Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

[bayonetbrant]

I don't like special prosecutors.  They frequently launch fishing expeditions and go way off track.

Paging Ken Starr!

::) Yeah, there was nothing to the Clinton investigation.

Launched a fishing expedition that went off track?
Starr was hired to investigate Whitewater and ended up prosecuting blowjobs. I'm not saying Clinton was innocent - you know I don't believe that - but that Starr went waaaaay beyond the original bounds of what he was supposed to investigate.

[airboy]

I don't like special prosecutors.  They frequently launch fishing expeditions and go way off track.

Paging Ken Starr!

::) Yeah, there was nothing to the Clinton investigation.

Launched a fishing expedition that went off track?
Starr was hired to investigate Whitewater and ended up prosecuting blowjobs. I'm not saying Clinton was innocent - you know I don't believe that - but that Starr went waaaaay beyond the original bounds of what he was supposed to investigate.

The last couple of special prosecutors went off track.  We had leaks on Valarie Plame from Colin Powell's deputy and a perjury conviction by someone who never leaked Plame's identity.  And Ken Starr prosecuting Clinton for perjury for lying about having sex with an intern (which of course was not sexual harassment, or an inappropriate use of power, or anything else).  I could go on, but the US special prosecutor procedure lacks any check or balance and is a very bad idea.

[airboy]

Ruth Marcus - a total leftist hack from the Washington Post said:

If people aren't buying Trump's asserted rationale, it is because Trump made this bed of distrust. Nothing in his conduct offers comfort that he understands the importance of the independence of the Justice Department. Nothing suggests that he takes seriously the gravity of Russian intervention in the election or wants to get to the bottom of the mess. 

Which I agree with and is the underlying problem with firing Comey.

[mirth]

I don't like special prosecutors.  They frequently launch fishing expeditions and go way off track.

Paging Ken Starr!

::) Yeah, there was nothing to the Clinton investigation.

Launched a fishing expedition that went off track?
Starr was hired to investigate Whitewater and ended up prosecuting blowjobs. I'm not saying Clinton was innocent - you know I don't believe that - but that Starr went waaaaay beyond the original bounds of what he was supposed to investigate.

Investigating blowjobs...perjury is a felony you know? You'd have a lot more credibility without the leftie tropes.

[bayonetbrant]

The perjury was wrong and he should've been impeached and removed from office for it  (side note, how does 2000 go down if Bush II is running against a sitting president instead of a vice-president?)

But the only reason the perjury even came into play was b/c the original investigation was sooooooo far out of scope that it should've been terminated


Tt's funny that the IT guy (cough*Mirth*cough) who abhors scope creep is the one defending it based on a preferential outcome for his political biases ;)

[mirth]

The perjury ocurred because of the Paula Jones lawsuit. I'm not even sure Starr had been apppinted when Willy perjured himself. And it certainly didn't occur because Starr was fishing for it. It was a separate lawsuit.

But hey, it was 'all about blowjobs'. Next you'll be telling us about the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy.   ::)

[Steelgrave]

But hey, it was 'all about blowjobs'. Next you'll be telling us about the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy.   ::)

Would you pass me the sign-up form when you're finished with it? On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be part of a conspiracy that would allow me to join  ^-^

[bayonetbrant]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/10/rod-rosenstein-the-mystery-man-behind-comey-firing/

Until Tuesday night, Rod Rosenstein was one of the least known, but most powerful men in Washington. The deputy attorney general was catapulted out of obscurity when President Donald Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey and said he had relied on Rosenstein's judgement to do it.

Former Justice Department officials are now puzzling over how a man they describe as a consummate professional appears to have allowed himself to be used by the Trump White House to oust the FBI director. In interviews with Foreign Policy on Wednesday, Rosenstein's former colleagues — all of whom insisted on anonymity — wondered why a man they admired for his integrity would become a hatchet man for Trump.

"Rod is not an idiot. He's an experienced, intelligent, and savvy guy. He must understand that it is insane to fire a sitting FBI director while he is investigating Russia and collusion," said one former Justice Department lawyer who worked for Rosenstein when he was the top federal prosecutor in Maryland.

In a scorching three-page memo, Rosenstein said Comey's handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email system had compromised public trust in the FBI by announcing in a July 2016 press conference that the FBI would be recommending against prosecution of the then-putative Democratic nominee for president. Going public with his recommendation, Rosenstein argued, usurped the authority of Justice Department superiors.

Even though Trump cited Rosenstein's memo in firing Comey, the deputy attorney general stopped just short of suggesting that Comey be removed. "Rod is smart enough to know that the fact that he doesn't technically call for Jim Comey's firing is meaningless," the former Justice Department lawyer said.

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from the FBI's probe of Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible collusion between Trump associates and the Kremlin, Rosenstein has responsibility for overseeing an explosive investigation. On Tuesday, CNN reported that a grand jury issued subpoenas for business associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was fired less than a month into his job, allegedly for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

When Rosenstein was announced as the Trump administration's choice for deputy attorney general, many in the law enforcement community breathed a sigh of relief. A career Justice Department official who was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, Rosenstein was widely credited with turning around an office that had been in disarray. As the only U.S. attorney appointed under Bush who stayed in his job during the Obama years, Rosenstein was widely viewed as a steady hand who might temper some of the worst excesses of the Trump administration.

His role in providing the justification for Comey's firing has led some Justice Department veterans to question that assessment, however. "I'm incredibly troubled and disappointed that Rosenstein would be party to this," said one former national security official at the Justice Department. "I always thought his integrity was incredibly high."

Facing intense backlash, the White House's explanations for firing Comey have markedly shifted in the 24 hours since the initial announcement. First, Trump lieutenants claimed that the president acted on the Justice Department's recommendation in dismissing Comey, but multiple media reports claim that Trump made up his mind to fire the FBI chief and then tasked the Justice Department to justify his decision.

By Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had been considering firing Comey since he was inaugurated, further undermining the Trump administration's first set of talking points. Nonetheless, she said, Trump had acted at the urging of Justice Department officials, who had pushed the president to respond to "atrocities" committed by Comey.

Rosenstein's scathing memo describing those so-called atrocities was likely heartfelt, according to his former colleagues. A veteran of numerous public corruption prosecutions, Rosenstein was meticulous in his adherence to Justice Department guidelines to avoid influencing elections and to keep investigations confidential — rules that he believes Comey flouted in his July press conference and his October letter announcing that he had reopened the Clinton investigation.

"There's a legitimate argument that Comey screwed up, that he screwed up big time, and that he screwed up big enough to pressure him to resign," said one former prosecutor who worked under Rosenstein. "The mystery is why he thinks that a memo that calls for everything but an explicit firing is ok."

Said another veteran of the Maryland prosecutor's office: "I don't understand how Rod could be used as a pawn so easily."

Rosenstein now faces intense political criticism from congressional Democrats, who are calling for an independent investigator to be appointed to oversee the probe into Russian meddling and ties to the Trump campaign. They insist that Rosenstein cannot select the investigator.

"That special prosecutor ought be appointed by someone who was a senior career official at Justice Department — not another one of these political appointees," said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is running a parallel investigation of the Russian hacking and its links to Trump. On Wednesday, his panel subpoenaed Flynn for documents related to that investigation.

Reached by phone in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of Rosenstein's former law professors at Harvard, Philip Heymann, who himself served as deputy attorney general during the Bill Clinton administration, had some advice for his former student. "If I were talking to Rod," he said, "I would tell him to hire a special counsel or an independent prosecutor because he can't establish the credibility that he said was the purpose of firing Comey."

[bayonetbrant]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.

Trump had long questioned Comey's loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director's lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.

At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey's latest congressional testimony, which he thought was "strange," and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.

Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to talk with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant, and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly. Trump summoned the two of them to the White House for a meeting, according to a person close to the White House.

The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.

The pair quickly fulfilled the boss's orders, and the next day Trump fired Comey — a breathtaking move that thrust a White House already accustomed to chaos into a new level of tumult, one that has legal as well as political consequences.

Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Justice Department officials declined to comment.

The stated rationale for Comey's firing delivered Wednesday by principal deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was that he had committed "atrocities" in overseeing the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state, hurting morale in the bureau and compromising public trust.

"He wasn't doing a good job," Trump told reporters Wednesday. "Very simple. He wasn't doing a good job."

But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, paint a conflicting narrative centered on the president's brewing personal animus toward Comey. Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal deliberations.

Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. Trump was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia's effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.

The known actions that led to Comey's dismissal raise as many questions as answers. Why was Sessions involved in discussions about the fate of the man leading the FBI's Russia investigation, after having recused himself from the probe because he had falsely denied under oath his own past communications with the Russian ambassador?

Why had Trump discussed the Russia probe with the FBI director three times, as he claimed in his letter dismissing Comey, which could have been a violation of Justice Department policies that ongoing investigations generally are not to be discussed with White House officials?

And how much was the timing of Trump's decision shaped by events spiraling out of his control — such as Monday's testimony about Russian interference by former acting attorney general Sally Yates, or the fact that Comey last week requested more resources from the Justice Department to expand the FBI's Russia probe?


In the weeks leading up to Comey's firing, Trump administration officials had repeatedly urged the FBI to more aggressively pursue leak investigations, according to people familiar with the discussions. Administration officials sometimes sought to push the FBI to prioritize leak probes over the Russia interference case, and at other times urged the bureau to investigate disclosures of information that was not classified or highly sensitive and therefore did not constitute crimes, these people said.

Over time, administration officials grew increasingly dissatisfied with the FBI's actions on that front. Comey's appearances at congressional hearings caused even more tension between the White House and FBI, as Trump administration officials were angered that the director's statements increased, rather than diminished, public attention on the Russia probe, officials said.

In his Tuesday letter dismissing Comey, Trump wrote: "I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation." People familiar with the matter said that statement is not accurate, although they would not say how it was inaccurate. FBI officials declined to comment on the statement, and a White House official refused to discuss conversations between Trump and Comey.

'Essentially declared war'
Within the Justice Department and the FBI, the firing of Comey has left raw anger, and some fear, according to multiple officials. Thomas O'Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, called Comey's firing "a gut punch. We didn't see it coming, and we don't think Director Comey did anything that would lead to this.''

Many employees said they were furious about the firing, saying the circumstances of his dismissal did more damage to the FBI's independence than anything Comey did in his three-plus years in the job.

One intelligence official who works on Russian espionage matters said they were more determined than ever to pursue such cases. Another said Comey's firing and the subsequent comments from the White House are attacks that won't soon be forgotten. Trump had "essentially declared war on a lot of people at the FBI," one official said. "I think there will be a concerted effort to respond over time in kind."


While Trump and his aides sought to justify Comey's firing, the now-canned FBI director, back from a work trip to Los Angeles, kept a low profile. He was observed puttering in his yard at his home in Northern Virginia on Wednesday.

In a message to FBI staff late Wednesday, Comey wrote: "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."

He added that "in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty, and independence."

Sam Nunberg, a former political adviser to Trump, said the FBI director misunderstood the president: "James Comey made the mistake of thinking that just because he announced the FBI was investigating possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, he had unfettered job security. In my opinion, the president should have fired Comey the day he was sworn in."

George Lombardi, a friend of the president and a frequent guest at his Mar-a-Lago Club, said: "This was a long time coming. There had been a lot of arguments back and forth in the White House and during the campaign, a lot of talk about what side of the fence [Comey] was on or if he was above political dirty tricks."

Dating to the campaign, several men personally close to Trump deeply distrusted Comey and helped feed the candidate-turned-president's suspicions of the FBI director, who declined to recommend charges against Clinton for what they all agreed was a criminal offense, according to several people familiar with the dynamic.

The men influencing Trump include Roger J. Stone, a self-proclaimed dirty trickster and longtime Trump confidant who himself has been linked to the FBI's Russia investigation; former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Comey critic who has been known to kibbitz about the ousted FBI director with like-minded law enforcement figures; and Keith Schiller, a former New York police officer who functioned as Trump's chief bodyguard and works in the West Wing as director of Oval Office operations.

"What Comey did to Hillary was disgraceful," Stone said. "I'm glad Trump fired him over it."

In fact, it was Schiller whom Trump tasked with hand-delivering a manila envelope containing the president's termination letter to Comey's office at FBI headquarters Tuesday afternoon. Trump's aides did not appear to know that Comey would be out of the office, traveling on a recruiting trip in California, according to a White House official.

A chaotic response
Within the West Wing, there was little apparent dissent over the president's decision to fire Comey, according to the accounts of several White House officials. McGahn, the White House counsel, and Priebus, the chief of staff, walked Trump through how the dismissal would work, with McGahn's legal team taking the lead and coordinating with the Justice Department.

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, and her husband, Jared Kushner — both of whom work in the White House — have frequently tried to blunt Trump's riskier impulses but did not intervene to try to persuade him against firing Comey, according to two senior officials.

Trump kept a close hold on the process. White House press secretary Sean Spicer and communications director Michael Dubke were brought into the Oval Office and informed of the Comey decision just an hour before the news was announced. Other staffers in the West Wing found out about the FBI director's firing when their cellphones buzzed with news alerts beginning around 5:40 p.m.

The media explosion was immediate and the political backlash was swift, with criticism pouring in not only from Democrats, but also from some Republicans. Trump and some of his advisers did not fully anticipate the ferocious reaction — in fact, some wrongly assumed many Democrats would support the move because they had been critical of Comey in the past — and were unprepared to contain the fallout.

When asked Tuesday night for an update on the unfolding situation, one top White House aide simply texted a reporter two fireworks emoji.

"I think the surprise of a great many in the White House was that as soon as this became a Trump decision, all of the Democrats who had long been calling for Comey's ouster decided that this was now an awful decision," Dubke said. "So there was a surprise at the politicization of Democrats on this so immediately and so universally."

Trump's team did not have a full-fledged communications strategy for how to announce and then explain the decision. As Trump, who had retired to the residence to eat dinner, sat in front of a television watching cable news coverage of Comey's firing, he noticed another flaw: Nobody was defending him.

The president was irate, according to White House officials. Trump pinned much of the blame on Spicer and Dubke's communications operation, wondering how there could be so many press staffers yet such negative coverage on cable news — although he, Priebus and others had afforded them almost no time to prepare.

"This is probably the most egregious example of press and communications incompetence since we've been here," one West Wing official said. "It was an absolute disaster. And the president watched it unfold firsthand. He could see it."

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Trump bears some responsibility for the turmoil because he kept the decision secret from some key aides.

"You can't be the quarterback of the team if the rest of the team is not in the huddle," Gingrich said. "The president has to learn to go a couple steps slower so that everyone can organize around him. When you don't loop people in, you deprive yourself of all of the opportunities available to a president of the United States."

For more than two hours after the news broke, Trump had no official spokesman, as his army of communications aides scrambled to craft a plan. By nightfall, Trump had ordered his talkers to talk; one adviser said the president wanted "his people" on the airwaves.

Counselor Kellyanne Conway ventured into what White House aides call "the lions' den," appearing on CNN both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning for combative interviews. "Especially on your network, you always want to talk about Russia, Russia, Russia," Conway told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.

Sanders went Tuesday night to the friendly confines of Fox News Channel, but Wednesday parried questions from the more adversarial hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Spicer, meanwhile, threw together an impromptu news conference with reporters in the White House driveway, a few minutes before he taped a series of short television interviews inside the West Wing, where the lighting was better for the cameras. The press secretary stood alongside tall hedges in near darkness and agreed to answer questions with the cameras shuttered.

"Just turn the lights off," Spicer ordered. "Turn the lights off. We'll take care of this."

[bayonetbrant]

Truest words about the Comey firing were spoken by Vladimir Putin on CBS this morning (through a translator): "President Trump is acting in accordance with his competence."

[bayonetbrant]

yes it's Slate
yes, the conclusions might not be what you agree with
yes, the facts that are informing the speculative conclusions are still accurate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/the_white_house_story_on_comey_s_firing_is_falling_apart.html

[mirth]

yes it's Slate
yes, the conclusions might not be what you agree with
yes, the facts that are informing the speculative conclusions are still accurate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/the_white_house_story_on_comey_s_firing_is_falling_apart.html

Yes, I'm not going to bother with it.

[Toonces]

It's a pretty spot on article. 

[Toonces]

I mean, it's transparent that the administration is lying about the reason for coneys firing. 

I said before hat the over/under for trump is one year.  I stand by that. 

[airboy]

The Wall St. Journal has a very different take on all of this which fits all of the facts and takes into account something the Politico story and the Washington Post story ignores.

Trump did not talk to his communication people before firing Comey.  There was an entire story on this in today's WSJ.  There was very sloppy message handling.  This has occurred frequently with the Trump Admin.  The BS "Obstruction of Justice" is the normal confusion and lack of briefing in the Trump WH.  You also don't have "Obstruction of Justice" unless you are preventing the investigation of a crime, withholding evidence of a crime, etc......  Which makes the Politico story even more BS since Trump has the legal authority to fire Comey if he wishes. 

Rosenstein thought Comey made bad decisions.  He had a meeting where he expressed those views to Trump.  Trump asked for a memo.  Rosenstein wrote a blistering three page memo on Comey's failings.  Unless you think Rosenstein had the memo dictated to him, then it is his opinion.  I think the foreign policy article Brant posted makes the assumption that Rosenstein wrote something he did not believe at Trump's or someone else's direction.  They present this with no evidence.

According to the WSJ and Washington Post, the FBI people generally supported Comey.  Having lots of stories about people being upset about the firing from the FBI or Justice Dept. is largely irrelevant.

Trump had been looking for a reason to fire Comey and did so.

According to what very little is known about the Russian investigation we do know the following:
1] Flynn is a focus
2] Subpoenas have been issued from the Grand Jury

There is speculation that there are investigations into Trump associates who have business ties to Russia, but nothing other than unnamed sources have stated this.