Looks Like CNN's Anonymous Sources Got This One Wrong Back on May 9th, the White House released the letter that President Trump sent to former FBI Director James Comey informing him that he'd been relieved of his duties at the FBI. Within that letter, Trump awkwardly inserted a sentence thanking Comey for informing him "on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation." Here's the full sentence (full post here): "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau." Not surprisingly, this statement set off alarm bells at CNN and other MSM outlets because, if true, it would put a real damper on their "Trump colluded with Russian hackers to stage a coup" narrative. Therefore, those outlets set out on a mission to 'prove' that Comey never made those statements and that, by definition, Trump clearly lied about his past interactions with the former FBI Director. And not long after setting out on that mission, courtesy of those infamous 'anonymous sources', CNN and ABC struck gold when they confirmed that "FBI Director James Comey is reportedly set to testify he never told President Donald Trump that he was not under investigation." Here is a summary of CNN's reporting from their primary echo chamber, HuffPo: "Former FBI Director James Comey is reportedly set to testify he never told President Donald Trump that he was not under investigation in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to CNN and ABC News." And here is the original CNN reporting: "Trump has made a blanket claim that Comey told him multiple times that he was not under investigation." "But one source said Comey is expected to explain to senators that those were much more nuanced conversations from which Trump concluded that he was not under investigation. Another source hinted that the President may have misunderstood the exact meaning of Comey's words, especially regarding the FBI's ongoing counterintelligence investigation." Unfortunately, CNN's 'anonymous sources' seem to have been 'mistaken' on this one. And while we have no doubts, generally, about the integrity of CNN and/or their anonymous sources, Comey's direct testimony released just a while ago seems to confirm exactly what Trump said in his original May 9th letter and exactly the opposite what CNN subsequently reported. In fact, here are precisely three instances (ironic, right?), directly from Comey's testimony, in which he personally told President Trump he was not under investigation: 1. January 6th Meeting at Trump Tower: "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." 2. January 27th Dinner at White House: "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." 3. March 30 Phone Call: "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." Of course, we're 'absolutely positive' that everything else CNN has learned and reported from their anonymous sources, regarding Trump and his Russian collusion, is completely accurate and reflect nothing but the highest levels of journalistic integrity. As such, we are quite confident that CNN will promptly retract their erroneous reporting and offer an apology to their readers for the unfortunate mistake.
The ‘Independent’ Mr. Comey His prepared testimony shows why he deserved to be fired. Wall Street Journal The Senate Intelligence Committee released James Comey’s prepared testimony a day early on Wednesday, and it looks like a test of whether Washington can apprehend reality except as another Watergate. Perhaps the defrocked FBI director has a bombshell still to drop. But far from documenting an abuse of power by President Trump, his prepared statement reveals Mr. Comey’s misunderstanding of law enforcement in a democracy. Mr. Comey’s seven-page narrative recounts his nine encounters with the President-elect and then President, including an appearance at Trump Tower, a one-on-one White House dinner and phone calls. He describes how he briefed Mr. Trump on the Russia counterintelligence investigation and what he calls multiple attempts to “create some sort of patronage relationship.” But at worst Mr. Comey’s account of Mr. Trump reveals a willful and naive narcissist who believes he can charm or subtly intimidate the FBI director but has no idea how Washington works. This is not new information. When you’re dining alone in the Green Room with an operator like Mr. Comey—calculating, self-protective, one of the more skilled political knife-fighters of modern times—there are better approaches than asserting “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” Of course the righteous director was going to “memorialize” (his word) these conversations as political insurance. Mr. Trump’s ham-handed demand for loyalty doesn’t seem to extend beyond the events of 2016, however. In Mr. Comey’s telling, the President is preoccupied with getting credit for the election results and resentful that the political class is delegitimizing his victory with “the cloud” of Russian interference when he believes he did nothing wrong. Mr. Comey also confirms that on at least three occasions he told Mr. Trump that he was not a personal target of the Russia probe. But Mr. Comey wouldn’t make a public statement to the same effect, “most importantly because it would create a duty to correct” if Mr. Trump were implicated. This is odd because the real obligation is to keep quiet until an investigation is complete. More interesting is that Mr. Trump’s frustration at Mr. Comey’s refusal raises the possibility that the source of Mr. Trump’s self-destructive behavior isn’t a coverup or a bid to obstruct the investigation. The source could simply be Mr. Trump’s wounded pride. The most troubling part of Mr. Comey’s statement is his belief in what he calls “the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch,” which he invokes more than once. Independent? This is a false and dangerous view of law enforcement in the American system. Mr. Comey is describing an FBI director who essentially answers to no one. But the police powers of the government are awesome and often abused, and the only way to prevent or correct abuses is to report to elected officials who are accountable to voters. A director must resist intervention to obstruct an investigation, but he and the agency must be politically accountable or risk becoming the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. Mr. Comey says Mr. Trump strongly suggested in February that he close the Michael Flynn file, but after conferring with his “FBI senior leadership” he decided not to relay the conversation to Attorney General Jeff Sessions or any other Justice Department superior. If he thought he was being unduly pressured he had a legal obligation to report, and in our view to resign, but he says he didn’t because “we expected” that Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from Russia involvement. Well, how did he know? Mr. Sessions didn’t recuse himself until two weeks later. Mr. Comey also didn’t tell the acting Deputy AG, who at the time was a U.S. attorney whom Mr. Comey dismisses as someone “who would also not be long in the role.” This remarkable presumptuousness is the Comey mindset that was on display last year. He broke Justice Department protocol to absolve Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, without the involvement of Justice prosecutors or even telling then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mr. Comey’s disregard for the chain of legal command is why Mr. Trump was right to fire him, whatever his reasons. Also on Wednesday two leaders of the intelligence community told the Senate Wednesday that they had not been pressured to cover up anything. “I have never been pressured—I have never felt pressured—to intervene or interfere in any way with shaping intelligence in a political way or in relation to an ongoing investigation,” said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers added that he never been asked “to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate.” Meanwhile, Mr. Trump announced that he is nominating respected Justice Department veteran Christopher Wray as the next FBI director. Let’s hope Mr. Wray has a better understanding of the FBI’s role under the Constitution than Mr. Comey does.
It's interesting that Comey prepared self-serving memos of every conversation with Trump but didn't feel the need to do so with Obama or Loretta Lynch. This is more curious when we recall he justified his extraordinary news conference regarding the Hillary email investigation on the ground that Lynch was irredeemably tainted by Bill Clinton's meeting with her. Recall also that during the investigation Obama stated that he didn't feel Hillary had done anything wrong, ie pretty much what Trump said about Flynn. I am prepared to believe that Comey was a conscientious public servant thrust into an impossible and unprecedented situation, which he mishandled due to extreme arrogance. It's also possible that he colluded with the other highly politicized intell agency heads, eg Clapper and Brennan, to try to delegitimize Trump. Certainly he did nothing to address rampant leaking of national security information or the potentially illegal unmasking of US people captured on intercepts.
spot on. we can only hope the leakers are being pursued. If his evasive answers were a cover up to hide the fact the leaks were not being investigated he was the opposite of a good public servant.