The no-leak, no-warning, firing of FBI Director Comey is riling up Washington D.C. like nothing I’ve seen in years. So many powerful people, so many lost minds.
This Instapundit tweet about covers it, as removing “unwritten limits on executive power” was only supposed to help the Deep State power club, not anyone else.
This Fredreka Schouten USA TODAY piece at the following link (James Comey memo: Why his bosses say they fired the FBI director) outlines the five key points in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s firing recommendation memo:
1. “The FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.”
2. “I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unifies people of diverse perspectives.”
3. “The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the director to make such an announcement. At most, the director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors.”
4. “Compounding the error: The director ignored another longstanding principle: We do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation.”
5. “Although the president has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly. I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former department officials. The way the director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong.”
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein was right, whatever way you cut it, Comey violated a basic trust.
The problem here is that DC is about power, not ethics. And Comey was acting in the mainstream of Wash. DC political deep-state culture of the last 25 years. This was one of the reasons Trump was elected President.
And please carefully note — Pres. Trump’s firing of Comey was staged in a way to completely cut FBI Director Comey off from all of his political connections and most especially his personal FBI Director eyes-only files with no notice.
The fact that the Deep State just lost control of America’s chief federal investigative and counter intelligence agency with no warning has made them all lose their collective minds.
They haven’t had time to coordinate a story because too many are calling their lawyers.
About a week from now would be a great time for a sudden, mass examination of file access logs of servers where they keep the good stuff. Don’t just think about last year’s felonies. Consider which ones might be committed by the deep state right now in a fit of panic.
I found Comey’s antics last year a puzzle. What sense can it make to state publicly that Hellary had betrayed her trust, and then say she shouldn’t be prosecuted because Comey though there was no “intent”? Especially since the law is clear that “intent” is irrelevant to this issue.
In the old days they’d have said that Comey lacked “grip”.
Compare Comey’s punting on Emailgate with his vendetta against Martha Stewart
Comey didn’t charge Stewart with insider trading. Instead, he claimed that Stewart’s public protestations of innocence were designed to prop up the stock price of her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and thus constituted securities fraud. Stewart was also charged with making false statements to federal officials investigating the insider trading charge — a charge they never pursued. In essence, Stewart was prosecuted for “having misled people by denying having committed a crime with which she was not charged,” as Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds put it.
In 21st century America a prosecutor can bring any case to trial. Comey was inelegantly covering for the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac deal. He presented the Bureau as tough, meticulous, and fair, while at the same time letting Hillary off the hook in anticipation of receiving whatever rewards would accompany her election victory. Good riddance to this bureaucratic hack.
Grurray and Trent, good summaries of what happened.
I think Comey was faced with an agent revolt last summer and maybe in October, as well. I think he feared a flood of leaks coming from disgruntled agents.
I talked to my daughter last September about the election. She has been a lefty since law school and an FBI agent for almost 20 years. We rarely talk politics.
I asked her about Hillary last fall and she firmly told me she would NOT vote for Hillary although she said she would not vote for Trump. I said the FBI was having serious problems with ethical issues like immunity deals with Clinton underlings with no cooperation required. Her response was “The FBI will be fine.”
She is in England right now and I will ask her about it when she gets back.
The present firestorm suggests that Trump got it right, at least to me. His only serious mistake so far is to leave so many Obama appointees in place. Bush made the same mistake for the same reasons.
Another move by Trump that surprises.
Did I think in his campaign that he sensed that one of the greatest weights on American thinking was what happens when you know, see in large and small acts, that the law was not equally applied?
With the Rosenstein letter with the knowledge that a man who did what he did was fooling himself if he thought he was not showing favoritism (as he apparently angrily argued to Catherine Herridge) and was not amassing knowledge, favors, and real power for his own uses. The demoralizing of the FBI was done, she argues, by additional and sometimes internal lines that were not respected within the FBI.
I didn’t want Trump but day after day I’m feeling how much freedom of thought, of following the truth has been – by the Clintons, by the press, by the foggy thinking of academics, and, of course and most thoroughly by Obama – compromised and what it truly feels like to be free.
I voted for Trump somewhat reluctantly but the more I have seen him the more I like him. Just about anybody viewed that Clinton handling as a travesty of justice.
“His only serious mistake so far is to leave so many Obama appointees in place.”
I don’t follow the personnel, etc., as closely as I suspect you do, Mike K., but hasn’t Trump been severely constrained by the slow nomination / confirmation process for the top several levels of the various agencies?
Some is his own fault (some may call it a feature) inasmuch as he did not and does not have a stable of trusted political loyalists ready to throw into crucial positions. Some is the slow-walking by Dems (only?) of the confirmation process, e.g., AG Sessions.
If he wants to have a functioning administration, he simply cannot wholesale eject the holdovers without having adequate replacements at least chosen, “vetted,” & well along in the approval process who can then, in turn, staff up their fiefdoms with their own people.
It’s one possible explanation, at least.
The irony of Schumer complaining that it wasn’t done sooner and the timing is suspicious after the slow walking of Sessions (and I thought I heard) of Rosenstein is like his complaints that Obamacare’s decline is Trump’s fault because he threatened not to keep adding subsidies. It seems to be that lack of self-knowledge must be a requirement for democrats in office.
I suspect Comey is rather heroic. Consider that his boss was Loretta Lynch (and, ultimately, Obama); the Justice Department hopelessly compromised, he went off the reservation when NOTHING else was being done and prosecution wasn’t being called for from Lynch (or 0). He usurped their (ie. the Attorney General’s) authority and he pays the price.
He would have been heroic IF he had ended his July 5, 2016 press conference with an announcement that he is resigning in protest of the Lynch-led DOJ cover up of the Clinton email scandal.
Agreed – that would have been perfect; the honorable, hardworking, and outraged career FBI agent, making his conclusion public – and nailing his thesis to the door — (Lutheran image here)– but he tried to have it both ways: a gesture AND his continuance in office. No wonder that more junior agents are reported to be quite angry with this whole matter.
I could give a damn less about how angry and indignant they are. They did jack and spit. They are Good Germans and they willingly serve an evil master. Mike K’s daughter (not to get under his skin I hope) is probably typical. Leftist-oriented, with all that it entails. We’ll be fine. Everything is fine.
The raid on the Les Paul factory was the last straw for me. The FBI ought to be disbanded or severely slimmed down.
Frankly, after watching pieces of Comey’s testimony, I got the impression of a 5 year old who’d been caught in the cookie jar, and is running out of stories to tell. If he has any sense, he would drink a nice bottle of wine, and STFU for about 6 weeks. A mistake in what he does in the near future could literally be lethal.
“hasn’t Trump been severely constrained by the slow nomination / confirmation process for the top several levels of the various agencies?”
Yes but there are lots of people below confirmation level who should be gone by now. Bush left them there and they sabotaged him, including prosecuting Ted Stevens just before the election. The prosecutors were punished but he lost and died, I think, before he knew he was exonerated.
Your point about keeping the trains running is valid but I would not be too worried about the feds not getting stuff done. Ninety percent of what they do would be better undone.
He does not have a “stable” of vetted candidates but that is closer to a feature than a bug.
Look at the federal judge ruling the VA chief who is a felon (!) cannot be fired for cause.
As to my daughter, she is honest and has her opinions but I don’t think she would countenance the Comey misbehavior. That’s why I think he was facing an agent revolt.
I’ll talk to her when she gets home from England. A lefty woman who announces that she will NOT vote for Hillary might have something to say.
Of course, it will all be couched as a lecture to Dad who doesn’t know anything. When she graduated from law school, I was picking up the tab for a sizable dinner when she announced that “You are a white male and your days are over.” I just laughed. And I did pick up the check.
There she is with her little sister who is also a lefty. They are both high achievers, though.
The post you’re responding to was mine, for the public record.
>You are a white male and your days are over.
And I’m supposed to be encouraged that this… person, with these poisonous values, who spits them in her father’s face at dinner in a public setting, is in charge of Federal law enforcement. And additionally, believe that she is ‘honest.’ I am neither.
She’s your little girl, but the rest of us — to put it very very mildly — are less apt to put up with her poisonous nonsense than you are. And I don’t want to offend you. So that’s where I’ll leave it lay.
“She’s your little girl, but the rest of us — to put it very very mildly — are less apt to put up with her poisonous nonsense than you are. And I don’t want to offend you. So that’s where I’ll leave it lay.”
So you are threatening Mike K’s daughter because she has her own opinions, that differ from yours. Wonderful.
It’s the civility that makes civilization a thing. Perhaps it is time to experience it’s lack. Then perhaps, given time, you might understand why it’s so valuable.
What I find humorous in all of this is the sense of high school queen bee clique frustrated entitlement by the media and politicians.
Everyone knew Comey was on Trump’s firing list.
What is making them insane is that Pres. Trump did this without consulting or warning them to run the usual kabuki dance.
They were dissed and are all throwing queen bee clique hissy fits.
“It’s the civility that makes civilization a thing.”
Says the Canadian commie.
Trent: All reporters have Watergate envy. They all want to be Woodward/Bernstein, and take down a president. Any GOP president will do.
In this morning’s Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was writing about the Comey affair, and then digressed to the impeachment investigation of Clinton.
“There were deeper questions over whether Mr Clinton had misused the FBI and Justice Department to cover up a trail of mischief. It was only when special prosecutor Kenneth Starr took the decision to steer clear of this minefield and confine his probe to sexual trivia that it became a hollow exercise.”
I hadn’t known; in those days I got much of my news from the BBC, so of course this wasn’t mentioned. Was this a black mark against the FBI, having been collaborating in Clinton wrongdoing? Did the ‘confining’ mean that the FBI had the wherewithal to blackmail Starr into avoiding the business? Should I assume that the FBI is rotten through-and-through? If so, is it rotten in the Dem interest, or simply rotten in its own interest?
“Kenneth Starr took the decision to steer clear of this minefield and confine his probe to sexual trivia that it became a hollow exercise”
Such revisionist garbage. Since when does “sexual trivia” include perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice, all of which Clinton and his cronies were 100% indisputably guilty of?
Brain said —
>>Trent: All reporters have Watergate envy. They all want to be Woodward/Bernstein, and take down a president. Any GOP president will do.
Nah.
They are the Senior cheerleader clique after prom in the May before graduation…they are irrelevant and no one at the school is paying attention to them anymore.
And it is driving them crazy.
“All reporters have Watergate envy. They all want to be Woodward/Bernstein, and take down a president. ”
Yes, exactly.
As to my daughter, I think most law students are a bit crazy for several years. It was nothing like what is going on in colleges now.
That was also 25 years ago.
I do think the upper levels of the FBI have been corrupt for half a century. Back when Mark Felt announced he was “Deep Throat” i had a post on my own blog which pointed out that Felt knew all the dirt on Nixon because the FBI had been surveilling presidents for years.
Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Nixon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.
I don’t think the corruption reaches into the agent ranks very far. It is a bit like the military where everyone above O-6 is a politician.
Trent: We’re both right. They want to destroy any GOP president, and they are irrelevant. At least to most people. John McCain, et al, still thinks they matter.
“I don’t think the corruption reaches into the agent ranks very far.” Same as in the IC. The rank and file are very diverse in all ways, including politically, but are 100% professional and committed to their jobs and their country. It’s the trash at the top that cause all the problems, the Rices and Clappers and Brennans, etc., who are just party functionary hacks placed in what are supposed to be serious positions.
The FBI is like the IRS. It’s powers have been expanded so much in the name of national security that it’s too irresistible for politicians not to use it for nefarious purposes. Because of its domestic spying and foreign counterintelligence responsibilities, the FBI is an obvious target for a foreign entity to infiltrate. When they start investigating presidential candidates and influencing election outcomes it should give everyone great pause.
The worst case scenario for the rank-and-file is a Robert Hannsen
He passed some of the most damaging information within his first two months of espionage, including the true names of theFBI’s most significant Soviet sources at the time, KGB officers Sergey Motorin and Valeriy Martynov. Other significant operations that Hanssen compromised during this period included the FBI’s espionage investigation of Felix Bloch, a senior State Department official suspected of providing information to the KGB, and an FBI analytical report regarding possible Soviet penetrations.
Toward the end of Hanssen’s second period of espionage, he became increasingly careless, passing documents that clearly marked him as an FBI employee. For example, when he was assigned to the Inspection Division, he gave the KGB FBI inspection reports and documents that he took from field offices while on inspection assignments. Hanssen also compromised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) wiretap applications prepared by the FBI. In a particularly reckless move, Hanssen suggested to the KGB that it attempt to recruit Jack Hoschouer, Hanssen’s closest friend, who was then serving as a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn.
I believe he was probably successful in his recruitment efforts. Either the FBI didn’t discover it or has covered it up.
‘“It’s the civility that makes civilization a thing.”
Says the Canadian commie.’
You are living in the past my friend. I do hope you don’t hurt yourselves too much, with the madness America has embraced, with so much passion.
See, civility is possible, but you don’t care. ;)
Hanssen sort of makes my point about the O-6 level. He was not just an agent and could not do much damage from that level.
It is inexplicable how the CIA, with Ames, and the FBI could ignore those traitors for so long.
I read a pretty good book about Ames and his treason.
Both cases involved some reckless behavior that was ignored. Sort of like Hillary.
Mike, record of looking the other way at the FBI (Hansen) and CIA (Ames) is best explained by it’s similarity to judges aversion to overruling each other.
They hate for it to appear that they themselves might be held accountable, so they let it slide.
Sundance over at TCTH blog is having a fine time with the Comey firing —
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/05/12/senators-grassley-and-feinstein-confirm-trump-not-part-of-russia-fbi-investigation/#more-132518
“The firing of FBI Director James Comey has sent the professional political left into blinding fits of ridiculously over-the-top outrage.
The protestations are so ridiculous that a reasonable person has to ask if Comey wasn’t the center of a much larger political value for their ideological needs.”
For which he gives good evidence here —
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/05/11/media-runs-straight-past-loonyville-en-route-to-batsht-crazy-land/
“Almost every broadcast network and print media has pushed ridiculous stories only to have them completely debunked and called nonsense within a few hours of their publication.
WaPo: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein threatened to quit. – Um, no he didn’t.
NY Times: Director James Comey asked for more funds. – Um, no he didn’t.”
Check out the full post and especuially the headline at the link.
Sundance has a way with headlines which would stand him well as a UK Fleet Street News Editor.
Almost nowhere have I seen discussion of the key question:
What is the nature, extent, and duration of Trump’s interaction with the FBI New York Field Office?
>>What is the nature, extent, and duration of Trump’s interaction with the FBI New York Field Office?
More than we know.
Less than we will ever find out.
I dunno about the FBI, but I would be shocked if the NY AG doesn’t bring charges against Trump, either himself or his company, sometime this calendar year. Doesn’t matter what. Any absurd charge will do.
Actually, we can expect every Democrat controlled state to file some sort of suit against Trump in front of a Democrat appointed Federal judge as one of the next part of the war against the Constitution. The process is the punishment.
They really want him gone, soon. The drumbeat is intensifying, and having pretty well all western media under control allows this to be effective.
The ‘he told the Russians secret stuff’ and ‘Assad is brutally murdering and burning 50 people a day’ are running at the same time. Tillerson is ready for Mike to take over. ;)
My original prediction is that he would not see 2018, I’m revising that to August.
dream on delusional commie
Here’s the thing, Penny–the rest of us here are to you, as America is to the Washington Post. No one cares.
The Dems & MSM are certifiably insane, printing stories like “Buzzfeed confirms the WaPo story is even worse than reported” when apparently “confirms” means absolutely nothing. Trump’s a shoe-in to be president until January 2025 at this rate.
“Here’s the thing, Penny–the rest of us here are to you, as America is to the Washington Post. No one cares.”
Now what I read are the comments, and I have to agree. The people who take the time to comment on WaPo are largely not taken in, by a lot of their spin.
What I’m talking about is the increasing intensity of almost all the MSM, that Trump has already broken impeachable law and it’s just a matter of time. They are beating this narrative into the American psyche as hard as they can. Panicking, I dunno, but it’s impressive.
“What I’m talking about is the increasing intensity of almost all the MSM, that Trump has already broken impeachable law and it’s just a matter of time. They are beating this narrative into the American psyche as hard as they can. Panicking, I dunno, but it’s impressive.”
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
“Trump has already broken impeachable law and it’s just a matter of time.”
You really need to get back on your meds.
PenGun may have a point. I think he is saying that the MSM is saying Trump has broken some, unnamed law, and that “crime” can lead to impeachment and by repeating it over and over you can convince the general public that this is true, like any good marketing campaign. That the MSM only vaguely refers to an offense and can’t show any evidence is irrelevant. Just repeat it a lot and then mention Watergate. Stir and repeat.
“You really need to get back on your meds.”
You really to read before commenting.
need ;)
The drumbeat, the “trump as traitor” narrative continues apace.
BTW, wouldn’t “obstruction of justice” need to have happened for the POTUS to be charged with “obstuction of justice” (OoJ)? I mean, OoJ doesn’t happen necessarily because it’s contemplated or, even more flimsily (and this is what I see happening here), if one believes it might have been contemplated if Trumps words are parsed in such a way to fit one’s prejudice (STFU McCain).
First call for impeachment from Al Green. I am not making this up. ;)
What do you mean by “first”? Dems have been calling for impeachment since before he was even sworn in. Maxine Waters can’t go a day without doing so.
The important thing to remember is that twitter is not real life, and the internet is not real life. Most Americans look at the MSM as complete fiction.
This nonsense is not nothing, but it’s not really something either.
“What do you mean by “first”? Dems have been calling for impeachment since before he was even sworn in.”
First official, in the house call, for impeachment. It’s official now.
In news peripherally related, they now are pursuing the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, who leaked to Wikileaks. The information that the Russians supposedly released to Wikileaks information, always was bunk. The internal DNC leak, which Assange confirmed, is now news. I have suspected this since they offed him of course.
So there is a war on now. Excellent.
Pengun is accomplishing one thing. I read the blog less lately.
2nd law SJWs always double down – vox day
“Pengun is accomplishing one thing. I read the blog less lately.”
I am sorry Mike, I only have red pills.
At this point it is abundantly clear that Reince Preibus has to go, since he clearly filled the White House staff with vipers and anti-Trumpers, whether deliberately or not doesn’t matter. Get a chief of staff and a workforce that actually, you know, likes the boss. No one should be allowed into the White House who can’t demonstrate they were a Trump supporter before January 2016.