Who Will Police the Police: The Comey TestimoniesVictor Davis Hanson, June 10, 2017
Former FBI Director James Comey earnestly lectures about the inaccuracy of leaks and laments that it is not the purview of disinterested federal agencies to correct such erroneous information that the press such as the New York Times recklessly publishes.
mirabile dictu himself confesses to planting leaked information to the press of a privileged conversation with the President, via a third-party friend—information that he composed while the Director of the FBI on government time in connection with his job and on a government computer.
In the age of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, why would a former Director of the FBI himself leak a key government document to the press in deliberate fashion to undermine the president (and in the process mislead about the chronological sequencing of events that prompted him to leak) rather than provide the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee? Why would he use a third-party to go to the press?
Non-investigationsComey corroborates his earlier thrice-stated admissions that Donald Trump was never under investigation for collusion with the Russians to subvert the 2016 election, but suggests now that he could not release such exonerating information to the press because he might later have had to go back to amend it should Trump at some such future time become under investigation.
This is an Orwellian argument—given:
(1) that it is becoming clear that almost all scurrilous rumors about Donald Trump were leaked to the press by the FBI and other federal agencies—while exculpatory facts, such as that Comey was not investigating Donald Trump, were not leaked;
(2) that Comey had in fact previously repeatedly done just the opposite of what he said he could not do in the Trump case—namely that he had first disclosed publicly that Hillary Clinton was no longer the subject of a “matter” (in obedience to Loretta Lynch’s mandatory euphemism aimed at helping the Clinton campaign), then later amended that public admission by saying that she was, in fact, again under renewed investigation, and then amending again that amendment by stating that she was no longer a subject of an investigation. In other words, there was no such FBI policy of prudently keeping silent on the progress of an investigation;
3) that any American citizen in theory could be a future target of any theoretical investigation; but, of course, that fact is no reason for a federal agency to fail to concede that it is not
He Said/He SaidComey states that he was so concerned about a private conversation with Donald Trump (whom he admits once again was not pressuring him to stop a federal investigation of purported Russian collusion) that he immediately went to his government car to write a memo based on his interpretation of the conversation (again, subsequently to be leaked to pet journalists through a third-party friend and as yet strangely not made public). But was this standard Comey practice after meeting with administration officials whom he suspected might be inordinately pressuring him on investigations?
If so, did Comey write a memo after a private meeting with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch when, he now recollects, she quite unambiguously pressured him not to state publicly that he was conducting an ongoing “investigation” of Hillary Clinton, when in fact he was doing just that—a direct order much stronger (especially given the current election cycle) than the clumsy suggestions of Trump that Flynn was a ‘good guy’ and thus his character should be considered in assessing and perhaps mitigating his conduct. Left unsaid is why Comey earlier buckled under Lynch’s alleged order, but not under Trump’s later purported pressure. (Was Lynch more the bully than Trump?) And does an FBI Director adjust his behavior on the basis of whether he—an investigator rather than a legislator or president—decides that a special prosecutor is or is not needed?
Eminently FireableComey states that he was fired for resisting subtle pressures to massage the Russian investigations. But this assertion again makes little sense because earlier Comey had stated that Trump himself was not under investigation, and, second, that his investigation so far had found no evidence that the Russians, always eager to disrupt American democracy, hand-in-glove with Trump affected the outcome of the election or were working with Trump to subvert the election—facts seemingly supported at times by both anti-Trumpers John Brennan (“I don’t know whether or not such collusion—and that’s your term, such collusion existed. I don’t know.”) and James Clapper (“as I’ve said before—I’ve testified to this effect—I saw no direct evidence of political collusion between the campaign and—the Trump campaign and the Russians.”).
In truth, Trump was playing a mongoose and cobra game with Comey the minute he was elected, given his observations of the Director’s erratic behavior during the 2016 campaign—now wishing him gone, now perhaps afraid to remove him, given the power of the deep state (NB the surprising continuance of IRS officials involved in the Lerner fiasco for an example of Trump’s wariness about the power of unelected bureaucrats). Had Trump earlier said that he feared Comey might take notes during a private conservation and then leak them to the press, the media would have cited that as proof of presidential paranoia. In sum, Trump fired Comey because he knew that he allowed the FBI to leak untrue allegations about collusion, while privately he was assuring his new boss that he was not under investigation.
Excerpt! Much more at link:
https://amgreatness.com/2017/06/10/will-police-police-comey-testimonies/
