mike.editor@midpush.com, updated 190418
James B. Comey was Director of the FBI from 2013 until being fired May 9th, 2017. FBI Directors serve nominally under a 10 year term and his term was due to be up in 2023. The decade-long tenure was introduced to shield FBI directors from being drawn into politics, but the position is still subject to dismissal at the pleasure of the President.
In other words, he serves at the “pleasure” of the president.
Given the statement above, and a reading of the timeline below. You can say Trump is a shady New York real estate dealer, but, he never obstructed justice in regards to James B. Comey.
Russian hacking. Of course they meddled with the election. And guess what, they are going to do it again. Was this the first time? I think not! But next time they won’t pay Facebook with rubles.
James B. Comey Pre-election Timeline
- 2016/07/05 – Comey, on television, in a 15:38 speech, describes Hillary Clinton’s lying, spinning, and evasion regarding her misuse of classified information regarding her private email server. 7 Emails were above Top Secret, into the Special Compartmented realm. He then declared that “no reasonable prosecutor” would prosecute Hillary for her obvious and manifest crimes. This was an eye opening discussion. It puzzled a lot of people. He then referred it to Obama’s Justice Department for a decision on whether to prosecute. He passed the buck. Any other citizen, would have at least lost their clearance. 12 minutes in he lays into her, but at 13 minutes, he goes political. Hillary has no intent to be disloyal, she just didn’t care about the rules?
- 2016/10/28 – Comey sends a letter to congress stating, ” In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” Comey added that the agency couldn’t yet determine “whether or not this material may be significant or not,” or “how long it will take us to complete this additional work.” This was just 11 days before the election. And it rocked political establishment.
- In hindsight for Comey. As the head of the FBI, he had to report it. If he didn’t and it came out later that he snuffed it. It would look very bad. And reporting it would be very bad. This is where he is the Fall Guy. Not good, not bad. Just how it is. Life at the top. If he was second in command, he would still have his job.
- The emails it turns out came from Anthony Weiners laptop. Anthony was/is married to Huma Abedin, who was the vice chair of Hillary’s 2016 campaign.
- Democrats who had high praise in July for letting Hillary off the hook, were upset. Among the notables, Dianne Feinstein, Elijah Cummings . Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers were making it clear that he would be facing tough questioning about whether he’s fit to lead the agency after Election Day.
- 2016/11/05 – Comey clears Hillary a second time. He says the new emails do not point to any wrongdoing by Clinton. But many articles pop up about the Clinton Foundation and the issues between the Obama justice department and the FBI.
- 2018/11/08 – Donald Trump wins the election.
January 6th, 2017 Meeting – Trump meets Comey, 1st time
the source for this section is the book; Fear-(chapter 8) by Bob Woodward.
The intelligence chiefs came to Trump tower to meet with Trump. In attendance, James B. Comey, James Clapper(Director of National Intelligence), John Brennan(CIA) , and Reince Priebus, Trumps future Chief of Staff.
Clapper in talking to Trump, outlines three “Key Judgements.” They are:
- Russia has a long desire “to undermine the US led liberal democratic order”.
- Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 to undermine public faith in the US democratic process and denigrate Secretary Clinton, and show a clear preference for Trump.
- When it appeared to Moscow that Clinton was likely to win, the Russian influence campaign began to focus on undermining her future presidency. Russia has been against Hillary since the Ukraine invasion. Anything they could do to hurt her they would do. Blindly, Trump, as her adversary, benefits.
As the meeting was winding down Trump asked if there was anything more? “Well yes, there is some additional sensitive material,”-Clapper stated. “Do you want us to stay or do this alone?-Preibus asked Trump. Comey suggested-“I was thinking the two of us.” Trump agreed-“Just the two of us”.
Comey and Trump’s private meeting last 5 minutes. In a Higher Loyalty, Comey wrote, “The FBI was not currently investigating him. This was literally true. We did not have a counterintelligence case file open on him. We really didn’t care if had cavorted with hookers in Moscow, so long as the Russians weren’t trying to coerce him in any way.”
As Comey continued, “Still, the plan left me deeply uncomfortable…. There was a real chance that Donald Trump, politician and hardball deal-maker would assume I was dangling the prostitute thing over him to jam him, to gain leverage. He might well assume I was pulling a J. Edgar Hoover, because that’s what Hoover would do in my shoes. An eyebrow raise didn’t do this situation justice; it was really going to suck.
If I was Trump, and had these three guys come in and accuse me of things, I thought not to be right. It would not be a good first impression. Would I want to work with these characters?
2017/01/11 – Buzz Feed leaks the “Steele” dossier described above online. Our FBI and/or our CIA has trouble keeping secrets. Trump must really mistrust the characters from the January 6th meeting. Hmm, I would have fired their asses if I had the chance! But he’s not sworn in as president for 10 more days.
Post Inauguration Timeline
- 2017/05/03 – Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He states he has no regrets about how he investigated Hillary.
- 2017/05/09 – James B. Comey is fired by Donald Trump. Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein cited at least two key items; 1) he accused Comey of attempting to “usurp the attorney general’s authority” by publicly announcing why he felt the case should be closed without prosecution. 2) “Compounding the error, the director ignored another longstanding principle: We do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation,”.
Post Firing Timeline
- 2017/05/17 – Rod Rosenstein signs an authorizing document to begin what became known as the Mueller Special Counsel investigation. The investigation’s scope included allegations that there were links or coordination between Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign and the Russian government as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation”. The scope of the investigation also included potential obstruction of justice charges against Trump and others within the campaign and administration.
- During the Mueller investigation, Trump throws several tissy fits on what he believes to be an unjust investigation. But he never stop the investigation. He is entitled to his opinion on the investigation.
- 2018/04/17 – Comey’s book comes out, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Loyalty”.
- 2018/04/19 – Comey’s book becomes the top-selling book on Amazon.
- 2019/03/22 – Robert Mueller sends his report on Collusion and Obstruction of Justice to Attorney General Barr.
- 2019/03/24 – Barr summarizes the report saying no collusion but declines to be specific on obstruction of justice. He promises a report, redacted, for congress by April 15th.
- To be continued.
In the end, the Democratically controlled congress, with the number one mission to make the presidents miserable. Can hold him to the fire for just about anything, just as long as they get 51% of the vote in the house. But then they need 67 votes in the Senate to make it stick. It’s certainly more fun to listen to this stuff in the news rather then new laws. Right?
President Trump, coming into office, being a political neophyte, who can’t keep his mouth shut, took a bit to learn, and still has a way to go. If I were the president, I would have fired, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey on day one of the presidency just from the early January meetings. Back in November 2016, half the democratic congressional members wanted him out.