By now you know that James Comey has been fired by Donald Trump. It was the right thing to do. I had been waiting for this day since last July when I wrote a couple of posts about Comey. First, Comey established a two tiered system of law– one for the Clinton’s and one for the rest of us. Second, Comey destroyed the integrity of the Justice system. He boggled the minds of everyone when he publicly recommended against the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. That was not his call. He made a clear-cut case for why Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted and then demurred. Brett Stephens, then of the WSJ:
“In any normal political season this would destroy her candidacy,” Stephens declared, “because the evidence that James Comey laid out shows that she has been telling untruths consistently for fifteen months. This ought to play into Trump’s sweet spot, his view that the system is rigged, except that in a week when he should be gaining strength he’s talking about Saddam Hussein being terrific in the war on terror.” Stephens also accused James Comey of being less than principled, saying, “This was a purely political decision.”
Yes it was.
But there’s more to remember about Comey. He’s presided over a number of scandals.
1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.
2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn’t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.
4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller’s business and personal travel.
5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a “backdoor” that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America’s biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey’s questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a “crack” would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.
There are five more at the link. And he never put hillary clinton under oath.
A nano-second is a billionth of second. That’s the amount of time it took for democrats to blow the dog whistle and they all have come running.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., a Senate Intelligence Committee member, made a more direct connection. “President Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director Comey smacks of President Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. If this is an effort to stop the investigations into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, it won’t succeed,” he said.
But it was Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who made the biggest impression, going to the Senate floor about an hour after the announcement to clearly outline the stakes..
“Any attempt to stop or undermine this FBI investigation would raise grave constitutional issues,” he told colleagues.
Trump’s sudden action “raises the question as to whether Russian interference in the last presidential campaign by the Trump campaign will also be investigated by the FBI,” Durbin said.
He demanded “clarification by the White House as soon as possible as to whether this investigation will continue.”
“Emergency hearings!” screams Elijah Cummings.
Nixonian! Constitutional crisis! the left wails.
The friable Robbie Mook is “terrified.”
Sorry to burst the balloon, but there are a couple of things to remember.
1. Who at DOJ is running the Trump-Russian investigation?
That would be one Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstine. Rosentine penned the letter recommending that Comey be fired.
The first count against Comey, according to Rosenstein, was his July 5, 2016 announcement during which he alleged Clinton and her colleagues were “extremely careless” in handling classified material on her personal email and server but also said the FBI would not recommend charges.
The memo said Comey was “wrong to usurp” then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s authority.
“It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement,” Rosenstein wrote, adding that Comey “at most” should have said the FBI had finished its investigation and presented findings to prosecutors.
The memo said Comey compounded “the error” by holding a press conference to “release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation,” suggesting he did so “gratuitously.”
The memo said: “The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial.” Rosenstein called it a “textbook example” of what prosecutors and agents are “taught not to do.”
The second count against Comey concerned his Oct. 28, 2016 notification to Congress that the bureau was taking another look at the Clinton case in light of newly discovered emails. While Comey has said he did not want to conceal information, Rosenstein said simply refraining from publicizing “non-public information” would not have been concealment.
Comey’s firing was not abrupt. He has been under study for some time. And…
Sally Yates, the current poster girl heroine for the left, has expressed full confidence in Rod Rosenstine:
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates expressed confidence in the Justice Department official overseeing the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian government, undercutting calls from some Democrats for the appointment of a special prosecutor.
“The current deputy attorney general, Mrs. Yates, do you have confidence in him?” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Yates at the tail end of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Monday.
“Yes, I do,” replied Yates.
2. To whom does the FBI fall right now? Wayne McCabe
Wayne McCabe is the Deputy Director of the FBI. You might remember him. I wrote about McCabe in October:
By now you know that long time Clinton confidant and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe used $467,500 of his PAC money to “help” Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI agent Andrew McCabe in her bid for Congress. The Virginia Democratic Party, virtually controlled by McAuliffe, tossed in another $200,000. The money began flowing into the McCabe campaign coffers, in another one of those galactic coincidences, at the same time the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton was initiated in July 2015.
Right around the same time, FBI Agent McCabe was “unexpectedly” promoted from heading the Washington DC office to the number 3 position at the FBI. Within a year McCabe was Deputy Director of the FBI.
So to summarize:
So let’s recap with my untrained eye. Hillary Clinton does a fundraiser for Common Good VA to raise money that is given to the campaign of the wife of the head of the FBI Washington DC field office who is unexpectedly promoted to Number 3 person at the FBI who after his wife’s loss in the election is promoted to Number 2 at the FBI and placed in charge of the Hillary Clinton investigation who then finds no reason to prosecute her.
Does anyone think the investigation into Trump is going to get shelved? Who’s going to cover up anything? A Clinton BFF?
For all the whining democrats have done since July one would think they would be grateful that Donald Trump fired the guy they all blame for hillary clinton losing the Presidency. Nothing seems to make them happy.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.