Graham asks Comey about the investigative referral sent directly to him on 9/7/16, re: Clinton's approval of a plan concerning Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distraction from email server. Comey: "Doesn't ring a bell."— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 30, 2020
Feinstein is up. We'll see if Comey has trouble remembering things to answer her questions or not.
Grassley lays out all the official communications to/from FBI about Steele's unreliability. Asks Comey why he kept this hidden. Comey says he doesn't remember anything.
Comey says in summer of 2016 that he personally told Obama that FBI was launching investigation into Russia collusion, says he didn't name names.
Comey, contra all evidence, tells Leahy I don't know whether the Russians have something over Trump but its difficult to explain his actions in any other way. (This is insane)
Comey working hard to not discuss Ratcliffe letter. Claims he doesn't understand it. Given its seriousness, the proper thing to do at this point is declassify the underlying information.
"Did you call Steele dossier salacious and unverified?" Comey says he referred to just a portion of it, and that it's not that impt. Says "entire dossier" was something they were trying to rule in and out. Previously, though, said he wasn't informed of all the debunkings of it.
Cornyn says, before IG report on dossier, did he know of questions about reliability of dossier. Says, "I learned a lot about Steele material and subsource interviews from Horowitz report that I didn't know before."
"Can you rule out that part of CH was predicated on Russian disinformation?" Comey: "I think so." Cornyn says, even though we know now that subsource was a Russian agent, that doesn't taint investigation? Comey says not opened based on Steele, so all is good.
Durbin says he'll concede that "some documents weren't handled appropriately" but says it's not a big deal and that nobody cares about the dossier. Wonders why anyone even cares about violations of civil liberties and weaponization of the intel agencies against political enemies.
Comey and Durbin agree that even though special counsel was officially launched because of the dossier, none of indictments had anything to do with dossier allegations so all good. (it is true that none of the indictments had anything to do with Russia collusion)
Graham also makes the point that not a single American was charged with Russia collusion. Explains to Democrats that all Americans should care about political abuse of the FISA process.
"What astounds me the most, the director of the FBI in charge of this investigation, is completely clueless about any of the ino obtained by his agency suspicious of the dossier." -- eg source was russian agent, that it was not intel but bar talk, that it was internet rumor
"And you want us to reauthorize this program with a system like that? Where everyone is responsible but no one is responsible?" Graham asks how they would like THEIR clients to be treated this way in FISA process.
Mike Lee, a consistent Constitution defender, now up. "With all due respect, you don't seem to know ANYTHING about an investigation you ran." Then slams Comey for speculating that Russia has something on Trump.
Lee says Comey's sources weren't accurate, that he didn't identify the inaccuracies to the court, that he doesn't seem to understand how Trump talks about world leaders, that his speculations about ties are inappropriate given how he knows nothing about the investigation he ran.
Comey admits his slurs about Trump being compromised by Russia were based on his own partisan feelings as a private citizen fired by the man, not in any way related to anything real that the FBI found.
"What in the heck do the certifications mean if you weren't required to know and did not know what was in there? What does the certification mean?" Comey says "certification is narrow" and that FBI has "duty of candor" and admits it "wasn't meant."
ee notes that partisans running the investigation reasonably thought HRC would win and they wouldn't get caught. Asks why Americans should have any confidence in FISA process, and how they could be caught up in similar work by FBI that would never come to light.
'You don't install a wasp's nest in your child's bedroom and then get surprised when your child is stung by wasps. You don't install an ex parte process and then get surprised when it goes off the rails.' -- Mike Lee demanding FISA reform or elimination.
LOL! Thanks for the offer! I’ll take the cocoa and try not to lob the marshmallows in your direction.
I spent the last few hours looking up apple cake recipes. I figured I needed to get away from politics for a while. So I hope you guys have figured out where we go from here!