Trump Dismisses FBI Director James Comey

[toucana]

BREAKING NEWS

President Trump has dismissed FBI director James Comey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39866170

"Today, President Donald J Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office," said a White House statement.

The White House said Mr Comey had been dismissed on the recommendation of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Mr Comey had been leading an inquiry into alleged links between the Trump election campaign and Russia.

[someguy1]

One thing about the Trump admin, it's never dull. It's the exact opposite of no-drama Obama. Trump is running the government as if it's a reality tv show.

As far as Comey, he's been a loose cannon for months. Goes back to his laying out the criminal case against Hillary then saying there's no case. And right up to yesterday when he said that Huma sent thousands of classified emails to Weiner's laptop. In fact it was only a handful of emails and they were classified only after the fact.

It's not that Comey was partisan either way. He was just pinballing in every possible direction and making one bad choice after another.

I think he was trying to do the right thing and screwed up and just got himself tangled in his own contradictions. Trump had to fire him because Comey's public appearances were clown shows.

I think it's ridiculous that the Dem line is that this is Watergate. Chris Matthews opened with "Tuesday night massacre" to reference the Saturday night massacre of Watergate. It's not true. Comey was just becoming a distraction and clearly couldn't do his job any more.

Obligatory disclaimer, I'm a radical independent who hates and detests pretty much everyone in Washington. I call events as I see them. In this case I support Trump firing Comey.

ps -- Last prez to fire an FBI director? Bill Clinton fired William Sessions in 1993.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washing ... story.html

[Braininvat]

I was glad to hear Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.” 

I can see where this firing might loosen Comey's tongue. Nothing to lose and it's clear Comey has been independent minded and refused to be a Trump lapdog. This could backfire nicely on Trump if the FBI has found any substantial Trump/Russia connections.

Some of the Nixon  parallels I am hearing are weak, I agree, but this affair stinks on its own without any need for historical comparisons.  The timing is spectacular in its  awfulness.  I mean, just as 3 grand juries are being assembled to look at possible Russia/Trump indictables?   You would think that a reality show veteran like Trump could sense the bad optics there. If McCain or Graham decide it's time to grow a pair, this firing could actually accelerate the investigations rather than distract the diehard Trumpista rubes.

 

[someguy1]

I can see where this firing might loosen Comey's tongue. Nothing to lose and it's clear Comey has been independent minded and refused to be a Trump lapdog. This could backfire nicely on Trump if the FBI has found any substantial Trump/Russia connections.

I would gladly call Comey before Congress to testify on the truth about Trump if he's also allowed to tell us the truth about Hillary.

Our federal government is corrupt and broken. Two presidential candidates under investigation by the FBI. Wouldn't you like to hear about how AG Lynch impeded Comey's investigation in order to protect Hillary? I sure would.

If it turns out Trump's a Russkie, so be it. I haven't seen red-baiting like this since the cold war.

Some of the Nixon  parallels I am hearing are weak, I agree, but this affair stinks on its own without any need for historical comparisons.  The timing is spectacular in its  awfulness.  I mean, just as 3 grand juries are being assembled to look at possible Russia/Trump indictables?   You would think that a reality show veteran like Trump could sense the bad optics there. If McCain or Graham decide it's time to grow a pair, this firing could actually accelerate the investigations rather than distract the diehard Trumpista rubes.

 

Everyone's chosen their side and cable news is breathless. I try not to get so excited about a lot of these things. I think that Comey needed to go and everybody in Washington knows it. But their job is to pick a partisan position and the Dems have settled in on Watergate. Five minutes before they were complaining that Comey cost Hillary the election.

Someone said that if Hillary had become president she would have fired Comey the first day and liberals would have cheered.

Truth is Comey needed to go. If there's an investigation it's still going on. There's much less to this than meets the eye.

[toucana]

Reports from a number of press sources indicate that the White House staff have been taken by surprise by the intensity of the media and political fire-storm that has erupted after the surprise decision to fire FBI director James Comey.

A trailer last night on Fox News indicated that the intended schedule for the White House today was to put up the junior press spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders to make a brief appearance on camera offering such anodyne platitudes on the Russia/Trump investigation as:

when are they going to let that go?
It's been going on for nearly a year, … "Frankly, it's kind of getting absurd. There's nothing there. We've heard it time and time again. We heard it in the testimonies earlier this week. We've heard it for the last 11 months. There is no 'there' there. It's time to move on, and frankly, it's time to focus on things the American people care about.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/white-house-spokesperson-trump-russia-probe-james-comey-2017-5?r=US&IR=T

Several possible reasons as to why this is unlikely to happen could be suggested. Possibly the most cogent and best written synopsis of the dimensions of the problem can be found here in an article titled “From Russia With Oil” by blogger Yonatan Zunger

https://extranewsfeed.com/from-russia-with-oil-4d027411bcc5

It is the most detailed account I have yet read of the ongoing investigative reporting into what has become known as the 'Mayflower Hotel Meeting’ in Washington DC on 27 April 2016, and the mysterious sale of a 19% stake in the shares of Rosneft, the Russian oil consortium.

A detailed network map of the people and institutions involved can be found on the CNN website
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/trump-russia-connections/

Footnote:
It has just been disclosed that federal prosecutors had issued Grand jury subpoenas said to be in respect of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn immediately before FBI director James Comey was dismissed yesterday

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/james-comey-grand-jury-donald-trump-fire-fbi-director-michael-flynn-russia-links-sack-a7727391.html

[Braininvat]

The stated reason for dismissal of Comey was that he was tough on Hillary.

That's ridiculous on its face.

So the guy investigating the President gets fired by the President who endorsed, heartily, his treatment of Clinton.

Sorry, "Comey had to go," seems like a failure to connect dots that I find a wee bit partisan, disclaimers notwithstanding.

Also....

Employees fired by Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey

Employees who were investigating Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey

GMaFB. It isn't red-baiting to call for an Independent Prosecutor and get things fast-tracked. This reeks, and anyone not blinded by partisanship can smell it.

[SciameriKen]

The stated reason for dismissal of Comey was that he was tough on Hillary.

That's ridiculous on its face.

So the guy investigating the President gets fired by the President who endorsed, heartily, his treatment of Clinton.

Sorry, "Comey had to go," seems like a failure to connect dots that I find a wee bit partisan, disclaimers notwithstanding.

Also....

Employees fired by Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey

Employees who were investigating Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey

GMaFB. It isn't red-baiting to call for an Independent Prosecutor and get things fast-tracked. This reeks, and anyone not blinded by partisanship can smell it.

I completely agree with Someguy -- and I completely agree with you! No question Comey had to go - but a guy firing a guy who is investigating him is also bad. How can we make sure the investigation continues?

[Braininvat]

Well, Republicans are now joining the call for an IP.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/trump-comey-fbi-senators.html

I think people on both sides of the aisle are noticing things that don't pass the smell test. Why would Jeff Sessions, if he has "recused" himself from the whole Russian probe, endorse a memorandum from Ron Rosenstein on the need to get rid of Comey, who happens to be in the middle of that Russia probe and has just recently spoken to Congress on said probe? Sessions shouldn't even be involved in any of this, given not only his recusal, but the original reason he recused himself.

Yeah, I never disagreed that Comey had to go, but if he had to go over his pre-election antics then why didn't Trump fire him in January, especially after all his speeches about how he wasn't going to waste a second cutting out the bad wood and draining the swamp and so on? Trump's timing is so nakedly self-serving that it makes me wonder if he is just stupid to the point of being neurologically impaired in some way. (Not the first time I've wondered that....)

[Heavy_Water]

File this story under Z.

As in ........Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Snoozer.

LOL


Gee, you mean a thin skinned and ego maniacal vindictive business Mogul like Trump would not at his earliest chance fire a guy who accused his election being corrupted and enabled, even, by Russia?

This firing is simply hardball business.

Mess with me, I mess with you.

I can't help but smile about the whole deal.

[toucana]

From a link supplied earlier in this thread:

This allegation is by far the most extraordinary one ever leveled against a U.S. President. Nixon was accused of covering up a burglary; Reagan, of running illegal arms deals to funnel covert money to insurgents. Never before has there been the suggestion that a sitting president has actually been suborned by a foreign power, much less that this foreign power actively worked to install him in office.

https://extranewsfeed.com/from-russia-with-oil-4d027411bcc5

Firing the director of the FBI who was in the process of investigating this allegation goes far beyond "hardball business" by someone who is supposed to be acting as a POTUS. If you can sleep through this, you can probably sleep through anything.

[Braininvat]

HW, Trump's action is that of a dictator. Or a mob boss. Not really a snoozer, when it's your country's democracy that's under attack. We are looking at a Constitutional crisis, so maybe you should try to stay awake and pay attention.

[Mossling]

Watch Trump and Sessions praise the guy for the exact thing they fire him for:

And then at the press briefing Sarah Sanders states that the opposite had been the truth all along.

As we've been discussing already, however, the truth doesn't matter to the visceral nationalists that Trump is riding on - they just want to see 'heartless elitists' burn. As long as that continues, nothing substantial will change. The educated need to get in touch with their hearts first - to champion the truth and not sell it off like Hilary and Co. have been doing. Otherwise it doesn't matter that much to the majority who is in the whitehouse - corruption is corruption.

If there is no real appetite for championing the truth, then get ready for proper dictatorship stuff - Sacha Baron Cohen style.

[Braininvat]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/p ... trump.html

More trump baloney repudiated by the acting FBI director. What's the average lifespan of a Trump lie these days?

[someguy1]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-chief-russia-trump.html

More trump baloney repudiated by the acting FBI director. What's the average lifespan of a Trump lie these days?

Trump has really made a mess of this. If he'd just shut up after the firing the left would still be complaining but at least Trump wouldn't be playing right into their hands. He said he fired Trump because of the Rosenstein report, but now Trump just told Lester Hold he would have fired Comey regardless.

He said it had nothing to do with the Russia investigation, now he says he wanted to bring the investigation to a close and firing Comey does that.

He's just playing directly into the left's hands and now the firing looks absolutely terrible. Far worse than my initial take a couple of days ago. Trump has really hurt himself. He needs to stop tweeting. As if we all haven't noticed that for the past year. Trump is always his own worst enemy.

Not only the Dems but Trump's GOP opponents are all over this. If they manage to get a special prosecutor appointed, Trump's economic agenda and his presidency are over.

[Heavy_Water]

HW, Trump's action is that of a dictator. Or a mob boss. Not really a snoozer, when it's your country's democracy that's under attack. We are looking at a Constitutional crisis, so maybe you should try to stay awake and pay attention.

It's a snoozer to me in that I fully expected Trump to do things like this once he became POTUS.

And for your Info, I am fully awake and paying attention.

There is no constitutional crisis going on. Nothing he did violated it. Or maybe you can show us all how he has done so? Enlighten us with your Political Science expertise? LOL

And, is it me, or are you trying to be a Douche Nozzle?

If so, you're doing a good job.

[toucana]

President Trump has apparently threatened former FBI director James Comey with the release of unspecified tape recordings if he makes untoward comments to the press that contradict Trump's version of events.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-james-comey_us_5915aa91e4b0031e737d0012?section=us_politics

Anyone who was around in 1973 will have a certain sense of deja-vu at this point, and some inkling of where this might be heading next.

One person who was around, and uniquely qualified to offer an opinion is John Dean, the former junior WH counsel to Richard Nixon who first disclosed to a congressional enquiry that Nixon routinely taped all conversations held in the Oval office. He subsequently spent four months in prison.

"Obviously, President Trump is confused. He is the one who must hope there are no tapes. Honest people don't have problems being taped" Dean tweeted earlier today

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/12/politics/donald-trump-james-comey-threat/

[someguy1]

Anyone who was around in 1973 will have a certain sense of deja-vu at this point, and some inkling of where this might be heading next.

I was around then and I say these Watergate comparisons are utter nonsense. Hillary and the Dems dreamed up this election hacking story so they wouldn't have to deal with Hillary's utter incompetence as a candidate.

[toucana]

I was around too that summer in USA in 1973. I was a young 20 year old student on a summer exchange study program in both Washington DC and New York. My first visit to America.

I recall that I was actually in a press room of one of the Washington dailies, when news of the VP Spiro Agnew corruption scandal first broke ( a US friend had taken me in to meet his father who was one of the editors).

The one big topic of conversation that every single American I met that summer wanted to broach was "Do you think he's guilty ?" - and they always meant Nixon, even though this was two months *before* the notorious 'Saturday Night Massacre' on 20 October 1973.

My memories of that summer remain vivid, and having witnessed one US constitutional crisis at first hand back then, I will stick with a view that you have another one unfolding right now.

[Forest_Dump]

I can only assume there is already some substantial clammoring for the release of these Trump-Comey tapes because it sure sounds like there is something untoward recorded on them that, in Trump's words, made them threat-worthy. And if he can't or won't produce these tapes then the Watergate analogy id undisputable.

[toucana]

Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers, the respective ranking members of the House oversight and judiciary committees, requested from White House counsel Donald McGahn copies of all recordings between Trump and Comey.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/12/politics/donald-trump-james-comey-threat/index.html

The Senate Intelligence Committee is exploring ways to compel President Donald Trump to hand over any potential audio recordings of now-former FBI Director James Comey ... Senate investigators could ask for “any recording devices or backup copies that were referenced in the post made by President Trump on the morning of May 12, with respect to recordings with President Trump and Director Comey

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-comey-tapes_us_59160449e4b0031e737d8c2f?section=us_politics

One interesting point made in the latter article is that if Trump is recording conversations, then under the terms of the Presidential Records Act 1978 he would be compelled to archive and preserve them all, and could face criminal charges if he tried to destroy them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Records_Act

[someguy1]

One interesting point made in the latter article is that if Trump is recording conversations, then under the terms of the Presidential Records Act 1978 he would be compelled to archive and preserve them all, and could face criminal charges if he tried to destroy them.

Julian Assange is offering $100k for the tapes. It's a crazy world we live in, isn't it?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141773419

[Forest_Dump]

Julian Assange is offering $100k for the tapes. It's a crazy world we live in, isn't it?

I don't remember - which one is in Russia? Him or Snowden?

[someguy1]

Julian Assange is offering $100k for the tapes. It's a crazy world we live in, isn't it?

I don't remember - which one is in Russia? Him or Snowden?

Assange is the head of Wikileaks, receiving political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Snowden is the CIA hacker who received political asylum in Russia.