Partisan Hacks
Yesterday, the Department of Justice fulfilled the demands of House Committee Chairmen Bob Goodlatte, Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes to send the “Comey Notes” to the Congress. Taken by former FBI Director James Comey after his conversations with President Trump; they are potential evidence of Presidential obstruction of justice.
The notes were sent in two forms: the originals and a redacted form that the Department of Justice felt protected the evidence. Literally within minutes of Congress receiving the notes, Fox News had the redacted version. Last night the whole world was reading them (OK, that might be a little hyperbole, just MY whole world.)
These notes seem to completely confirm what their author, James Comey said, both in Congressional testimony and in his recent book. Why the Republicans defending President Trump wanted them out, I can’t figure out. They show nothing that seems to help the President’s cause. It does set a precedent that the Justice Department will accede to Congressional requests for evidence, even if it’s evidence in an ongoing investigation. While this particular one doesn’t reveal much new, the next time it might alter or destroy a case.
I have read some of the notes, and listened to Comey get drilled on their contents by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (no friend of Comey.) I don’t find them revealing. Comey was looking for protection from the President, his superiors weren’t interested in giving it to him. Comey was “trapped”: follow the President’s clear wishes and drop the Flynn and Russia investigations, or be “disloyal” and face the consequences. While I keep waiting for the “Clear and Present Danger” scene when Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan stands up to the President (check out the “junk yard dog” moment) it doesn’t happen. Comey never stands up to the President in person, he simply does not do Trump’s bidding.
Comey was fired.
What are Goodlatte, Gowdy, Jordan, Nunes and other “Radical” Republican Congressmen trying to do? They are claiming there was an FBI conspiracy to get Hillary Clinton elected and stop the Trump campaign. If that’s true, the FBI is the most incompetent law enforcement agency ever created.
The chronology of the summer and fall of 2016 should lead to some common sense conclusions. Throughout the early summer, it was well known that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. During that time, Bill Clinton met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport, and afterwards Lynch said she would accept Comey’s recommendations for action (though she did not recuse herself.)
Comey gave his famous July speech, clearing Hillary Clinton of charges, but criticizing her actions as reckless. Trump supporters were incensed, and castigated Comey as a Democratic lackey. Democrats weren’t happy either. Comey never mentioned that the Trump Campaign was under investigation as well.
During the fall, it was leaked that there was an investigation of the Clinton Foundation (Andrew McCabe was later found to be the leaker.) And then, Comey made the famous October 28th announcement, reopening the Clinton email investigation. Oddly, Rudy Guiliani seemed to know what was going to happen two days in advance.
(Side Bar: if Guiliani knew about the investigation being reopened before the Comey announcement, doesn’t that mean that the FBI was leaking to the Trump campaign, and doesn’t it make Guiliani a witness in the overall investigation? Will that mean that ultimately Guiliani will need to withdraw as Trump’s attorney due to his conflicted position?)
While Comey came back two days before the election and said that no new information was found, the damage was done. Clinton went from an eight to ten percent lead in the polls to a dead even race.
McCabe leaks that the Clinton Foundation is under investigation. Guiliani seems to have inside information from the FBI. Comey drops an “October Surprise” that wipes out Clinton’s lead in the polls. If this was an FBI conspiracy to elect Hillary Clinton, someone, please take their badges and guns away. They blew it.
And to claim, as the White House has continually done, that they were “partisan hacks” of the Democrats, is ludicrous. It can be argued that Lynch, Comey, McCabe, and the rest made questionable decisions, but they couldn’t have been so clumsy as to try to elect Clinton, and by their actions, elect Trump. They couldn’t be that incompetent. It makes no sense.
