Trump Retribution Phase | COMEY INDICTED

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🎁 —> Examining James Comey’s 2020 Testimony at the Heart of His Indictment
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“… The false statement charge asserts that in appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020, Mr. Comey told a U.S. senator that he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the F.B.I. to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an F.B.I. investigation concerning” an unnamed person. But in fact, the indictment says, Mr. Comey had authorized someone to do so.

The obstruction charge is even vaguer. It asserts that Mr. Comey made “false and misleading statements” before the committee, but offers no details.

The quotation seemingly attributed to Mr. Comey in the first charge was actually uttered by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. That is one of several factors that makes dissecting their exchange complicated and ambiguous — an issue that could be problematic for proving to a jury that Mr. Comey not only made a false statement but also did so intentionally.

Mr. Cruz was in turn recounting an exchange at a Senate hearing on May 3, 2017. At the time, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Mr. Comey whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the F.B.I. to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation.” Mr. Comey responded, “No.”

The 2017 exchange itself falls outside the five-year statute of limitations to charge someone with making a false statement, so Mr. Comey is being charged for saying in 2020 that he stood by having said “no” and that his testimony was “the same today.”

In context, Mr. Grassley was clearly referring to the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia and to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of an email server.

In his questioning three years later, Mr. Cruz slightly mangled this exchange — he said Clinton “administration” rather than “investigation” — and he shifted to discuss a leak about a different Clinton-related investigation.

Confusingly, Mr. Cruz offered what appears to have been an inaccurate account of a disagreement between Mr. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, regarding authorization to disclose that matter. He then asked Mr. Comey two different questions — whether Mr. Comey was saying he had never authorized anyone to leak, and whether if Mr. McCabe said otherwise, that meant Mr. McCabe was lying….”
 
nycfan said:
“… The false statement charge asserts that in appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020, Mr. Comey told a U.S. senator that he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the F.B.I. to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an F.B.I. investigation concerning” an unnamed person. But in fact, the indictment says, Mr. Comey had authorized someone to do so.

The obstruction charge is even vaguer. It asserts that Mr. Comey made “false and misleading statements” before the committee, but offers no details.

The quotation seemingly attributed to Mr. Comey in the first charge was actually uttered by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. That is one of several factors that makes dissecting their exchange complicated and ambiguous — an issue that could be problematic for proving to a jury that Mr. Comey not only made a false statement but also did so intentionally.

Mr. Cruz was in turn recounting an exchange at a Senate hearing on May 3, 2017. At the time, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Mr. Comey whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the F.B.I. to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation.” Mr. Comey responded, “No.”

The 2017 exchange itself falls outside the five-year statute of limitations to charge someone with making a false statement, so Mr. Comey is being charged for saying in 2020 that he stood by having said “no” and that his testimony was “the same today.”

In context, Mr. Grassley was clearly referring to the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia and to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of an email server.

In his questioning three years later, Mr. Cruz slightly mangled this exchange — he said Clinton “administration” rather than “investigation” — and he shifted to discuss a leak about a different Clinton-related investigation.

Confusingly, Mr. Cruz offered what appears to have been an inaccurate account of a disagreement between Mr. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, regarding authorization to disclose that matter. He then asked Mr. Comey two different questions — whether Mr. Comey was saying he had never authorized anyone to leak, and whether if Mr. McCabe said otherwise, that meant Mr. McCabe was lying….”
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“…

Is Comey accused of lying about the McCabe leak?​

This is unclear. The leak involving Mr. McCabe was the context of Mr. Cruz’s question to Mr. Comey, but there are reasons to think that would be difficult to bring a charge over. Most important, contrary to what Mr. Cruz said, the disconnect between Mr. Comey’s and Mr. McCabe’s accounts to the inspector general centered on what happened after the article was published, not on whether Mr. Comey had authorized the disclosure. …”
 
nycfan said:
“…

Is Comey accused of lying about the McCabe leak?​

This is unclear. The leak involving Mr. McCabe was the context of Mr. Cruz’s question to Mr. Comey, but there are reasons to think that would be difficult to bring a charge over. Most important, contrary to what Mr. Cruz said, the disconnect between Mr. Comey’s and Mr. McCabe’s accounts to the inspector general centered on what happened after the article was published, not on whether Mr. Comey had authorized the disclosure. …”
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“…

What else might it be?​

It is possible that Ms. Halligan is focused on one of two other disclosures in 2017 surrounding Mr. Comey. One involved an account of conversations between Mr. Comey and Mr. Trump in January and February 2017, which The New York Times reported on after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey on May 9, 2017. The other involved articles that spring in The Times and The Washington Post that discussed certain Russian intelligence documents obtained by the F.B.I.

One reason to think it might be one of these is that earlier this month, prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, now led by Ms. Halligan, subpoenaed Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia University law professor and friend of the former F.B.I. director, in connection with the investigation. (Mr. Richman’s statements to them were not helpful to their effort to build a case against Mr. Comey, according to two people familiar with the matter.)

… Professor Richman was a “special government employee” at the F.B.I. from June 2015 until February 2017, according to an inspector general report.

… After Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, lied to F.B.I. agents about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador and Mr. Trump fired him, Mr. Trump urged Mr. Comey to “let this go” during an Oval Office meeting on Feb. 14, 2017.

The Times has not identified its sources, but Mr. Comey himself testified to Congress in June 2017 that he had asked the professor to provide information about the conversations to a reporter. Notably, however, Professor Richman had resigned from the F.B.I. months earlier, and the question was whether Mr. Comey had authorized people “at the F.B.I.” to be an anonymous source for reporters about the Trump or Clinton inquiries.…

… When F.B.I. agents questioned Professor Richman in the leak investigation [about a different leak about Russian hacking Intel related to Comey’s decision to personally announce the decision not to prosecute Clinton], he told them that Mr. Comey had told him in broad strokes about the Russian intelligence but never asked him to tell the media about it, and that he understood that it was highly classified and “should be protected,” according to a closing memo that was heavily redacted in places.

Professor Richman said a Times reporter asked him about the Russian intelligence, but the reporter knew more about it than him. The memo said Professor Richman said he was sure “with a discount” that he had not told the reporter about it, and characterized him as being pretty sure he had not confirmed it. It also put that conversation in around January 2017, when he was still at the F.B.I. But it also said investigators had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone, “including Comey or Richman,” with the leak….”

[It sounds like that Richman interview may have been on background, which would create a gray area for the interviewee to understand to what extent his interview was being used by the reporter to bolster other off-the-record but not on background interviews]
 
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Somebody needs to sue Stephen Miller for defamation. Lisa Monaco, Comey and Brennan especially. Sue the pants off that motherfucker. Squeeze every last red cent out of him.
 
“… But really, the most eloquent case against indicting Comey — against using the Department of Justice as an instrument of personal revenge — comes courtesy of Trump himself. And it comes, of all places, from the justifications Trump provided for firing Comey eight years ago.

… So, what did these two top officials say when arguing for Comey’s removal?

Rosenstein criticized Comey’s behavior during the F.B.I. investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, when the director gave a high-profile news conference in 2016 criticizing Clinton for being “extremely careless” in using a private server for government work but declined to bring charges against her. Rosenstein said Comey had “gratuitously” released “derogatory information” about Clinton and had “laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial.” He called it a “textbook example” of what federal officials are trained not to do.

… Of course, Sessions and Rosenstein were laying out the most respectable rationale possible for Comey’s firing. All manner of alternative explanations would soon emerge, including from Trump and from top aides: that he’d been thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to dismiss the director, that Comey was “a real nut job,” that he’d thought about firing Comey as far back as November 2016, before he was even in office and long before any convenient memos arrived from the Justice Department.…”

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Why Comey Should Not Have Been Indicted, According to Trump

Why James Comey should not have been indicted, according to Trump.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
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🎁 —> Inside the Trump Administration’s Push to Prosecute James Comey

“…In July, William J. Pulte, an obscure but ambitious housing finance official, padded into the Oval Office and pressed doubts in Mr. Trump’s mind about Mr. Siebert’s role in the James investigation. It fueled his growing frustration over the pace of Justice Department inquiries into all of his enemies, including Mr. Comey.

Mr. Pulte argued that Mr. Siebert was slow-walking the James case in order to get confirmed by the Senate for a job in a state with two Democratic senators, according to people briefed on the conversation.

The president’s drive for vengeance was stoked by allies in and outside his government, most notably Mr. Pulte, whose accusations of wrongdoing against a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, helped instigate Mr. Trump’s move to oust her. Mr. Pulte has often teamed up with Ed Martin, who runs the Justice Department’s “weaponization” task force.

… Mr. Pulte, who referred the James mortgage case to the department earlier this year, was not just veering out of his lane. He had jumped the median. Todd Blanche, the former Trump defense lawyer who now runs the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department as the deputy attorney general, made it clear he did not appreciate Mr. Pulte telling the boss what the department should do, according to officials briefed on their interactions and familiar with Mr. Blanche’s thinking.

Mr. Blanche told people in his orbit that Mr. Pulte was hyping up the president’s expectations, even though the legal threshold for bringing charges against Ms. James, proving criminal intent, had not been met….”
 
nycfan said:
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🎁 —> Inside the Trump Administration’s Push to Prosecute James Comey

“…In July, William J. Pulte, an obscure but ambitious housing finance official, padded into the Oval Office and pressed doubts in Mr. Trump’s mind about Mr. Siebert’s role in the James investigation. It fueled his growing frustration over the pace of Justice Department inquiries into all of his enemies, including Mr. Comey.

Mr. Pulte argued that Mr. Siebert was slow-walking the James case in order to get confirmed by the Senate for a job in a state with two Democratic senators, according to people briefed on the conversation.

The president’s drive for vengeance was stoked by allies in and outside his government, most notably Mr. Pulte, whose accusations of wrongdoing against a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, helped instigate Mr. Trump’s move to oust her. Mr. Pulte has often teamed up with Ed Martin, who runs the Justice Department’s “weaponization” task force.

… Mr. Pulte, who referred the James mortgage case to the department earlier this year, was not just veering out of his lane. He had jumped the median. Todd Blanche, the former Trump defense lawyer who now runs the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department as the deputy attorney general, made it clear he did not appreciate Mr. Pulte telling the boss what the department should do, according to officials briefed on their interactions and familiar with Mr. Blanche’s thinking.

Mr. Blanche told people in his orbit that Mr. Pulte was hyping up the president’s expectations, even though the legal threshold for bringing charges against Ms. James, proving criminal intent, had not been met….”
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“… By late summer, bigger political forces were at work, namely the backlash over his department’s failure to release the full tranche of investigative files into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. In what was seen as an effort to divert public attention, many pro-Trump influencers — egged on by government officials like Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director — turned up the volume on their demands about prosecuting the president’s enemies.

The calls for vengeance reached such a frenzy that Mr. Trump himself eventually issued a chilling yet all but undeliverable threat: He claimed that former President Barack Obama had committed treason and should face “consequences.”…”
 
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