Posted on 05/03/2017 7:27:11 AM PDT by blueyon
Started streaming 35 minutes ago
LIVE STREAM: The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, is expected to be grilled Wednesday by lawmakers in both parties who have sharply questioned his judgment on the investigations into both Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and Russian meddling in the presidential election. Unlike the House Intelligence Committee hearing in March in which Mr. Comey took the extraordinary step of confirming the existence of the Russia investigation, Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee proceeding is a more routine congressional oversight hearing — but notable because Mr. Comey has not publicly discussed his role in the Clinton investigation.
Mr. Comey’s handling of that Clinton investigation continues to shadow him. Not even President Trump seems keen to forget the decisions Mr. Comey made during the election. On Tuesday night, the president criticized Mr. Comey in a Twitter post, writing that the F.B.I. director was “the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!”
Mr. Trump also played down the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian efforts to help his campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
The United States Government is a very unfunny joke. And the joke’s on us.
George Webb is a fairly new name [to me]. Seems to be real deal. Is he?
Well, it's the same for any crime... they can't bust you if you're caught robbing a bank unless you have a signed, notarized statement on your person stating that you're knowingly robbing a bank and that you know that its illegal.
Comey and the FBI were derelict and over-reaching at the same time. It is not their job to make this judgment call, that is for the prosecutors. His job is to toss the case file "over the wall" into the prosecutor's discretion. He did not do that. He assumed and continues to assume the role and judgment accorded to the prosecutor.
Criminal prosecutions are not done by Congressional Committees. Congressional Committees exist to establish policy via legislation. Comey is lobbying for a policy that allows unfettered snooping. Section 702 of FISA.
I’ve been following him for months. He does excellent dot-connecting, though I’m not on board with all his analysis.
Hillary didn’t intend to do anything wrong, yada, yada, yada. Can’t comment on open investigation and I can’t say if there is an investigation because that is classified. Makes Janet Reno look like an open book.
Thing is it was left to the FBI’s discretion by Lynch once she was outed meeting with Bill on the tarmac.
"There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence. I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.
It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.
All those of us who read the Sundance tutorial on how the congress really works now see these things as kubuki theater. Not a one of them is seriously looking for anything. Waste of time. As soon as he got his turn, Grassley, changed the subject away from the item under discussion to announce how he had done such and such, as if letting his “handlers” know that he was doing what they wanted him to do...ie he was finding ways to NOT do anything against the status quo. From now on, I will see every one in the republican party as a liar and poser. They will never drain the swamp, and they will work against President Trump’s agenda.
See my post #49.
At the moment he is probably the most aggressive investigative reporter on earth. He posts a few short updates every day on youtube. You will be amazed at what he has uncovered that is not being reported elsewhere.
Why was Valerie Plame being batted about? I missed the context, but heard the name constantly from the kitchen.
WASHINGTON–Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley Tuesday called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to start more closely supervising and reviewing the agency’s handling of high-profile and politically charged investigations, particularly one involving FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In Chairman Grassley’s letter to the recently-confirmed deputy attorney general, the Iowa Republican reiterated issues related to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s involvement in high-profile and much debated FBI investigations considering the possible political conflicts of interest that come from his wife’s receipt of nearly $700,000 from close Clinton associates during her congressional campaign for office in Virginia.
McCabe’s wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, was urged to run for Congress by Democrat Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend and former fundraiser of Bill and Hillary Clinton. According to The Wall Street Journal, during the filing period of October to November 2015, McCabe’s campaign filings shows she received $467,500 from Common Good VA, a political action committee headed up by McAuliffe and $292,500 from another Democratic PAC.
Fox News reported in March that records revealed Deputy Director McCabe did not list these particular 2015 donations or his wife’s salary in financial disclosure forms.
(snip)
“In addition, [McCabe] remains involved in the investigation into the alleged collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia ahead of the 2016 presidential election, and into the subsequent leaks of classified information related to the Russia controversy. Further, the FBI’s recusal protocols seemingly gave McCabe the authority to approve his own recusal with respect to Virginia-related investigations before the election,” a statement from the Judiciary Committee Chairman’s office said.
You are missing the point. The Dems are using these hearings to concentrate on their meme that the Russians colluded with the Trump campaign to defeat Hillary. The MSM will act as a megaphone for any comments from Comey that support this narrative in any way. Every Dem senator will bring up the Russia narrative.
This is a scheduled oversight meeting with the FBI.
Thanks for your detailed reply. It should be required reading for any Freeper interested in the Hillary Email scandal.
And, of course, I agree 100% with your analysis.
I think this is the first time we learned that the FBI found NEW emails on the Weiner laptop, and that some of them were classified. This is not what Comey said in his letter sent the weekend before the election. Was that letter misleading, given what he said today?
At the moment he is probably the most aggressive investigative reporter on earth. He posts a few short updates every day on youtube. You will be amazed at what he has uncovered that is not being reported elsewhere.
Post 39 - how info was transferred from blackberry
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George Webb
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrQ-wHKVi0JDWjQGcuoYnew
George Webb Summary of Video Links and Notes c.18 March 2017 / Day 134
https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/george-webb-summary-of-video-links-and-notes-c-18-march-day-134/
George Webb slides
The FBI disclosed that an investigation was going on despite Comey saying that it was FBI’s policy not to disclose active investigations.
Great post!
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