Bricker, usually, I find your input in these situations interesting yet slightly irritating (as we’re generally on opposite sides of an issue). However, I want to thank you for your input, especially in this thread. Your knowledge and experiences add a lot to this (even if Okrahoma wants to dispute your additions), and has helped me make sense of certain aspects of this.
So, again, thanks.
Not to mention that if they were classified in any way, they most likely would not have been discussed extensively in a public Congressional hearing, would they?
I’m just going to hazard a guess that Comey, an experienced criminal lawyer who headed the nation’s federal law enforcement agency, knows the boundary between what is criminal and what isn’t, and that he thought of this in advance of his composing and distributing his memo.
Trump knows he’s losing the poker game. He doesn’t want to fold, so he makes bullshit bluffs and stacks the chips even higher, increasingly in danger of leaving the table broke but still hoping that he’ll get a lucky hand.
I feel so bad for this guy. He’s just been doing his freaking job. He took so much heat for the ill-timed Hillary debacle, and now he’s taking heat from the other side. People who claim ‘‘Comey’s a liar’’ - what possible motivation would he have for lying under oath? The idea that he is somehow biased seems like a hell of a stretch to me, given how his actions last year may have deep-sixed Hillary’s campaign. I’ve seen no evidence that he is anything other than a consummate professional.
I truly don’t get it.
Private citizens leak all the time. They are called books.
Isn’t this simply obstruction of justice? For two reasons:
(1) Comey released privileged information with the express goal of affecting an ongoing investigation
(2) Comey released evidence in a potential criminal trial
I’m inclined to agree that Comey knows enough about the law and is smart enough to commit a crime. But I am having a hard time rectifying that with something that should be obviously illegal. Admittedly, I do not have a specific law that is being violated.
I can’t imagine why giving your recollections of a meeting is “obviously illegal” nor how maneuvering to get a special prosecutor appointed is “simply obstruction of justice”. Both assertions are rather ludicrous on their face.
Was the information privileged? AFAIK it was not.
Could you elaborate on this? Is it against the law to talk about evidence in a potential criminal trial?
:dubious:
I’m not clear here on what it is that you think “should be obviously illegal”.
Can someone please explain what would happen if Comey had recorded his conversations with Loser Donald?
Would he just release them like he did with his memos? Would people still be pulling their hair out about leaks?
No, it isn’t. If you argue that it is, you’ll have to cite which of the federal obstruction of justice statutes would apply to the facts in this situation and why.
Privileged information /= classified information. Setting aside for the moment that there is no indication or substantive argument that anything Comey has testified to in his memos was actually privileged information, there is no federal crime for revealing privileged information. For example, if a criminal defendant tells their attorney that they committed a certain crime during the course of the attorney’s representation, that attorney could hold a press conference that day and announce to the world what their client confessed to them. That admission was privileged (attorney-client) information that the attorney had an ethical duty to keep confidential. There would be no criminal charges that could be brought against that attorney, though of course that attorney’s state bar would go after them and potentially disbar them for violating numerous ethical duties.
A real world example is of Jodi Arias, whose death penalty trial was big in the news a few years back. One of her defense attorneys, Kirk Nurmi, following her trial and sentencing of life in prison, wrote one of a planned series of tell-all books describing his conversations with Arias before and during the trial. Nurmi never got Jodi Arias’ permission to reveal their private and privileged communications to anyone, let alone the whole world. Nurmi was never charged with a crime, though ultimately he agreed to be disbarred when an ethics complaint was filed with his state bar.
If this were a crime, then any witness or victim to/of a crime who gave a statement about what they saw or experienced to the evening news immediately following the crime would face charges. Police and prosecutors making statements about arresting a suspect or describing their investigation and what evidence led them to the suspect during press conferences might also be a crime under this theory.
Ultimately, Comey gave his friend a summary of what he wrote in his memos, not the memos themselves. Special counsel Bob Mueller and the FBI still have copies of the memos.
Incorrect. Comey claims that he himself doesn’t have a copy, and the only copy in existence is the one he gave to the friend.
Congress has asked the freind for a copy, presumably Mueller will have to as well.
That doesn’t sound correct.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/09/comey-memos-senate-judiciary-dan-richman-239378
1503 or 1505:
(1) Corruptly - Comey released privileged documents partly for his benefit (disputing the reason he was fired).
and
(2) Impedes - Trump now knows that these memos exist and his legal team can take their existences into account. This gives them an advantage they shouldn’t have, thus impeding the investigation
(3) Influence - Comey also stated he released the documents to spur the naming of a special counsel. Clearly that’s an influence of the investigation
I never equated them.
An attorney isn’t an FBI agent.
A witness isn’t an FBI agent
It absolutely would be if it (1) was done for corrupt reasons and (2) impeded the investigation. The reason it’s not is because it is done for the public good and (presumably) doesn’t affect the investigation.
treis, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Dir. Comey’s memos were “privileged documents” and quite a bit that indicates they were not; [for instance:
](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/09/trumps-lawyer-makes-things-worse-for-his-client/?utm_term=.58fc9814d7fa)As most if not all of your argument stems from the premise, why do you think they were “privileged documents”?
Privileged in the sense that the documents are property of the FBI and Comey had access to them due to his position as FBI director.
Comey had access to the memos because he wrote them.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
And the Director can’t decide to release privileged documents? If he can’t, who can?
He wasn’t the director when he released them.
The quote I posted says they are not privileged and that “DOJ rules do not prohibit disclosure of such information.” Why does your opinion differ from that of Mr. Eisen?
Because it’s totally absurd to think that DOJ rules do not prohibit disclosure of documents related to active investigations.