Read this on Facebook and thought it was worth a chuckle:
“Unfortunately for Trump, the Russian investigation is a pre-existing condition. Switching insurance plans doesn’t change that.”
Maybe Obama got paid off by the Syrians for backing down from his “line in the sand” argument against chemical weapons. Who knows? What’s the standard for starting an investigation? Anything at all so long as the target is a Republican?
It sounds like you need to go to Wal-Mart for a tackle box if you are going to do all of that fishing.
It is lovely to know that the “pussy-grabber-in-chief” is bothered by all this. God, how I loathe him…
It’s indisputable that Russians interfered in the US election. It’s indisputable that many members of the administration, plus many members of the T***p family, have deep financial ties to Russia. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suspect these two facts may be related.
when i heard the news last night, i thought, " if i were sean spicer i would call out sick tomorrow.".
calling out navy is way better.
gah, how long can one spin this stuff before you just can’t bear it anymore.
to find out you are fired on tv. oy!
Somebody ought to ask the old war criminal to compare/contrast Nixon and Trump.
In the middle of Fifth Avenue? 
And even then they may think twice about it if it’s someone like Ted Cruz.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
They will not impeach for any reason short of Trump personally murdering top Republican congressmen.
[/QUOTE]
;)
*If he moves Putin into the White House and says I’ll do everything Vlad says?
*And gives Alaska back?
*Adds California to sweeten the deal, since Mother Russia has enough frozen tundra thank you very much?
- Orders Turkey on Thanksgiving to be replaced with Borsht?
If he shot Ted Cruz they’d probably send him flowers. That would be true of any President.
The Senate has requested Trump documents from a money laundering unit of the Treasury Department.
A wonderful video clip!
I see 2 reactions, too.
- Genuine surprise
- "Goddammit we didn’t tell Trump to do that!
I didn’t see it that way, but looking at it again I think you may be right.
DOJ is denying, FWIW.
You aren’t the first person I’ve heard speculate on this. It made me wonder, too.
Comey has always been an enigma to me - while I hate what he did during the campaign and think he made wrong choices with devastating consequences, the man himself has seemed more a bit strange/hard to understand, rather than evil in any way.
Anyhow, his farewell letter (not a resignation letter, under the circumstances) is pretty classy:
[QUOTE=James Comey]
To all:
I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.
I have said to you before that, in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty, and independence. What makes leaving the FBI hard is the nature and quality of its people, who together make it that rock for America.
It is very hard to leave a group of people who are committed only to doing the right thing. My hope is that you will continue to live our values and the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.
If you do that, you too will be sad when you leave, and the American people will be safer.
Working with you has been one of the great joys of my life. Thank you for that gift.
Jim Comey
[/QUOTE]
We should all strive to be so gracious.
I think in general FBI directors should be left to serve out their terms, but Comey for various reasons was no longer in a position to bring the Russia investigations to a close credibly.
If he stayed as director and the FBI’s investigation resulted in any conclusions short of throwing the book at Trump himself, then the partisan Democrats would say “of course that’s what Comey would do – he’s the guy who cost Hillary the election by saying mean things about her in a press conference in July 2016, reopened the email investigation in October, then in 2017 exaggerated Hillary/Huma’s mishandling of email in front of the Senate.”
Likewise, insofar as the FBI would reach any conclusions disparaging to the Trump campaign the partisan Republicans would say “of course that’s what Comey would do – he’s the guy who squashed the bungled email investigation in July 2016 while assuming prosecutorial discretion that wasn’t his to exercise, did the exact same thing again right before the election just to make sure, then in 2017 talked about how nauseous he was because his friends in the liberal media blamed him for Hillary’s loss.”
Whatever the outcome, the same organization will have conducted the Russia investigation when it’s over. It most likely will be some kind of mixed bag no matter who the FBI director is. But if it’s Comey and it’s a mixed bag neither side would view it as the result of an impartial FBI investigation, they would view it as Comey further revealing his true colors.
It’s really a shame because I think Comey is as honorable and honest a public servant as we can ever hope for. And I don’t think anyone else would have necessarily handled the pressures he was under from all sides during the email investigation any better than he did. But the fact is that it could have been handled better and Comey was in the hot seat when it wasn’t.
If we take Trump’s words in the termination letter about restoring public trust and confidence in the FBI at face value, I would expect Comey’s replacement to have a typical FBI director resume (like Comey did in 2013) – lawyer, some experience as a DOJ line prosecutor, some mix of experience in the FBI itself, as a federal judge, and/or in DOJ leadership. The lists of candidates I’ve seen all include Giuliani and Christie but I don’t think Trump has anything to gain from nominating them, or any other Republican elected official.
If I were Trump and wanted to make everyone’s head explode, I’d nominate Merrick Garland.
You are right about all you stated, and so long as we’re engaging in wild speculation, I have a couple wild-ass theories about what might explain Comey’s apparently erratic behavior. They are based on things I’ve read from sources I believe are credible, but my thoughts are obviously still speculation.
In a way, I think it was President Obama who unwittingly threw Comey under the bus. Both Comey and Obama made one serious error in judgment: They both believed Hillary Clinton would win the election despite the Russians’ meddling.
Comey met with White House officials last summer about the Russian connections with Trump’s campaign. He seems to have been seriously worried about it. Comey wanted to immediately release an op-ed describing much of what they already knew at the FBI and that was eventually revealed on January 6th. Comey’s Op-Ed Idea
So last summer, the general consensus was that such an op-ed release wasn’t a good idea. But note that Comey was very much in favor of getting the information out to the public before the election. He clearly felt the public should know, and sooner rather than later. And in this, I think Comey had the right instinct.
I think the reason Obama put the kibosh on releasing the op-ed was that he did not want there to be any question of whether the White House was trying to influence the outcome of the election and the potential backlash if he engaged in those “optics.” I believe the Obama Administration felt that Trump could be prosecuted at their leisure once Clinton was safely installed as POTUS, and at that time It was too early in the investigation to have well-documented proof of Trump’s collusion with the Russians.
Obama’s team belatedly realized their mistake. They then took steps to release the information with the joint statement issued by DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about the 17 intelligence agencies that had a high degree of certainty that Russia was indeed hacking our election. Joint Statement by DHS and ODNI
Unfortunately, this statement was released on the same day as WikiLeaks released Podesta’s emails and it was largely ignored.
When Clinton lost, I think both Obama and Comey understood that Comey was about to be in a really difficult position, and it may have been one of Obama’s making for having been so reticent to release information of Trump’s Russian involvement prior to the election. I also think it’s why Obama continued to support Comey even after the October 28th Weiner debacle. Which brings us to…
Despite enormous internal pressure by a segment of his own agency and the Republicans, I think the reason Comey felt he couldn’t bring charges to prosecute Clinton over the email rules violation was because of Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus not only mishandled classified information, but he lied to the FBI and obfuscated the FBI’s investigation. For his actions, Petraeus received only a misdemeanor conviction. With that in mind, Comey felt it was seriously problematic to lodge more punitive charges against Clinton. He mentioned this a time or two publicly.
I’ve read there is a cadre of FBI agents who are quite loyal to Rudy Giuliani and Trump and who loathe Hillary Clinton. After Comey announced in July that no charges would be brought against Clinton, but then the subsequent emails were found on Weiner’s computer, there were rumblings that these agents actively planned to leak this information about the newly-found emails as an “October surprise.” I believe Comey hoped to get out in front of the leaks by sending his terse communication to the Select Committee on Intelligence on October 28th in a bid to prevent his own agents from leaking via a pipeline between these agents and Giuliani. In other words, his memo to members of Congress was an effort to control and minimize what he worried would be a much bigger “October surprise” if his agents took matters into their own hands. This may argue in favor of a conclusion that Comey was no longer in control of his own agency, but I’m not sure that’s something that if true, can be solved by any one person – and certainly not by replacing Comey. It speaks to a much deeper schism within the agency, and it’s a schism writ large in American society as a whole today. I believe Trump seeks to exploit this schism by appointing his “interim” FBI director. Trump believes this will give him the ability to somewhat control the Russian investigation from within and to have his “ear” on the proceedings – which is what apparently angered him so much about Comey. Comey wouldn’t cooperate in this way.
Comey is a flawed human, same as us all, but I think his actions can be consistent with his “truth and justice” demeanor if you find merit in my wild-ass theories.
Comey is no fan of Trump. I remember watching him in one of his recent appearances and he referred to “the President’s tweets.” His lip all but curled as he spoke those words. His contempt for Trump was obvious. He made those feelings more clear when he spoke of feeling “mildly nauseous” over his fears that he may have influenced the outcome of the election.
I think Comey absolutely meant to nail Trump to the wall once all the ducks were in a row on the Russian investigation. Trump knows it, and he took steps to stop it. With the help of blindly partisan Republicans, he may still succeed.
FBI directors should not influence presidential elections.
The man is an asshole.
Really? Even if he’s guilty?