Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Former FBI Director James Comey on Sunday dismissed the findings of a GOP report claiming there is no evidence President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 election. He added that, as a former prosecutor, he has “serious doubts” about Trump’s credibility as a potential witness.
Comey called the recently released report by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee “a political document” during an interview on “Meet The Press.”
“That is not my understanding of what the facts were before I left the FBI and I think the most important piece of work is the one the special counsel's doing now,” Comey added.
Asked whether the committee has served a good investigative purpose overall, Comey said, “not that I can see.”
The former FBI director also said politicization has “wrecked the committee, and it damaged relationships with the FISA Court, the intelligence communities. It's just a wreck.”
Yeah it's hard to argue with Comey on this.
The House Intelligence Committee with Devin Nunes in charge was NEVER going to find anything problematic about Trump's interactions with Russia.
Comey also weighed in on Trump's seeming inability to tell the truth:
“I have serious doubts about his credibility,” Comey said of Trump, adding that he worries about whether the president would be truthful under oath or not.
“Sometimes people who have serious credibility problems can tell the truth when they realize that the consequences of not telling the truth in an interview or in the grand jury would be dire,” Comey said. “But you'd have to go in with a healthy sense that he might lie to you.”
In other words Trump will almost certainly lie under oath, and that will essentially be his undoing.
Which is something that probably EVERYBODY knows, with the possible exception of Trump himself.
Fired FBI Director James Comey has retained former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as one of his personal attorneys, bringing in a heavy-hitting former prosecutor, close friend and longtime colleague to help him navigate his dramatic role as a potential witness in the investigation of President Trump’s campaign and potential obstruction of justice.
Two Capitol Hill sources independently told TPM that Fitzgerald was serving as a lawyer for Comey. After publication, Fitzgerald confirmed that he “has been part of Mr. Comey’s legal team since May 2017.”
Damn! James Comey has chosen one of the best prosecutors in the country to assist him.
Comey and Fitzgerald go way back, and in fact Comey is the one who chose Fitzgerald to serve as a Special Counsel during the Bush Administration.
The target of that investigation was Scooter Libby, who Fitzgerald saw convicted, and who Trump just recently pardoned.
I have to imagine that Fitzgerald is not feeling terribly generous toward the man who erased all of his hard work, and Trump has NOBODY on his team who can go toe to toe with this guy.
In a fateful private White House dinner early last year, President Donald Trump raised with then-FBI Director James Comey the issue of “the golden showers thing”—a particularly salacious portion of an intelligence dossier claiming Trump hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel-room bed in 2013, while he was in town for the Miss Universe pageant.
According to Comey’s memos about that conversation, Trump claimed it was impossible for him to have done any such thing, because “he had spoken to people who had been on... the trip with him and they had reminded him that he didn’t stay over night in Russia for that.”
All available evidence proves otherwise—from flight records obtained by Politico to social media posts from the time to testimony from Trump’s own bodyguard. And now there’s more proof.
Thomas Roberts, host of that year’s Miss Universe pageant, confirmed to The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Trump was in Moscow for one full night and at least part of another.
“The first time I met Donald Trump it was in Moscow on November 8th, 2013,” the former NBC anchor said. “I taped a sit-down interview with Trump the next day on November 9th. That was also the date for the Miss Universe broadcast.”
Roberts continued: “During the after-party for the Miss Universe event, Mr. Trump offered to fly me and my husband back to New York. He said he would be leaving directly from the party. We were unable to accept the invitation. That was the early morning hours of November 10th.”
I actually resisted reporting on this earlier because the only account we have that Trump said this is from Comey, who the Trump folks will simply discount as a liar.
However now that so much information has come out that Trump DID lie to the former director of the FBI, and now that so many news outlets have reported it, I think it is important to note here on IM as well.
You know, just to keep a record of the number of lies that Trump has told since announcing his intention to make a run at the White House.
Which I think is well into the hundreds by now.
Besides, from what we have seen Comey took meticulous notes to back up his version of events, and has not been shown to be wrong yet.
Habitual liars like Donald Trump will quite literally lie about ANYTHING, even if they know they will be caught, and even if it really does not serve them to do so.
James Comey just threw Andrew McCabe “under the bus.” Inspector General’s Report on McCabe is a disaster for both of them! Getting a little (lot) of their own medicine?
"Under the bus" is where Trump associates tend to end up.
James Comey Memos just out and show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION. Also, he leaked classified information. WOW! Will the Witch Hunt continue?
The memos are exacting in their specificity, including details about who was sitting where, the precise times that conversations began and their durations. In some cases, Mr. Comey shared his accounts with others immediately afterward.
These details add credibility to Mr. Comey’s account of events. Mr. Trump has disputed some parts, including asking Mr. Comey to shut down an investigation into Mr. Flynn.
Exactly! Rather than indict James Comey for wrongdoing, these memos actually back up the testimony that he provided to the Senate and the details that he wrote about in his book.
So General Michael Flynn’s life can be totally destroyed while Shadey James Comey can Leak and Lie and make lots of money from a third rate book (that should never have been written). Is that really the way life in America is supposed to work? I don’t think so!
Trump is of course referencing this sketch of thug who threatened Stormy Daniels.
Trump left no doubt that this sketch makes him very nervous.
After all this is the first time that Trump has tweeted about this whole
thing directly, which indicates to me that it is hitting close to home.
Almost like perhaps it is a face he is familiar with, hmm?
Trump also took the opportunity this morning to attack James Comey again, and then lie about why he fired him.
Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!
Sadly for Trump we already know why he fired James Comey.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: How strange is it for you to sit here and compare the president to a mob boss?
COMEY: Very strange. And I don’t do it lightly. I — and I’m not trying to, by the way, suggest that President Trump is out breaking legs and — you know, shaking down shopkeepers. But instead, what I’m talking about is that leadership culture constantly comes back to me when I think about my experience with the Trump administration. The — the loyalty oaths, the boss as the dominant center of everything, it’s all about how do you serve the boss, what’s in the boss’s interests. It’s the family, the family, the family, the family. That’s why it reminds me so much and not, “So what’s the right thing for the country and what are the values of the institutions that we’re dealing with?”
Trump's impact on those around him:
The challenge of this president is that he will stain everyone around him. And the question is, how much stain is too much stain and how much stain eventually makes you unable to accomplish your goal of protecting the country and serving the country? So I don’t know.
Trump's bizarre response to news that Russia had interfered in the election:
No one, to my recollection, asked, “So what — what’s coming next from the Russians?” You’re about to lead a country that has an adversary attacking it and I don’t remember any questions about, “So what are they going to do next? How might we stop it? What’s the future look like? Because we’ll be custodians of the security of this country.” There was none of that. It was all, “What can we say about what they did and how it affects the election that we just had.”
Are the Russians blackmailing Trump?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think the Russians have something on Donald Trump?
COMEY: I think it’s possible. I don’t know. These are more words I never thought I’d utter about a president of the United States, but it’s possible.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s stunning. You can’t say for certain that the president of the United States is not compromised by the Russians?
COMEY: It is stunning and I wish I wasn’t saying it, but it’s just — it’s the truth. I cannot say that. It always struck me and still strikes me as unlikely, and I would have been able to say with high confidence about any other president I dealt with, but I can’t. It’s possible.
How Clinton's inevitability convinced Comey that revealing the newly discovered emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop would not hurt her campaign:
STEPHANOPOULOS: At some level, wasn’t the decision to reveal influenced by your assumption that Hillary Clinton was going to win? And your concern that she wins, this comes out several weeks later, and then that’s taken by her opponent as a sign that she’s an illegitimate president?
COMEY: It must have been. I don’t remember consciously thinking about that, but it must have been. Because I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump. And so I’m sure that it — that it was a factor. Like I said, I don’t remember spelling it out, but it had to have been. That — that she’s going to be elected president, and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out.
Concerning his possible impact on the outcome of the election:
But a whole lot of me was thinking, “Oh my God, did we have some role in this? Did we have some impact on the election?” And it’s an incredibly painful juxtaposition, but also thinking, “I really wouldn’t have done it any differently.”
God, I hope we had no impact. I hope we had no impact. But it — I know — I worry it sounds arrogant to say, but it — it wouldn’t change the result.
Comey also revealed that though he did not vote in the election, that his wife and essentially entire family were Hillary supporters, which must have made the days immediately after the election especially fun for him.
And finally on Trump's stunning lack of morality:
I don’t buy this stuff about him being mentally incompetent or early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who’s tracking conversations and knows what’s going on. I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president.
A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they’re pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it — that person’s not fit to be president of the United States, on moral grounds. And that’s not a policy statement. Again, I don’t care what your views are on guns or immigration or taxes.
There’s something more important than that that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country. The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.
I left out the more salacious information about hand size, Russian hookers, and the pee pee tape, because I think that has already been covered in previous posts.
My take away from this interview is that Comey is essentially reporting what most of us already know about Trump's unfitness to lead this country, but he is also demonstrating his own inability to admit his mistakes, and to recognize that he could indeed have made better choices.
At one point Stephanopoulos asks him if he thinks Trump should be impeached, and Comey say he does not because it lets the American people off the hook, and instead believes Trump should be voted out in the next election cycle.
I completely disagree with that because it would allow Trump several more years to damage the country, and also fail to send a message to future corrupt politicians that there are consequences for that corruption.
The articles of impeachment exist for a reason, and if this ain't it, then I don't know what would be.
Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!
Yes, the best way to secure a job with a new President is to announce there is an open investigation against them a week before the election.
If Comey were trying to curry favor with Hillary he would have announced that the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign almost since its inception.
The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?
That is a LOT of misinformation in just one tweet.
Comey throws AG Lynch “under the bus!” Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or AG, in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!
Just in case you are thinking "WTF?" keep in mind that Comey's big interview with ABC is being broadcast tonight.
Apparently somebody is a little agitated.
But it was not all Comey all the time this morning, Trump had a few other things to bitch about as well.
Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!
I did not even realize that lawyers came with an air release valve.
However of course not ALL lawyers are worried about being raided by the FBI.
Only the ones who lied, and paid off porn stars, for Donald Trump.
Then there was this tweet.
The Syrian raid was so perfectly carried out, with such precision, that the only way the Fake News Media could demean was by my use of the term “Mission Accomplished.” I knew they would seize on this but felt it is such a great Military term, it should be brought back. Use often!
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.
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."
James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and.....
....untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!
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.
Ex-FBI Director James Comey compared to President Trump to a "mob boss" in a taped interview with ABC News, according to a promotional video released Wednesday.
“How strange is it for you to sit here and compare the president to a mob boss?” host George Stephanopoulos asks Comey in a clip shared by ABC News.
The preview also shows Stephanopoulos asking Comey if he believes President Trump obstructed justice, or if he thinks the president should be impeached.
Comey does not speak at all in the promotional clip.
This is just the beginning of the media blitz that will precede the release of Comey's new book "A Higher Loyalty: Truth Lies & Leadership."
Comey also has interviews scheduled with CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and PBS.
I still have a lot of issues with how Comey interfered in the 2016 election, but there is no way I am not reading this book or watching the upcoming interviews.
Comey has a particular insight into Donald Trump, and his response to the Russia investigation that I do not feel can be ignored.
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
Our relationship with Russia is worse now than it has ever been, and that includes the Cold War. There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?
This last tweet of Trump's is dead right, but it is also too little too late.
We have been under attack from Russia for several years now, and Trump is ONLY NOW acknowledging that fact.
And before you give Trump any credit for his change of heart you need to see the tweet that followed these first two.
Much of the bad blood with Russia is caused by the Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation, headed up by the all Democrat loyalists, or people that worked for Obama. Mueller is most conflicted of all (except Rosenstein who signed FISA & Comey letter). No Collusion, so they go crazy!
Sooo, it isn't Russia's support for Assad or the cyber attacks against America?
Once again let me point out that Trump did not mention Putin by name. but has no problem naming and blaming Justice Department and FBI officials who are just doing (Or just did) their jobs.
Former FBI Director James Comey’s unreleased book has landed at the No. 1 spot on the Amazon best-sellers list just one day after he told President Trump that “the American people will hear my story very soon.”
Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership," rocketed up the list over the weekend, after starting at No. 15 on Saturday.
The book is scheduled to be released on April 17.
The fired FBI director is expected to use the upcoming book tour to challenge attacks on him and the FBI by Trump and some Republicans.
Speaking of attacks it appears that Comey's book got a boost after this tweet from Trump.
Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source...or known someone else to be an anonymous source...?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.
As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp
The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!
McCabe also opened up about how the President appeared fixated on his wife's failed campaign, recalling at least four occasions in which Trump taunted him with it as a "mistake" or "problem" and calling her a "loser."
Trump raised the issue with Comey "out of the blue," according to McCabe, saying things "like, 'What's wrong with that deputy director of yours?' " insinuating that he was somehow politically motivated against the President, which, McCabe says is "absolutely not true."
"In May, when Director Comey was fired and I had my own interactions with the President, he brought up my wife every time I ever spoke to him," McCabe told CNN, emphasizing that he pushed back. "Of course, I disagreed with him. I don't see my wife's decision to try to enter public life to help her community (have) greater access to healthcare as a mistake or a problem."
Trump also asked McCabe who he voted for in 2016, apparently to gauge his loyalty.
These are the rantings of a VERY insecure and frightened man.
And perhaps he should be because McCabe has something else in common with his former boss James Comey. Copious note taking.
Andrew McCabe — the former FBI deputy director just fired by the attorney general — kept personal memos regarding President Donald Trump.
That’s according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation who wasn’t authorized to discuss the memos publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
This person says the memos are similar to the ones maintained by former FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired last May.
Comey’s series of notes detailed interactions with Trump that Comey said unnerved him.
The person with knowledge of McCabe’s situation says McCabe’s memos include details of interactions with the president, among other topics.
It’s not immediately clear whether any of the McCabe memos have been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller or requested by Mueller.
It's a damn good thing that Donald Trump does not accompany his children when they go hunting. Because he would definitely shoot himself in the foot every single time.
Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director and a frequent target of President Trump’s scorn, was fired Friday after the Attorney General Jeff Sessions rejected an appeal that would have let him retire this weekend.
Mr. McCabe promptly declared that his firing, and Mr. Trump’s persistent needling, were intended to undermine the special counsel’s investigation in which he is a potential witness.
Mr. McCabe is accused in a yet-to-be-released internal report of failing to be forthcoming about a conversation he authorized between F.B.I. officials and a journalist.
In a statement released late Friday, Mr. Sessions said that Mr. McCabe had shown a lack of candor under oath on multiple occasions.
“The F.B.I. expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability,” he said. “I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately.”
McCabe however disputes that explanation:
McCabe in a statement: "Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey."
“The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong,” he said, adding, “This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness.”
It should be pointed out that a Fox News draft of their article on this firing was leaked on Twitter hours before anybody else knew it was happening.
Someone at Fox News accidentally published the draft of a "McCabe fired" story, even though the firing hasn't happened. Twitterers are starting to share the link, thinking it's real. pic.twitter.com/QZPkLcyFLN
So clearly Trump's favorite "news" outlet was given a heads up well before the rest of the media was informed about this unprecedented decision.
By the way we should also remember that Trump has been trolling McCabe about this possibility for months now.
This is how the president of the United States treats a man who gave over 20 years in service to his country.
Update: Check this shit out.
Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!
Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!
And he is also smearing James Comey, former DNI James Clapper, Senator Mark Warner, and former CIA Director John Brennan, who came out yesterday to chastise Devin Nunes for abusing his office.
And get a load of Trump's revisionist history:
Representative Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!
Mr. President, I see you’ve had a busy morning of “Executive Time.” Instead of tweeting false smears, the American people would appreciate it if you turned off the TV and helped solve the funding crisis, protected Dreamers or...really anything else. https://t.co/lVqQRu2Gjl
All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would. But take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up. Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy.
Damn! James Comey has certainly pulled off the old kid gloves.
But who could really blame him?
After all not only his the organization he worked for under constant attack, but the friends he left there are dropping like flies.
Trump, who can never let anything go, responded with this:
The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!
For weeks, Republicans have been obsessed with FBI agent Peter Strzok, suggesting that he was part of a cabal inside the agency who sought to rig the 2016 presidential election for Hillary Clinton. To support this theory, the GOP has seized upon texts between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that were sometimes critical of Trump. (Strzok and Page were having an affair.)
Last week, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) suggested that Strzok and Page formed a “secret society” to undermine the Trump campaign. “What this is all about is further evidence of corruption — more than bias — but corruption of the highest levels of the FBI… There is so much smoke here,” Johnson said.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump accused Strzok of “treason.” If you watch Fox News, the supposed anti-Trump bias of Strzok is discussed daily, if not hourly.
But on Wednesday, CNN reported that Strzok supported reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation days before the election — and wrote the first draft of the letter from former FBI Director James Comey that made the decision public.
"Strzok, who co-wrote what appears to be the first draft that formed the basis of the letter Comey sent to Congress, also supported reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails were discovered on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop, according to a source familiar with Strzok’s thinking. The day after Strzok sent his draft to his colleagues, Comey released the letter to Congress, reigniting the email controversy in the final days of the campaign."
The letter drafted by Strzok played a key role in swinging momentum back to Trump in the closing days of the campaign.
That letter is credited with essentially handing the 2016 election to Donald Trump.
So if Strzok was actually playing for "Team Hillary" why the fuck would he sabotage her chances at victory?
We Democrats should be the ones calling for this guy's head on a platter, but due to a few private emails with his girlfriend, it's the Republicans who are stabbing their savior in the back.
An FBI official who served as associate deputy director under James Comey and Andrew McCabe is replacing McCabe as acting deputy director, an FBI spokesman confirmed to Newsweek. Multiple outlets including Newsweek had previously reported the news, citing sources.
As associate deputy director, David Bowdich was the third-ranking FBI official, according to the bureau's organization chart, and would now become No. 2.
Bowdich became associate deputy director in April 2016. In that role, he oversaw most of the bureau's nonoperational branches and divisions, such as personnel, budget, administration and infrastructure. Previously, starting in 2014, he was assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles field office. Before that, he led the counterintelligence division at that office, overseeing all international and domestic terrorism investigations in the region. He joined the FBI in 1995 and at various times was a SWAT team operator and a sniper.
Sounds like a no nonsense professional with unquestionable integrity, right?
Well the same could have been said about James Comey and Andrew McCabe.
But here's the kicker:
But Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators who have called for a “purge” of the bureau’s Comey-era officials might be disappointed, given his former proximity to Comey and McCabe. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, Comey said he had spoken to senior colleagues including Bowdich about President Donald Trump’s allegedly asking Comey to have the FBI back off its probe into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser.
Because of that apparent conversation, and because he was the No. 3 official under Comey, Bowdich is a potential witness into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey. Last June, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that the committee interview Bowdich and other FBI officials as the panel investigated Comey’s termination.
That's right. This guy, just like the last guy, was informed by Comey that Donald Trump had attempted to bully him into dropping the Michael Flynn investigation.
So what does Trump do now?
Does he fire yet ANOTHER director or deputy director of the FBI?
Because even if he does, it will have NO effect on the various investigations, which I have to believe are now accelerating forward in the wake of these new unprecedented actions by the guy in the White House.
The day after he fired James Comey as director of the FBI, a furious President Donald Trump called the bureau's acting director, Andrew McCabe, demanding to know why Comey had been allowed to fly on an FBI plane from Los Angeles back to Washington after he was dismissed, according to multiple people familiar with the phone call.
McCabe told the president he hadn’t been asked to authorize Comey’s flight, but if anyone had asked, he would have approved it, three people familiar with the call recounted to NBC News.
The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied, “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone.
Trump, enraged by TV footage of Comey boarding the government-funded plane hours after his firing, believed that Comey should not have been allowed to take the plane, that any privileges he had received as FBI director should have ceased the moment he was fired, the people familiar with the matter said.
The previously unreported exchange between Trump and McCabe was one of a series of attacks the president aimed at McCabe that fueled tensions between the White House and the Justice Department and culminated Monday with McCabe stepping down as the FBI’s deputy director.
This is ABSOLUTELY unprecedented behavior.
So bizarre, so insane, that it almost defies explanation.
For the record it is completely normal for an FBI Director to get a government plane ride home after being removed from his job.
Trump's anger is simply unreasonable in this circumstance, and speaks to his inability to understand how government works, and his inability to control his hatred for those who dare to defy him.
The fact that he mocked McCabe concerning his wife's losing political campaign is so disgusting that I would only expect that kind of behavior from a sociopath.
This man is sick, and he desperately needs to be removed from office.
James Comey, the former F.B.I. director fired by President Donald Trump last year, has been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
The New York Times first reported the interview on Tuesday.
The interview, which lasted for several hours, focused heavily on a series of memos Comey wrote after each interaction with Trump. NBC News reported that the interview occurred in late 2017.
In his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017, Comey said he had turned all his memos over to the special counsel. In the hearing, he also acknowledged leaking one of the memos to the press — in the explicit hope of sparking a special counsel investigation.
For which this country should be eternally grateful to James Comey.
However I would be remiss if I did not point out that we may not have ever found ourselves in this mess if Comey had not blundered so badly concerning the Clinton e-mail investigation.
Still, I bet he had a LOT to share with Mueller's investigators.
By the way apparently Donald Trump also did a little questioning of FBI agents himself.
Shortly after President Trump fired his FBI director in May, he summoned to the Oval Office the bureau’s acting director for a get-to-know-you meeting.
The two men exchanged pleasantries, but before long, Trump, according to several current and former U.S. officials, asked Andrew McCabe a pointed question: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election?
McCabe said he didn’t vote, according to the officials, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive matter.
Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations that his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton.
McCabe you may remember is the FBI agent that Trump has been attacking on Twitter, and trying to get Jeff Sessions to fire.
Anybody else noticing a pattern here?
Speaking of patterns, Sarah Huckabee Sanders essentially stated that the reason Trump has not had Mueller fired yet is because of the potential backlash from the press.
President Donald Trump hasn't fired special counsel Robert Mueller partly because of how the press would react to the dismissal, the White House said Tuesday.
Trump and his top aides have routinely slammed the probe as nothing more than a witch hunt or a hoax, leading some to question why he hasn't fired Mueller in the first place. But the White House appears keenly aware that any attempt to get rid of Mueller could create a massive public relations headache that could envelop the administration.
"Look, we want to see this come to a complete and full conclusion," said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. "I think we all know what everybody in this room would do if the President did that, and I don't think that is helpful to the process."
She added that Trump "wants to see this end and he wants to see them finally come to the same conclusion that I think most everyone in America has that there is nothing to this."
That last statement makes it pretty clear that the White House is still in complete denial over this investigation.
Somehow I think those rose colored glasses are going to fall right off once Robert Mueller has the opportunity to question Trump.
What is it that Bette Davis said in the movie "All About Eve?"
Oh yeah: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
The fact that it was drawn by a Haitian just makes it even better.
Here is how perhaps our greatest President honored the man we celebrate today.
Dr. King was 26 when the Montgomery bus boycott began. He started small, rallying others who believed their efforts mattered, pressing on through challenges and doubts to change our world for the better. A permanent inspiration for the rest of us to keep pushing towards justice.
And this from the man who Donald Trump fired to protect his friends and family from an FBI investigation.
On MLK day, I like to read his Letter From Birmingham Jail, which still resonates: “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away... and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation...”
By the way Donald Trump spent today, a day that his predecessors spent celebrating this great civil rights leader, golfing.
And we should not be, in any way, surprised that he did.
I cannot even begin to imagine how Martin Luther King Jr. would react to a Trump presidency, but I know that he would certainly be out on the streets protesting just about everything this shithole was doing.
And of course Donald Trump would be attacking him on Twitter.
