Chris Farrell: We have a sworn declaration from David Hardy who is the Chief FOIA Officer of the FBI that we obtained just in the last few days. And in that sworn declaration Mr. Hardy says that all of Comey’s memos, all of them, were classified at the time they were written and they remain classified. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
James Comey
When Lying To The FBI Wasn’t A Crime
- A must read as well, WASHINGTON TIME’S ARTICLE on Mueller’s main investigator, Andrew Weissmann.
Here is a large excerpt of the article by Daniel Greenfield at FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE:
“There’s always conflicting recollections of facts,” FBI Director Comey said.
It was a year ago and Comey was explaining why Hillary’s close aide, Cheryl Mills, not only received an immunity agreement in exchange for turning over her laptop, but a pass on lying to the FBI.
The FBI Director claimed that Mills had to receive immunity because the laptop might be protected by attorney-client privilege. Mills, like Hillary Clinton, had worked as a lawyer. But they were both government officials working for the State Department. Hillary wasn’t Mills’ client. The government was.
Comey and his people knew the law. They chose to ignore it to protect a key Hillary aide from rolling over. Mills was the woman Hillary would send in to clean up her dirty laundry. Mills had taken point on the email server cover-up. If anyone knew where the bodies were buried, she did. Instead not only did she get an immunity agreement, but the FBI also agreed to destroy the computers after the search.
Mills had told the FBI that she didn’t know about Hillary’s email server. But the FBI had notes and emails proving that Mills was lying. And when Comey was asked about it, he came out with, “There’s always conflicting recollections of facts.”
No doubt.
That is what the lawyer of the woman who had been caught lying to the FBI might have been expected to argue. But there were no charges, instead the FBI Director was presenting her defense.
George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn were charged with lying to investigators. But lying to investigators isn’t a crime when you’re Hillary Clinton.
Or one of her associates.
Hillary Clinton had told the FBI that she had no idea that the “C” stood for confidential. Instead of laughing in her face or arresting her, the FBI boss testified personally to her truthfulness.
Hillary Clinton, Mills and Huma Abedin made what appear to be false statements to the FBI.
Had Mills been working for Trump, the same number would have been run on Mills as on Flynn and Papadopoulos. But the men interviewing Mills didn’t want her to sing. They wanted her to keep quiet.
Mills and Abedin were interviewed by the FBI’s Peter Strzok and the DOJ’s David Laufman. Strzok was exchanging pro-Hillary and anti-Trump messages in an extramarital affair with a woman working for FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. McCabe’s wife had received a sizable amount of money from a Clinton ally. Laufman, whose counterintelligence section was heading the investigation, is an Obama donor.
Mills’ lie made it more urgent to hand her an immunity agreement on any pretext. The immunity agreement wasn’t leverage for her testimony. It was leverage to keep her from testifying. The obstruction of justice was coming from the inside.
Strzok received input on the Comey letter exonerating Clinton. The Mills interview killed two birds with one stone. A key Hillary aide got immunity and the evidence would be destroyed.
This wasn’t an interview. It was a cover-up.
It’s why Comey sounded like Mills’ lawyer. And why so many Clinton associates got immunity agreements. Why the FBI agreed to destroy evidence. Why there were no recordings of Hillary’s testimony. And why lying to the FBI wasn’t a crime when it came to Hillary and her aides.
But the double standard kicked in when the Clinton cover-up crew went after Trump.
While Mills received an immunity agreement based on an imaginary attorney-client privilege that didn’t exist, Manafort was denied attorney-client privilege with his actual attorney.
The double standard isn’t surprising when you look at who was doing the interviewing.
Strzok and Laufman had also interviewed Hillary. No recordings were made of the session. But Comey testified that it’s a “crime to lie to us”.
Not for the Clintons and their associates.
Hillary had told her interviewers that she hadn’t received training on handling classified information, but she signed a document testifying that she had. Hillary claimed that she hadn’t carried a second phone, but an aide, Justin Cooper, who made the server possible, testified that indeed she did.
Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills told the same lie.
These are the kinds of misstep that Team Mueller would have used to hang a Trump associate. But Comey testified that Hillary Clinton did not lie.
And that meant he was lying.
Not only did Clinton’s people lie to the FBI. But the head of the FBI had lied for them.
The fix had been in all along……..
I predict Flynn will be exonerated from all this. And with Mueller’s teams past, other cases he has and will put forward may fall apart. NOT because he is wrong, but because of the tactics used (like with Enron and the like).
Something Smells in D.C. | Timelines and Unmaskings
SOOPERMEXICAN has this video and commentary on this new detail to the uncovering of information regarding some private — legal mind you — conversations in the Trump administration:
…What it comes down to is this – Comey had a memo talking about how he was thinking of not charging Hillary, but that was before he had interviewed two dozen witnesses, including Hillary herself. Gowdy says he wants to straighten this out, and that might include making Comey testify again and explain the order of events…
POWERLINE has a good short post on the subject as well:
It has been reported that Samantha Power, while serving as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, requested or initiated a request for more than 260 unmaskings of Americans whose conversations were picked up during surveillance. But today, according to Rep. Trey Gowdy,Power denied making anything close to that number of unmasking requests.
Here is what Gowdy told Fox News’ Bret Baier:
BAIER: You are also looking, and have talked to the former Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. We reported that she requested or her officer requested 260 plus efforts to unmask, in other words, get who was talking about picked up in surveillance. How did she answer that question? Why so many?
GOWDY: Well, I’ll tell you broadly, Bret, I think if she was on your show, she would say those attempt to unmask may have been attributed to her. But they greatly exceed, by an exponential factor, the number of requests that she actually made.
I assume Gowdy is accurately characterizing Power’s testimony. I don’t assume Power is telling the truth, but she may be.
If she is, I agree with Gowdy who also told Baier, “We’ve got to get to the bottom of that.”….
Comey’s Double Jeapordy
Hillary Clinton, thanks to James Comey, escaped criminal prosecution for violating the Espionage Act.
Now it is Comey who may have violated that same law. If he did, will Comey escape prosecution, courtesy of his good friend, Robert Mueller?
The fired FBI Director’s legal predicament comes as The Hill reports that Comey authored seven memorandums reflecting the contents of his conversations with President Trump and that four of the memos “have been determined to contain classified information.”
If this is true and Comey kept these documents in his personal possession upon leaving government service and conveyed some of them to another individual without authorization, then it would appear that he committed multiple felonies under the Espionage Act.
It is a crime to mishandle classified information: 18 USC 798 and 1924 prohibit a government official from removing a classified document from its proper place of custody to a location which is unsecure and disclosing it to an unauthorized person. Is this what Comey did? It sure looks like it……..
(FOX NEWS)
The Russian Conspiracy Is Backfiring on Democrats
For more on the “Boomerang Effect,” see GAY PATRIOT’S post on this. The real colluders are the ones who claim collusion…
Mollie Hemingway Discusses #NeverTrumpers and James Comey
Dennis Prager interviews Federalist contributor, Mollie Hemingway. She discusses her life in a liberal neighborhood, the conservatives who hate Trump, and their hypocrisy in not acknowledge all the good Trump has thus far achieved. Here is her article:
➤ “James Comey Has A Long History Of Questionable Obstruction Cases“
Molly’s articles can be found HERE.
Robert Mueller Needs to Disqualify Himself from Special Counsel
Gregg Jarrett: If you look at the special counsel statute it says you cannot serve as special counsel if you have a personal relationship with someone who is central to the case. If this Washington Post story is true, it’s now Trump against Comey. Comey is now the star witness, the key witness against Trump. Well, guess what? Comey and Mueller are longtime close personal friends, partners, allies. They were joined at the hip at the DOJ and FBI. It’s a mentor-protege relationship. How is this fair to Donald Trump because Mueller is now going to decide whether to believe his good friend or the man who fired his good friend…This is the kind of stuff over which lawyers get disbarred. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
Is Special Prosecutor Mueller Showing His Bias?
I was asked the following by a friend:
- If Trump fires Mueller, would you still support Trump? It’s not a trick question ;-)
I responded with this:
- I support Trump till he is out of office. Like I supported Dubya. I think it would be a bad decision personally, but Gingrich makes some good points here:
I then linked to an article that notes this about some of Mueller’s choices for his team:
Justice Department Deputy Solicitor General MICHAEL DREEBEN donated in 2008 to a political action committee for then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as well as a PAC for Hillary Clinton in 2006. Jeannie Rhee, who previously served as a deputy assistant attorney general and now works as a partner in the investigations practice at WilmerHale, donated to the Democratic National Committee as well as campaign PACs Obama in 2008 and 2011, and Clinton’s campaign in 2015 and 2016.
My friend then humorously said this:
- How about if he shot somebody on 5th Ave?
To which I asked:
- Lol. No. I just have a funny feeling that Comey leaked on purpose to get a guy to investigate (his words), and it happens to be his golfing partner who then hires persons closely allied with the DNC and Obama/Hillary.
I then linked to this article mentioning another couple hires by Mueller:
One of the hires, JEANNIE RHEE, also worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation and helped persuade a federal judge to block a conservative activist’s attempts to force Bill and Hillary Clinton to answer questions under oath about operations of the family-run charity. Campaign-finance reports show that Rhee gave Clinton the maximum contributions of $2,700 in 2015 and again last year to support her presidential campaign. She also donated $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,500 in 2011. While still at the Justice Department, she gave $250 to the Democratic National Committee Services Corp. Rhee also has contributed to a trio of Democratic senators: Mark Udall of New Mexico, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
JAMES QUARLES, who worked on the Watergate investigation as a young prosecutor, has an even longer history of supporting Democratic politicians. He gave $1,300 to Obama in 2007 and $2,300 in 2008. He also gave $2,700 to Clinton last year. He has supported a number of other Democratic candidates, including Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), former Vice President Al Gore, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and Colorado congressional candidate Gail Schwartz. In addition, Quarles gave money to former Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) and three current Democratic senators — Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He chipped in $300 to the DNC Services Corp. $300 in 2012. Quarles did donate to a couple of GOP politicians — $250 to then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) in 2006 and $2,500 to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in 2015.
ANDREW WEISSMANN, a former Justice Department lawyer who now is at Jenner & Block, contributed $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,000 to the DNC Services Corp. in 2006. Weissmann served as chief of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section and worked on the Enron fraud case.
I then asked: “That doesn’t raise any flags with you?” Of course it doesn’t. That is because he is not a Republican with the interests of protecting conservatism.
He also thinks Comey has “an incredible reputation for integrity.” WRONG again… he broke the law, in the least
- Besides being subject to nondisclosure agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and unclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641, which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.” ~Professor Turley
Here is a devastating tour of the case against Comey:
The Case Against James Comey | Jonathan Turley & Jay Sekulow
ruh roh shaggy! When Sekulow and Turley are on the same page, it has to bad!
Jonathan Turley comes out swinging! This is with a h-t to POWERLINE, and comes from THE HILL:
As a threshold matter, Comey asked a question with regard to Trump that he should now answer with regard to his own conduct. Comey asked why Trump would ask everyone to leave the Oval Office to speak with Comey unless he was doing something improper. Yet, Trump could ask why Comey would use a third party to leak these memos if they were his property and there was nothing improper in their public release.
In fact, there was a great deal wrong with their release, and Comey likely knew it. These were documents prepared on an FBI computer addressing a highly sensitive investigation on facts that he considered material to that investigation. Indeed, he conveyed that information confidentially to his top aides and later said that he wanted the information to be given to the special counsel because it was important to the investigation.
Many in the media have tried to spin this as not a “leak” because leaks by definition only involve classified information. That is entirely untrue as shown by history. Leaks involve the release of unauthorized information — not only classified information. Many of the most important leaks historically have involved pictures and facts not classified but embarrassing to a government. More importantly, federal regulations refer to unauthorized disclosures not just classified information.
Comey’s position would effectively gut a host of federal rules and regulations. He is suggesting that any federal employee effectively owns documents created during federal employment in relation to an ongoing investigation so long as they address the information to themselves. FBI agents routinely write such memos in investigations. They are called 302s to memorialize field interviews or fact acquisitions. They are treated as FBI information.
The Justice Department routinely claims such memos as privileged and covered by the deliberative process privilege and other privileges. Indeed, if this information were sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) it would likely have been denied. Among other things, the Justice Department and FBI routinely claim privilege “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.”
Of course, Comey did not know if there was a privilege or classification claim by either the Justice Department or the White House because he never asked for review. He just woke up in the middle of night upset about Trump’s name calling and released the damaging information. In doing so, he used these memos not as a shield but a sword.
Besides being subject to nondisclosure agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and unclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641, which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”
The above video and the below is with thanks to POLITISTICK:
Appearing on Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business, Farrell said that the memos Comey admitted to leaking were “property of the U.S. government” and that he “absconded with them.”
About Comey’s admitted leaking and the bombshell announcement that then-Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch ordered Comey to downplay the FBI’s “criminal investigation” against Hillary Clinton to only just being a “matter,” as to sound more innocent with American voters, Chris Farrell told Lou Dobbs:
“It’s clear the FBI director was taking instructions from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Clearly, the attorney general was giving him talking points and he literally adopted them.
This admission today is stunning. I would argue that Mr. Comey’s notes are the property of the United States government and that he absconded with them.
Frankly, if I were the attorney general, about 20 minutes after his confession today in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Deputy U.S. Marshals would have raided his home and office, as well as Mr. Richman at Columbia Law School.”
Covfefe – Cue Wailing & Gnashing of Teeth
Cue Democrats, #NeverTrumpers, and Media’s “wailiing and gnashing of teeth”!
BOOM!
Attorney General Lynch Attempted To Influence Clinton Investigation
AG Lynch Ordered Comey To Use Same Language As The Clinton Campaign, Don’t Call It An Investigation
Bottom Line – NO OBSTRUCTION
Comey Again Confirms Trump Never Directed Or Ordered Him To Drop Investigation
Do you know of anyone who was prosecuted successfully on this?
Comey says Pres. Trump did not exactly order him to let Flynn investigation go: “Not in his words, no”; but he took it as “direction” pic.twitter.com/R1FCquiKpJ
— ABC News (@ABC) June 8, 2017
The President Asked About Loyalty “In The Context Of Asking Me Stay”
“Did the President at anytime ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement into the 2016 Presidential elections?” ~ Congressman || “No” ~ Comey
Many News Reports On Russian Investigation Have Been “Dead Wrong” ~ Comey
Comey Confirms To Rubio That President Trump Was Not Under Investigation
“You ever wonder why the only thing that’s never been leaked is the fact that @POTUS was not personally under investigation?” ~ Rubio
“Was the President under investigation at the time of your dismissal?” ~ Congresswoman || “No.” ~ Comey
Comey Admits He Leaked Info About Trump To Press
“The Press Are Idiots” ~ rough adaptation of Comey
It Is Normal For Presidential Transition Team Members To Talk With Foreign Leaders
The Fallout From Comey Releasing His Prepared Remarks
See previous statements by Left leaning legal scholars ALAN DERSHOWITZ and JONATHAN TURLEY.
Comey’s written testimony clearly shows the former, not the latter.
I find it difficult to understand how legal experts can read former FBI director James Comey’s submitted testimony and conclude that it makes out a case of felony obstruction of an FBI investigation. That contention was ill-conceived before we saw Comey’s testimony (see, e.g., here, here, and here), and it is even weaker now.
Finally, it bears emphasizing that it is not the decision Trump made. He told Comey what he hoped would happen, and why. But he did not order Comey to halt the investigation. Plus, Comey did not halt the investigation; it is continuing to this day. Moreover, Comey acknowledges that Trump was speaking narrowly about Flynn. The president did not ask him to shut down the broader “Russia investigation” — meaning the president was not pretextually lobbying for Flynn in an attempt to make his own potential problems disappear.
You can disagree with Trump’s reasoning. You can conclude that browbeating Comey in this fashion was inappropriate. But this clearly was not obstruction — which is no doubt why then-director Comey did not resign or otherwise treat the matter as if he’d just witnessed a crime.
“SQUIRREL!” Just A Rant from My Facebook
Keep in mind the “Please Share” guys are a mainly “spoof” video maker. Also, the main point here is that yes, both sides make fun of the slip ups… but the amount of attention/space that CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, KABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR etc., is telling in that it shows their leanings. They drive the narrative so while I changed my Twitter to “Papa Covfefe G.” to have fun with it, since Nixon the press has labeled Republicans as dumb, racists. Now conservatives in the media and on campuses are called SIXHIRB: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted. By leading Democrat politicians. (See Catfish Queen’s humorous detailing of the Left confronting a Red State minded person below)
[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/pleasesharenews/videos/1072680662833192/” width=”690″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”0″]
Dennis Millier said this of Sarah Palin… and is partly why Trumpster won:
✦ I’m a Palin fan because she irritates just the right people for me. I mean, she drives the right people crazy, and I love the fact she’s gotten $7 million up front. You know what, in the world we live, every freak and truth contortionist on the midway is makin’ a buck, why shouldn’t a decent dame like Sarah Palin get $7 million. Is she a genius? No. Are the people who say she’s stupid everyday, geniuses? No. You know what my definition of genius is? When you get $7 million up-front for a book. That’s my definition of genius.
While Trump is bumbling along HUFFINGTON POST notes underneath all the nuggets of energy spent by the MSM, Trump is getting legislation and judges passed and placed (respectively). The Press is like the dog in UP, “SQUIRREL!”
Another 11-judges were just put forward, a thing that would have further destroyed our country if Hillary were putting judges in place that believe in a larger state to interfere more with businesses and peoples lives through legislation and thought/speech codes — “the larger the government, the smaller the individual.” Or as Judge Bork put it:
- “As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago.”
So, if one thing were done by my voting in Trump was to keep the courts (lower and upper) slightly more pro-business and less regulation minded — HALLELUJAH!
But I get other stuff thrown in… all while the MSM spends hours on Covfefe, a big fat “nothing burger.” Trump has passed more bills brought to him by Congress his first 100-days since Truman… and many of these help small business and reign in legislation meant to tax and hinder the hard-working people of this country.
WHILE I WOULD argue with random liberals on the street, I always kept my conservatism close to my chest when it came to relationships. Being a Republican was a deal breaker; we all knew that—kind of like picking your nose at red lights or stealing tips off restaurant tables. Only Rene and Meredith knew the truth, and, quite frankly, justifying myself to them had become a full-time job. I liked to think of my GOP bent as my alter ego, the smart, conservative superhero itching to burst forth any second to dispel the convoluted beliefs of my new blue state acquaintances. I was waiting for just the right moment to dazzle the ladies at the park or the mothers at Camille’s school with my logic or impress them with my homespun moral values.
But my coming out didn’t happen exactly as I’d scripted. I sat one day with some mothers on the benches that face each other in the middle of Three Bears Park—coveted see-and-beseen seats—where fashionable mothers gab while their kids play nonviolent, character-affirming games in one of Philly’s best neighborhoods.
Suddenly one of the ladies mentioned she’d heard I was writing a column for the Philadelphia City Paper, and all ears perked. “What do you write about?”
“Oh, I write from a red state point of view, to show readers there’s life outside the big city.” I used a folksy voice to come off as charming instead of conservative.
But they were no fools. Claudia Shipman, who was still proudly wearing her Mothers Opposing Bush button weeks after Kerry’s defeat, spoke first. “Are you saying, you’re a—” not even wanting to say the word “Republican” aloud. She said it in a hushed tone like some people say the F word.
This was my big moment. As casually as possible, I told her I voted for Bush and supported the war on terror. I braced myself for a heated debate on Saddam and for barbed comments including the word “strategery.” I mentally ran through a few speaking points I’d gotten off National Review Online and dug in my heels in anticipation.
Claudia’s only response was a rather dejected “But you seem so reasonable.”
The other mothers exchanged worried glances before averting their eyes. I had hoped to trigger an exciting give-and-take, but instead it felt like I had popped a balloon—things just deflated. I think they would have been happier had I proclaimed I was a pedophile on the prowl. Instead, I felt like I’d tricked them into liking one of the prickliest, most off-putting creatures on the planet—a conservative.
To their credit, they handled it with as much grace as they could muster. “You have to meet Louise,” they all said in unison. Evidently there was one other lady in the entire city of Philadelphia who was Republican. “She’s not mean, though,” they clarified.
Several weeks later, I was sitting in Louise’s Delancey Street home, drinking coffee at one of her weekly get-togethers with local women. She introduced herself with a flourish, and I could instantly see how Democrats would overlook her archaic beliefs. She was bright and cheery—a former Philadelphia 76ers cheerleader—confidently offering coffee in mismatched mugs while women casually passed in and out of her kitchen.
“Look what someone gave me! Isn’t this a riot?” she said upon meeting me. She plopped down a book, Dumb Things That Democrats Have Said, right on the place mat in front of me. “I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”
As she flattered around, greeting people who’d dropped in late, I was thrilled to be there—an urban setting where smart women of diverse opinions meet to talk. City life couldn’t get any better than this. I was prepared to meet all my new friends, people who would embrace me and spend hours discussing issues of the day. Months from now we’d be shopping at Tiffany’s, and one of them would turn to me and say, “I knew from the first time I saw you at Louise’s you were the kind of person I wanted to know.”
I snapped out of my reverie when I realized, with horror, that my new friends were entering the room, taking one glance at the book before me, and hurrying to the farthest corner of the room. Louise had left it right in front of me, the social equivalent of having gloppy Kleenexes on your lap. If the book had been titled The Sadomasochist Handbook I’d have gotten a warmer reception. I flipped through it nonchalantly and smiled a disapproving smile. That gosh-darn Louise, I tried to convey. Always joking. But my friendship prospects were disappearing every second the book was visible. I considered slipping it into my purse, but I thought theft might be considered gauche.
Finally Claudia walked through the door, greeted me, and noticed the book. “Dumb Things Democrats Have Said,” she read in a stage whisper, before smiling condescendingly.
“Bringing books like that here will not win you any friends. If you want to be invited back, I’d suggest leaving the propaganda at home.”
I smiled, choosing to act like it was a joke; I didn’t want to incriminate the kind hostess who was obliviously adding cream to people’s coffee.
Another lady chimed in, “You’re smiling because you think we’re kidding. Trust me”—she narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice—”we’re not.”
“I’m not smiling because I think you’re kidding,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. “I’m just surprised this book isn’t longer.” It went over like a Chappaquiddick joke at a Kennedy house.
- Nancy French, A Red State Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle (New York, NY: Center Street, 2006), 79-82.