Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina spoke with Martha McCallum, Monday night, regarding the firing of Peter Strzok. He is the 16th person fired from the FBI since the FBI has come under fire for its brain-glazing incompetence under former director, James Comey.
This says everything you need to know about the situation.
With one exception: in my opinion, Peter Strzok is a sociopath.
Representative Jim Jordan also weighed in with Neil Cavuto on Monday.
James Comey feeds the rumor he’s running for president in 2020
by Christian Datoc
James Comey posted yet another photo of himself in Iowa Saturday, prompting social media users to argue about a potential 2020 presidential bid for the former FBI director.
“So good to see new growth in Iowa and across the country,” Comey captioned a photo of himself standing in what the Washington Examiner assumed to be a corn field.
At 6’8″ tall, Comey can equal a corn stalk for at least a few minutes.
Iowa traditionally hosts the first caucuses of the presidential cycle and is often a campaign hotbed for White House hopefuls.
Surprise: After Twice Denying Their Existence FBI Admits in Court it Found More Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting Documents – 16 Pages and 2 Text Messages
by the ACLJ
After twice denying their existence – first lying to the ACLJ, and then once caught, claiming it had turned over all documents to the ACLJ – the FBI Deep State has just admitted in federal court that is has found new documents – 16 pages and 2 text messages – that it will be forced to turn over to the ACLJ by the end of the month.
In recently filed court documents, the FBI finally admitted – on its supposedly third search attempt – that it has located another batch of documents responsive to the ACLJ’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information relating to former Attorney General Lynch’s suspiciously timed and highly secretive meeting with former President Clinton on a tarmac in Arizona just days before it publicly exonerated Hillary Clinton.
Come on. Isn’t that just a tad severe, calling it “lying”? Maybe the agents or their IAs (the FBI employs what are termed Investigative Assistants, civilians who do an assload of background/scut-work for agents) were just feeling a bit lethargic those days. Bad allergies. Delayed borborygmus. Ankle swelling. Pimples. Who knows?
Specifically, the FBI reported that it has located an additional 16 pages and 2 text messages. The FBI informed the court that it will produce these documents to the ACLJ on or by May 31, 2018.
Hallelujah! It’s a miracle! They’re feeling fine now.
As we reported a few weeks ago, just days before the FBI was to file a response to the ACLJ’s motion for summary judgment challenging the adequacy of the FBI’s search for documents, the FBI, instead, filed a motion with the court requesting that summary judgment proceedings be stayed while the FBI conducted a third search for documents. Yes, you read that right. A third search.
Because, after all: nobody’s perfect. Right? Just try lying to an FBI agent during an interview. “Hey look, I wasn’t really lying. I was just sort of, well, you know.”
The FBI’s earlier searches were less than sufficient to comply with federal requirements under FOIA. In fact, following its first supposed search, the FBI claimed that “no records” existed responsive to the ACLJ’s FOIA request. The ACLJ later obtained evidence that proved the FBI’s claim false, and the ACLJ demanded another search. While a second search was conducted by the FBI, which produced some documents, it quickly became clear that the search was, again, inadequate.
Oh come on. No one’s perfect. We’re the US government. We have standards.
Right. Standards that we expect others to uphold — just not us. Or the U.S.
Nonetheless, the FBI did not volunteer to conduct another search for documents. The ACLJ had to demand another search in federal court. In fact, when it finally was forced to conduct this third search, we learned that it was going to be searching the FBI’s “Central Records System” – for the FIRST time. It was that bad.
Here is the ACLJ’s Jay Sekulow from August 4th of last year.
Kevin D. Williamson wrote on January 28th this year for NationalReview.com:
Why Trust the FBI?
There is a reason for the crisis of faith in our institutions
One thing about which thoughtful progressives and conservatives generally agree is that institutions matter. It is important to have a First Amendment and other protections for a free press, but you also need the New York Times, National Review, Wired, CNN, and, the times being what they are, In Touch Weekly and its Stormy Daniels coverage — or else the First Amendment is only a hypothetical. The irreplaceable nature of functioning institutions is why we can’t just drop off copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in Somalia and Afghanistan and expect to find thriving constitutional republics there a few years later. The right to a speedy trial doesn’t mean much if your courts are corrupt or inept. The right to petition the government for redress of grievances means nothing if the government is impotent or indifferent.
As the Washington Post is these days wont to say, “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” BZ suggests, instead, that “Democracy Dies In DC.”
When the IRS was in trouble for targeting tea-party organizations and other conservative groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, thousands of emails — evidence under subpoena — went missing. John Koskinen, then acting commissioner of the IRS, lied to Congress about how and why that happened, a fact he was later forced to acknowledge. As a legal question, the result of all that malfeasance — destroying evidence — was precisely squat. Lois Lerner walks the streets a free woman with a fat federal pension, and John Koskinen is perfectly comfortable showing his face in the daylight. And now it is the FBI’s turn. With serious questions being posed about the bureau’s activities during the 2016 election — about whether the bureau protected Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in the matter of their habit of using off-the-books email communications to avoid ordinary oversight — the FBI has suddenly discovered months’ worth of communication between FBI counterintelligence specialist Peter Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. The two exchanged politically charged messages about Trump and the Clinton email investigation, and Strzok wrote darkly of developing an “insurance policy” against Trump’s election, still regarded as highly unlikely at that time.
Ruh-roh. Actual damned questions. I sense some quivering from the Left Coast.
The texts went missing, and then were recovered. Or some of them were recovered. All of them? Whose word would you take on that? And why would you take the FBI’s word? Aaron Blake, writing in the Washington Post, argued that the “insurance policy” message looked bad, but not as bad as some on Trump’s side insisted. Well. He allowed that “it’s 100 percent true Mueller and his probe aren’t above reproach.”
And that, of course, is really what this is all about.
And that, of course, is factually correct.
It means, at the very least, not destroying evidence in a federal investigation. And no sane person believes for a nanosecond that those “lost” communications represent anything other than willful obstruction of justice. If you are on the FBI’s radar and you got a parking ticket in Sheboygan in 1983, the FBI knows whether you paid it. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a federal bureau in the business of conducting investigations.
Stand by for focusing like a laser beam.
No one believes that the IRS or the FBI is above reproach. No one seriously believes that the editors of the New York Times would have treated a President Hillary Clinton and a President Donald Trump in the same way. (One likewise wonders what Fox News would have made of partially documented claims that President Bill Clinton had paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star who says she had an affair with him.) President Obama’s so-called scandal-free administration was in fact rife with abuses of power, from the IRS to the ATF to the EPA to the NLRB. Trump may sometimes attack our institutions without good cause; the Obama administration gave critics good cause to attack our institutions.
James Comey leaked. Let’s be honest.
Former US Attorney Joe diGenova nails it. “Comey, the dirtiest cop in America.”
James Kallstrom weighs in again. He is a former FBI Assistant Director who has his own thoughts on his former-beloved agency.
If there is anyone who should love the FBI, it is Kallstrom, a man who ascended into the heavens like Zeus. But then somehow managed to crash to earth like Daedalus.
What do agents think of the FBI’s situation?
But wait. Wasn’t it all the Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots who insisted that we must trust all the alphabet agencies? Hashtag #BecauseTrust?
James Clapper lied before Congress. He cannot even hold his head high whilst he lies.
Rand Paul stated so.
James Comey clearly lied.
And this.
But wait; most recently we discovered, courtesy of SaraACarter.com:
Former FBI Director Comey Consulted with Mueller on Russia Testimony
A government watchdog group revealed Thursday that former FBI Director James Comey was advised by senior FBI officials to seek Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s advice prior to testifying before “any congressional committee” about President Donald Trump’s campaign and its alleged collusion with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to new emails obtained by Judicial Watch.
Nothing like the FBI again indicating its politicization and bias.
Comey was also advised to seek Mueller’s counsel on the circumstances surrounding his firing by Trump before providing testimony to Congress, the Department of Justice emails obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. It is the first time evidence reveals there was coordination between the Special Counsel and Comey in the long drawn out controversial Mueller investigation.
This not navel-gazing. This is proof. The only collusion is between the Deep State vs President Donald John Trump, et al.
“These documents show that James Comey, who was fired by the president, nevertheless had easy, friendly access to the FBI as he prepped his infamous anti-Trump testimony to the Senate,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in a press release. “This collusion led to Comey’s attacking President Trump and misusing FBI records as part of a vendetta against the president.”
This is about keeping our country free because, as all Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots know, as well as Lucifer:
The devil is in fact in the details.
But wait; it’s not even ending there. From FoxNews.com:
Strassel: Did FBI outright spy on the 2016 Trump campaign?
Mind you, the mid-and-upper level managers aren’t. They were too busy aligning themselves and slashing at each other in order to grasp a small piece of the bottom of former FBI Director James Comey’s cape, hoping to climb over whatever corpses necessary to kiss the Comey Ring.
Now that Comey is gone, thanks to President Trump, management is in a bit of a kerfuffle to say the least. Whose ring or arse to kiss now in management? Certainly not acting-Director McCabe. He’s — well — acting director. And Andrew McCabe is rife with sufficient conflicting baggage himself that the next FBI director may just kick McCabe to the proverbial curb. Which would be quite appropriate. McCabe reeks, in my opinion, of Leftist/Demorat corruption.
Here is Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe not actively campaigning for his Demorat wife. All is well. Nothing to see here. No corruption, no conflict of interest. Just ask former FBI Director James Comey. Just don’t ask the line-level agents.
Let’s cut right to the chase: James Comey should have been fired immediately following his disastrous press briefing last July, in which he candidly laid out the case against Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified information and then refused to recommend charges. Overstepping his authority while radiating sanctimony, arrogating power while clumsily intervening in the election, Comey deserved to be sacked on the spot.
Absolutely. Comey’s press conference about his decision to do nothing about Hillary Clinton was right out of Kabuki Theater if you know something about the law and its application. Or if you could simply read and understand a few paragraphs of English.
Everything since has been one long slow twist in the wind for Comey, a former US attorney in Manhattan, where his most notable accomplishment was sending Martha Stewart to jail.
Ignore for the moment Comey’s series of missteps resulting from the Clinton investigation and his increasingly erratic and unconvincing public fan dance as he sent the nation into electoral paroxysms over the past 10 months.
Precisely. And unnecessarily so. Former Director Comey set a terrible precedent for the FBI. He couldn’t keep himself out of camera lenses or shut his mouth.
Now the bureau’s tied up and bogged down in the almost certainly chimerical “Russian hacking” fantasy, which bubbled up out of the leftist fever swamp in the wake of Clinton’s loss in November, and for which there is exactly zero evidence.
Now there’s an accurate analogy. Wish I’d thought of it.
The American Media Maggots insist that FBI agents are in full lacrimal duct mode after Comey’s firing. The truth is that the FBI is a tight-knit and proud organization that seldom admits to internal turbulence in public. It is anathema to the institution.
The American Media Maggots also conveniently forget this from 2016. From the UKDailyMail.com:
EXCLUSIVE: Resignation letters piling up from disaffected FBI agents, his wife urging him to admit he was wrong: Why Director Comey jumped at the chance to reopen Hillary investigation
by Ed Klein
James Comey revived the investigation of Clinton’s email server as he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents, sources say
The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary
He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents
Comes was also worried that Republicans would accuse him of granting Hillary political favoritism after the presidential election
When new emails allegedly linked to Hillary’s personal server turned up in Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s computer, Comey jumped at the excuse
James Comey’s decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.
‘The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,’ said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.
‘Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,’ said the source. ‘They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.’
According to the source, Comey fretted over the problem for months and discussed it at great length with his wife, Patrice.
He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.
“Stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk.” Disaffected agents. Poor morale. Lack of confidence in leadership. Betrayal. Disgrace. Spoken to singly, the narrative of agents is different than that of the American Media Maggots.
DailyCaller.com printed quotes, following Comey’s firing, from agents who didn’t wish to be named to include “we don’t need a political hack” to “good riddance” and “It should have been expected because he was not doing a good job. He had it coming to him.”
Personnel who have spoken to me on both coasts say roughly the same thing, indicating they believed Comey was an embarrassment to the agency who started well but began seeking the limelight behind decisions that reflected political and not legal motivations.
Of course, the agents didn’t want to be named and wished to be publicly quiet because that’s not what they do and it’s not what they believe their director should do either.
Overall, one said, it was like a big pressure valve had been opened at 935 Pennsylvania; you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief. Confidence in leadership will likely return. I personally suspect, bit by bit, you’ll begin to hear just how lacking in leadership and confidence the agency had been under James Comey.
James Kallstrom, former Assistant Director for the FBI, summarized best.
Even when things were good, they weren’t fabulous under James Comey. In three-and-a-half years of his admin , Grabien.com documented the Top 10 Scandalous Low Points for the FBI:
1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.
2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn’t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.
4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller’s business and personal travel.
5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a “backdoor” that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America’s biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey’s questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a “crack” would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.
6. In 2015, the FBI conducted a controversial raid on a Texas political meeting, finger printing, photographing, and seizing phones from attendees (some in the group believe in restoring Texas as an independent constitutional republic).
7. During its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, the FBI made an unusual deal in which Clinton aides were both given immunity and allowed to destroy their laptops.
8. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the FBI to his son’s radicalization. The FBI, however, cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview.
9. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month investigation of Omar Mateen — during which Mateen admitting lying to agents — the FBI opted against pressing further and closed its case.
10.CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought to kill Americans attending the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an understanding an attack was coming,
Continuing, from the New York Post.
What’s needed now is a restoration of what should be the FBI’s primary mission, as it was in the early Hoover days: counterterrorism. Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it’s far less important for the bureau to be chasing bank robbers in Burlington and Butte than it is for it to function as the nation’s first line of homeland security defense.
Sad but true. I made my bones on the reactive Squad 3. Those days may be over. But even with the FBI’s newest sea change, who should lead that ship in those turbulent seas following James Comey?
In a conciliatory gesture to the Demorats I believe, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pick would be Merritt Garland. From FoxNews.com:
McConnell thinks Garland as FBI director ‘fantastic idea,’ ex-adviser says
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is behind the idea of Judge Merrick Garland, whose Supreme Court nomination McConnell squashed, becoming the next FBI director, a former adviser to the Kentucky senator said Sunday.
“I think the senate majority leader thinks that’s a fantastic idea,” former adviser Josh Holmes, who now runs the strategy firm Cavalry LLC, told “Fox News Sunday.” “He certainly thinks (Garland) will be qualified. And (McConnell) certainly thinks he would be somebody that he could support.”
Garland was former President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
However, McConnell infuriated Democrats by declining to hold Senate confirmation hearings on Garland, saying the next president should have that choice.
The idea of Garland as the next FBI director was posed by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee after President Trump on Tuesday fired agency Director James Comey.
Some are considering Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn as well. Politico.com writes about some serious complications, however.
If President Donald Trump selects Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn as his next FBI director it would accelerate a major shift in Republican politics with implications for both the Senate and the national GOP.
If Cornyn were to accept the position as director, it would leave a GOP leadership vacuum in the Whip position.
Further, ABCNews.com indicates there are 11 candidates in the running besides John Cornyn:
Rep Trey Gowdy;
Former Rep Mike Rogers;
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly
Former 4th DCA Judge J Michael Luttig;
Former Deputy AG Larry Thompson;
Current FBI official Paul Abbate;
Former Assistant AG Alice Fisher;
Current Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe (worst choice);
Former Manhattan US Attorney Michael Garcia;
Former US Attorney John Suthers.
At this point I think I’m safe to say that, no matter who President Trump selects, there’s going to be a fight in confirmation.
If you’d been listening to the American Media Maggots the past 24 hours, you’d think the sky had indeed fallen all across the United States of America.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been regarded as our nation’s premier federal investigative agency. Over the past year, however, the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.
The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.
I set out my objections to now-former Director James Comey last year with his horribly flawed reasoning for failing to forward the Hillary Clinton case to the DOJ last year, and also in this post. I was heartened to see that the bulk of my objections were quite similar to those of the Deputy Attorney General.
We all know that President William Jefferson Clinton fired his FBI Director, William Sessions, back in 1993 for essentially political reasons. That was fine with Demorats.
Many Demorats themselves were calling for the severed head of William Comey quite recently.
Yes, two words: what changed?
We all know the answer, quite obviously. Judicial Watch’s CJ Farrell had this to say from last year.
Maxine Waters: I Don’t Support Trump Firing Comey, I Would Support Hillary Clinton Firing Comey
by Ian Schwartz
NBC’s Peter Alexander grills Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cali.) for her displeasure at President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey after she had announced in January that he has lost all credibility after attending a classified briefing conducted by the now-former director.
However, in the interview Wednesday on MSNBC, asked if she would be okay with a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton dismissing Comey from his position, Waters said yes.
“If she had won the White House, I believe that given what he did to her, and what he tried to do, she should have fired him. Yes,” the California Democrat said.
“So she should have fired him but had he shouldn’t fire him. This is why I’m confused,” Alexander said to Waters.
Honesty and clarity, for once, coming from Maxine Waters in terms of her clear bias.
Neither was our favorite moonbat, Keith Olbermann.
So what really happened in the White House? What was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back? I wrote back on Tuesday that Comey’s final waffling on the number of emails found in Weiner’s laptop was the kicker. Oddly enough, Dr Sebastian Gorka highlighted that same issue.
The New York Times wrote this about the White House decision.
‘Enough was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing
by Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, Michael S Schmidt and Peter Baker
WASHINGTON — By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.
After President Trump accused his predecessor in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”
For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.
The problem, you see, was that Donald Trump waited too long. As I believed and wrote numerous times, on January 20th at noon, President Trump should have demanded Comey’s resignation letter.
The collision between president and F.B.I. director that culminated with Mr. Comey’s stunning dismissal on Tuesday had been a long time coming. To a president obsessed with loyalty, Mr. Comey was a rogue operator who could not be trusted as the F.B.I. investigated Russian ties to Mr. Trump’s campaign. To a lawman obsessed with independence, Mr. Trump was the ultimate loose cannon, making irresponsible claims on Twitter and jeopardizing the bureau’s credibility.
The other problem was that Comey wasn’t obsessed with any independence other than his own, and not that of the bureau itself. The only person who jeopardized the FBI’s credibility was James Comey.
The White House, in a series of shifting and contradictory accounts, first said Mr. Trump decided to fire Mr. Comey because the attorney general and his deputy recommended it. By Wednesday, it had amended the timeline to say that the president had actually been thinking about getting rid of the F.B.I. director as far back as November, after he won the election, and then became “strongly inclined” after Mr. Comey testified before Congress last week.
Mr. Comey’s fate was sealed by his latest testimony about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and the Clinton email inquiry. Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was “mildly nauseous” to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history.
Director Comey was grandstanding.
At that point, Mr. Trump began talking about firing him. He and his aides thought they had an opening because Mr. Comey gave an incorrect account of how Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, transferred emails to her husband’s laptop, an account the F.B.I. later corrected.
As I wrote on Tuesday, that element was the final straw. And yes, it did provide an opening.
At first, Mr. Trump, who is fond of vetting his decisions with a wide circle of staff members, advisers and friends, kept his thinking to a small circle, venting his anger to Vice President Mike Pence; the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who all told him they generally backed dismissing Mr. Comey.
Then President Trump finally did the right thing.
But wait; hold up on that car wash. Isn’t this the same New York Times that wrote in 1993:
DEFIANT F.B.I. CHIEF REMOVED FROM JOB BY THE PRESIDENT
By DAVID JOHNSTON Published: July 20, 1993
WASHINGTON, July 19— President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct.
Mr. Clinton said he would announce his nominee to replace Mr. Sessions on Tuesday. He was expected to pick Judge Louis J. Freeh of Federal District Court in Manhattan; officials said Judge Freeh had impressed Mr. Clinton favorably on Friday at their first meeting.
Mr. Clinton, explaining his reasons for removing Mr. Sessions, effective immediately, said, “We cannot have a leadership vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the F.B.I. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency’s history is brought to a close.”
But in a parting news conference at F.B.I. headquarters after Mr. Clinton’s announcement, a defiant Mr. Sessions — his right arm in a sling as a result of a weekend fall — railed at what he called the unfairness of his removal, which comes nearly six years into his 10-year term.
“Because of the scurrilous attacks on me and my wife of 42 years, it has been decided by others that I can no longer be as forceful as I need to be in leading the F.B.I. and carrying out my responsibilities to the bureau and the nation,” he said. “It is because I believe in the principle of an independent F.B.I. that I have refused to voluntarily resign.”
It appears, according to the New York Times, that President William Clinton, a Demorat, was perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Sessions who insisted that the FBI be independent. That same newspaper now states that President Donald Trump, a Republican, is not perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Comey who insisted that the FBI be independent.
The difference? Political parties. Simply that.
James Comey, in a letter to his office the day after his firing, said the president was within his authority to fire a sitting FBI director. From TheHill.com:
Comey farewell: ‘A president can fire an FBI director for any reason’
Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.
“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”
Leftist attorney and professor Alan Dershowitz came in on the side of President Trump. From Breitbart.com:
Dershowitz: Comey Firing ‘Appropriate,’ No Special Prosecutor
by Joel B Pollak
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump was well within his rights to fire former FBI director James Comey, and that there was no need for a special prosecutor in the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Dershowitz appeared next to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was apoplectic. “The fact that he did this will disgrace his memory for as long as this presidency is remembered. There is only one date that will be remembered after Januarth 20th so far in the Trump presidency, and it is the day of the ‘Tuesday Night Massacre,’” Toobin said, referencing President Richard Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal.
Toobin had also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier that Trump would likely name a “campaign stooge” as Comey’s replacement at the FBI.
But Dershowitz disagreed.
“Should Comey be the director of the FBI? The answer to that is no,” he said, noting that he had called earlier for Comey to resign. “He lost his credibility. … A lot of this is his fault.”
When Toobin objected that Trump had fired former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as well as Comey, “all three of whom had the potential to investigate and trouble the Trump presidency,” Dershowitz argued that they were all Democrat appointees and had all been dismissed appropriately by a Republican president.
Perquisites of the job that have been replicated time and again by Demorat presidents.
Where is John McCain on this because, after all, when the story appears to be about someone else, well, it’s really about John McCain, isn’t it? From the WashingtonPost.com:
John McCain on Comey firing: ‘There will be more shoes to drop’
by Josh Rogin
President Trump’s sudden firing of FBI Director James B. Comey is bad for the country and will not be the end of the Trump-Russia affair, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told a group of foreign diplomats and experts Tuesday night.
Although McCain did not directly accuse the White House of firing Comey to thwart the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible Russia ties, he did say that if that was the intention, it would fail.
Again, news about truth isn’t news. News about specious insinuation is news.
“This scandal is going to go on. I’ve seen it before,” McCain told a meeting of the Munich Security Conference core group. “This is a centipede. I guarantee you there will be more shoes to drop, I can just guarantee it. There’s just too much information that we don’t have that will be coming out.”
He called Trump’s actions against Comey “unprecedented” and said the position of FBI director has held special meaning in American public life dating back decades.
Ooooh, scary, John, very scary.
“Probably the most respected individual in all of the American government is probably the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCain said. “I’m very sorry that this has happened.”
The event was off the record, but McCain gave me permission to place his comments on the record. He said that Trump had the legal basis to fire Comey but that his decision would have long-term negative consequences.
“I regret it, I think it’s unfortunate,” McCain said. “The president does have that constitutional authority. But I can’t help but think that this is not a good thing for America.”
I refer to this article solely to illustrate how terribly out-of-touch is John McCain with the law and with reality. However, even McCain isn’t yet sufficiently addled to refute the authority of a president to fire an FBI director.
Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom weighs in on the Comey situation and likewise concludes that President Trump acted appropriately. “I’m glad it happened.”
As I’ve said, I still have law enforcement contacts across the fruited plain and I know that the bulk of line-level agents, not necessarily supervisors or managers, were relieved to see the dismissal of William Comey. Judge Andrew Napolitano confirms this.
Newt Gingrich also weighs in on the issue with Sean Hannity.
Let us not forget the 10 major scandals that occurred on the 3.5-year watch of Director Comey.
The bottom line is this: former FBI Director James Comey made quite a number of flawed decisions based not upon the law but instead on politics. He placed himself in front of cameras frequently as he enjoyed the limelight. He did so for self-aggrandizing reasons. Having a self-righteous and poor decision-maker in charge of the FBI is not a formula for success or for ensuring confidence in the bureau.
Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina spoke with Martha McCallum, Monday night, regarding the firing of Peter Strzok. He is the 16th person fired from the FBI since the FBI has come under fire for its brain-glazing incompetence under former director, James Comey.
Just when you thought shite couldn’t get more “off-the-hook,” shite gets more off the hook.
Oh wait; no you can’t.
Mind you, the mid-and-upper level managers aren’t. They were too busy aligning themselves and slashing at each other in order to grasp a small piece of the bottom of former FBI Director James Comey’s cape, hoping to climb over whatever corpses necessary to kiss the Comey Ring.
If you’d been listening to the American Media Maggots the past 24 hours, you’d think the sky had indeed fallen all across the United States of America.
Many Demorats themselves were calling for the severed head of William Comey quite recently.