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Does This Pose Make Me Look Guilty?
Replace the book he’s holding with a mug shot sign.
So … the James Comey Book Tour has had its first week. An extremely rocky voyage so far. It seems to this observer that it is about to hit an iceberg, a la the Titanic.
Just today, we have Kim Strassel at the WSJ [paywall] with 11 questions (her column had space restrictions for adding more) that an honest interviewer would ask the former head of the FBI. We have Jim Geraghty at NR [link] echoing Mike Wallace about the catty gossipiness and pointing out the yuge blanks that need filling about Hillary, McCabe, and Lynch. At The Hill … Jonathan Turley appropriately titles his article … FBI A House Of Lies In Comey Era.
And at The Federalist, we have the esteemed Mollie Hemingway [Comey’s memos indicate the dossier briefing of Trump was a setup] who takes apart the now recently published memos of this disgrace of a man and a former head of the FBI. Sad.
Ms. Hemingway makes a very effective case that this man set up the incoming President of the United States for the public reporting of the most salacious details of what Comey also testified to Congress was “unverified,” and that although he intentionally omitted it from his testimony, he knew it was produced by the Hillary Clinton campaign as “opposition research.”
Here’s Mollie’s concluding paragraph:
That [Comey’s firing by Trump] led to Comey leaking multiple memos in order to get a special counsel appointed out of revenge. That special counsel has utterly distracted multiple agencies and embroiled all three branches of government at the highest levels. All over a document that was secretly funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, contracted by a Democrat research firm with ties to the Kremlin, and authored by a shady foreign spy whose relationship with the FBI was terminated because he lied to them.
Treason, by any other name, is still treason.
Published in General
Please show me the statute or court decision that says the FBI Director derives his constitutional authority from anywhere other than the unitary executive: the POTUS himself.
Sure, but there’s no evidence that Comey was asked to violate his oath. If Trump doesn’t want people who will stab him in the back to suit a personal agenda (my assumption of what he meant, if he asked), that’s no crime. The pejorative connotation placed on “asking for loyalty” is placed there because it serves an obstruction narrative that is otherwise very weak.
Please show me where in the FBI Director oath of office he pledges himself to the President.
That assumes good motivations on the part of POTUS and bad motivations on the part of Comey.
Nice try, but the FBI Director takes an oath to support and defend the US Constitution. Article II of the US Constitution says “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The FBI Director derives his authority from the executive Power, which resides solely in the care of President Donald J. Trump.
At the very least, the President has a right to object to disloyalty from the FBI director, especially dishonest disloyalty.
There is no claim that Trump asked Comey to do anything unethical. The unethical things that Comey has done were definitely not at Trump’s bidding, and were intended to harm Trump.
The latter part of that assumption has definitely been confirmed.
Trump gave Comey an out in that second private dinner (on Jan. 28, 2017). Trump asked him if he wanted to stay on and that there were a lot of people who wanted the job. Comey should have resigned right then. And if Trump didn’t trust him, which he clearly didn’t, then Trump should have fired him right then. Both men were wrong. Both deserve some blame for how things played out.
I’m not really talking about motivations. I’m trying to judge these interactions at face value–based on words. But I’d agree that those who take a facially-neutral discussion of “loyalty” and turn it into obstruction seem more interested in implying motivation than looking at the actual language. There is certainly nothing inherently illegal about asking for loyalty.
What did you find compelling about Chait’s piece, if I may ask? I read it and can’t figure out what’s so great about it, much less how it rebuts my quotes of Comey’s memo or my quotes of CNN’s story.
For some. I’m making my way through his book right now and I’m not as certain.
Hi Mollie,
I didn’t think your conspiratorial premise was absurd at all. Chait does, however, bring up a good point: Why did CNN need for then President-elect Trump to be briefed on the dossier? After all, President Obama and Congress had already been briefed on the dossier. Wasn’t that enough of a “news hook” for CNN?
Well, they had the dossier for months and knew that a select few members of Congress had been briefed (by whom, one might ask, and why, one might ask!) many months prior. That, in fact, had been previously reported by Isikoff in September. They didn’t run the story then. Thoughtful people should think about why they didn’t run it then and whether they were worried, legally or otherwise, about publishing salacious allegations that had not been verified (and still haven’t been, fwiw). So they needed, according to Comey himself and not me, as Chait suggests, a “hook” to justify running a story.
The hook, as the CNN headline makes clear, was the briefing of Trump and the briefing of Obama — these were, essentially, the same briefing. So why did they need the briefing of Trump if the intel chiefs could have just had the briefing of Obama? I never said they needed both, and in fact I think just one or the other would have sufficed to be able to talk about the dossier in the mainstream media. I can see why briefing both would be in the best interest of intel agencies. It’s just good during transitions to keep the information flow the same for both the outgoing and incoming administrations — such a standard operation, in fact, that to not do it would have raised eyebrows and made people think that there was something pretty shady going on. Further, it is reasonable to ask whether this was Obama’s first briefing on the dossier or not. I mean, it would be reasonable if you’re a journalist but this question hasn’t been asked by any major media, to my knowledge. And it also might be worth asking whether both Obama and Trump were briefed on the dossier in January 2017 in equivalent ways. Comey says he told Trump nothing about its funding or its claim that people close to him were compromised or that Russians had kompromat on him to pressure him — just the single salacious allegation of prostitutes and urination. (This is very weird, by the way, to brief him only on that.) Was Obama given the same briefing? Was Biden? Were they given more info? Was their knowledge of the provenance of the dossier more substantive?
Anyway, the point was not that they had to brief Trump, per se, but that CNN itself claimed it needed a hook. The hook was, as the headline makes clear, the briefing of Trump (and Obama, perhaps again). The story told us that this briefing meant that the intel agencies took this dossier completely seriously. It legitimized the dossier as something that could be talked about — finally. It was the needed news hook that contextualized the story just perfectly for the Russia narrative that put the country into a bit of hysteria for the next year-plus, despite it’s odd lack of actual evidence of treason.
Remember, the dossier had already been briefed to countless media outlets months prior, according to sworn testimony by its manufacturers (who we later learned were secretly paid by Hillary CLinton and the DNC). They had it but didn’t run it. Why? That it wasn’t really written about was because it was so sketchy and didn’t meet journalistic standards. But having this briefing was as close to a gold standard as you could get (even if we later learned that the dossier has not been verified but had been, remarkably, used to justify spying on a Trump affiliate).
Now maybe it’s all just completely coincidental that James Clapper asked Comey to do this, that it leaked almost immediately, that CNN needed and got a hook in a briefing claiming that CNN needed a hook, and that Clapper now is employed by CNN. Also that Clapper was found — in Finding #44 of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — to have given inconsistent testimony about his leaks to CNN about the dossier. Maybe the fact that the dossier has been investigated by reporters throughout the world and been unable to be confirmed in its non-public allegations (e.g., we know Russia is a country as the dossier claims and we know Russia is a country that has a long history of meddling in US elections as the dossier claims, but we do not have evidence they have kompromat on Trump, as the dossier claims and for which the dossier is famous) is also a coincidence.
But at the very least, people should answer some questions about all these coincidences, given how tremendously damaging to the country the leaking of this dossier and the January briefing to Obama and Trump have been.
Absurd ….
There are four different authors of articles that make reasonable, logical and highly appropriate illustrations of the lies of Mr. Comey, who interesting enough is now under investigation for unethical acts himself.
Moderator Note:
Rude.[REDACTED IMAGE]
Hi Mollie. I found Chaits piece compelling in the way it laid out alternative explainations and news hooks. I don’t really need a “deep state” conspiracy involving the head of the CIA and the FBI to explain why CNN would run a story critical of President Trump. As you point out in a later comment – many such news hooks already existed, and at the end of the day Donald Trump is a newsworthy person regardless. As Buzzfeed demonstrated when they shotgunned the dossier all over the Internet: the simple fact that someone made these claims is newsworthy enough. Why they waited I have no idea.
To me extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claims about President Trump and Russian hookers is laughable precisely because it lacks any evidence that it happened. At the same time a conspiracy by the head of the CIA and FBI to undermine a President all to secure one of them a paid punditry gig requires more than some coincidental timelines. (As if every news organization on the planet wouldn’t jump at the chance to have a former CIA head as a contributor) Is it all a coincidence? Occam’s razor tells us: Yeah, probably.
Bah my comment got swallowed by the Ricochet demons. Probably Max and Jon working to undermine me.
Jack Goldsmith, a high ranking Justice Department official — head the Office of Legal Counsel — during part of the George W. Bush administration on the ‘Deep State’ …
Jack Goldsmith, writing in the Guardian, tells us that the “deep state” is real and dangerous. His assertions carry weight for two reasons.
But … but … but … Mr. Integrity (sic) still is claiming that it’s possible … without any evidence. And yet you continue to defend and give the benefit of the doubt to a known liar who is now under investigation himself for such lying.
It seems that you have missed two other conversations related to this one. First, Mollies’ own is here. There is much additional evidence and detail in those conversations. Second, in a conversation by @bloodthirstyneocon, the answer to your CNN question is here:
http://ricochet.com/512317/hiding-in-plain-sight/#comment-4136630
CNN wanted to add to the story headline …. “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims ……”
And in the Guardian no less!
Link to Guardian piece:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/22/leaks-trump-deep-state-fbi-cia-michael-flynn
I think you’re reading something into Mollie’s argument that isn’t there, to make it sound ridiculous. She isn’t suggesting that the purpose of the conspiracy was to get Clapper a punditry gig — I think all of us can agree that, if there was a conspiracy, its purpose was to smear Trump — she is merely demonstrating the relationship between Clapper and CNN. They key to it, though, is that Clapper suggests the meeting and then the meeting gets leaked to CNN. The relationship explains the leak, rather than the leak explaining the relationship.
As for Chait’s argument against CNN not needing a hook: this was not an idea that Mollie invented. It’s not her claim that CNN needed a hook. It’s Comey’s. It’s literally what he wrote in his memo. Which raises the question: How did Comey know that CNN needs a hook? Who from CNN told him that they needed a hook? Was he talking to CNN, or was the person who suggested the meeting talking to CNN (the one who later got a job at CNN)?
Forgive me but when did I make this claim you ascribe to me? Perhaps a link to my original piece is needed.
I am so happy to see so many @MollieHemingway posts back on R> I am beside myself!
I concede that I may have read more into your piece than you intended. That seemed to be the implication of the threads you were connecting.
Hi @MollieHemingway, genuine question about the timeline here. At the time that CNN reported on the dossier hadn’t BuzzFeed already reported it, and it’s more salacious contents, to the public at large?
I’m still processing the story, but a few thoughts:
Jamie, I just have to call you out on this and say good man. We need more of this around here (I am as guilty as the next guy).
How would he know this unless he or someone he knew had been talking to the media about it?
Would the standard practice be for a briefer to hand the president a more detailed written summary of the topic of conversation, while the conversation itself only covers highlights?
I thought that had something to do with McCain/a McCain staffer passing the dossier from the DOJ or FusionGPS to Buzzfeed? From what I recall, Buzzfeed ran it, so it was public, but no one else would touch it because it was unverified. The Trump meeting gave CNN, etc., license to cover it. This might be incorrect.
Can anyone think of a non-nefarious justification for the intel chiefs lending credibility to a guy (Steele) who had failed to comply with FBI requests for evidence of his Russian sources’ credibility, lied to the FBI by going to the press, and then been fired for it? This is a serious question: is there an innocent reason that Comey brought this unverified information to POTUS, President-elect, and the Gang of Eight in Congress? Is that standard operating procedure with unverified intelligence reports?