was growing up. Trump probably believes it too.

    It would seem that pee spray would not bother an old self-professed "germaphobe" in the least.

    Strange too, that he uses "leak, leaking and leaker" so often in conversation!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous11:26 AM

    Normally my blood pressure would go up thinking of the mess mr country is in,however today i just have to laugh at the mess don the con has gotten himself into and i know we will be alright.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous11:32 AM

    Until now I have never approved of such books.

    But Trump is "special." I want ALLLL the books written about him.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yes, Trump is a germaphobe and as such you would expect him to be horrified with prostitutes peeing on the bed President Obama previously slept in in his presence.

    But then look at his own hatred of immigrants, Mexicans, anyone of hispanic/latin descent and the fact he had an affair and fathered a child with a hispanic housekeeper who speaks no English.

    Love/hate.

    Makes me believe that there is a pee tape out there. Oh, yes. And Trump is apoplectic it will surface and be exposed to the world.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous12:48 PM

    HA HA HA comey has little donnie on the run,and the best he could do was calling him a slime ball

    Come on you can do better don the con.

    How about question his citizenship?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous1:58 PM

    Trump is reportedly angrier than he ever has been during his tenure in the White House, as he’s beset by former FBI Director James Comey’s new book, the FBI raid of his longtime lawyer, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

    Via CNN’s Jason Morrell, a source close to Trump has told CNN’s Gloria Borger that the president is “pissed, flailing and upset” and that his anger right now is “beyond what anyone can imagine.”

    Another source similarly told Borger that Trump’s anger has become “unmanageable” and that he was currently in “lash out” mode.

    Trump this week has angrily attacked a multitude of targets on his Twitter account, including the New York Times, the Mueller probe, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Syrian leader Bashar al Assad, the FBI, and Hillary Clinton.

    The president even attacked Russia over its support for Assad, although he later backtracked on that criticism and said that Mueller’s Russia probe was primarily responsible for the poor relations between Washington and Moscow.

    Watch the video of Borger talking about Trump below.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/pissed-flailing-upset-white-house-source-warns-cnn-trumps-anger-beyond-anyone-can-imagine/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous2:34 PM

      https://www.politicususa.com/2018/04/13/donald-trump-stopped-right-now.html

      "The damage Trump has already done – in particular, undermining America’s law enforcement and intelligence community and painting the fact-based media as the enemy – will take years to reverse. If the GOP doesn’t act now, it could become impossible for the U.S. to fully recover. “In Trump’s mind, I can only imagine, he has settled on a strategy in the case of his own administration’s Armageddon: If he’s going down, the whole system is going down with him.”"

      Delete
  19. Anonymous2:14 PM

    Sadopopulism

    ...Moreover, the truth is simply too frightening for many people to accept: The Republican Party and movement conservatism are now fully sociopathic.

    The criteria from the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” and the “International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems” are as follows:

    Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
    Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms and obligations
    Very low tolerance to frustration, a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence
    Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment
    Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalization for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society
    Deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
    Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
    Of course, Donald Trump personally exemplifies these traits in excess. He and the Republican Party (and especially right-wing libertarians such as the Koch brothers) have also perfected what I described several years ago as political sadism.

    Here the Republican Party, its leaders, and media enablers use fear in conjunction with physical, emotional and financial pain to manipulate Republican voters and many independents into supporting policies that cause them harm. Instead of attributing the cause of this distress correctly, Trump’s voters and other members of the American right-wing want to retaliate against and thus hurt those individuals and groups they view as the Other. This is the primary psychological wage that today’s Republican Party and conservative movement pays its supporters.

    In his new book “The Road to Unfreedom,” Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian and bestselling author, describes this feedback loop as sadopopulism:

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/bring-pain-critics-keep-getting-wrong-trump-supporters/

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous2:16 PM

    Spanky McPeeBrain is gonna blow his biggest gasket yet when the book fully hits the airwaves.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous2:22 PM

    wall street trading desks AND GOP staffers telling me they're hearing Rod Rosenstein is OUT as Deputy AG as @POTUS rages over Mueller inquiry as early as tonight.

    https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/984872363211853825

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous2:59 PM

    Trump is a thug. It's not more complicated than that. Millions voted for a thug because they feel a kinship. They also are thugs. The vile behavior and ignorant character of Roseanne is what they are.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous8:41 PM

    Its better to stick with the fictional story of salvation, there's simply too much invested at this point to let up.
    Huh, evangelicals?

    ReplyDelete

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