Posted on 04/21/2018 11:17:04 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
Former attorney general feels previous president signaled then-FBI director to let Hillary 'off' the hook to protect himself
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey accused James Comey of exonerating 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after former President Barack Obama warned the then-FBI director to “let her off” the hook.
Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in May 2017, led the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business as secretary of state. During an interview Friday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Mukasey said Obama wanted Comey to let Clinton “off” the hook because Obama believed, “If you wind up accusing her, you wind up accusing me.”
“President Obama was sending messages and receiving messages on Hillary Clinton’s private email server,” Mukasey said. “Jim Comey knew that, and when President Obama went on television and said, ‘There’s no issue here, she didn’t really intend to cause harm,’ what he was really saying in essence is, ‘You’d better let her off, because if you wind up accusing her, you wind up accusing me.'”
“Comey followed that lead. And the notion that this was somehow something that he had to do for the welfare of the country, there’s a lot of disingenuous claptrap,” Mukasey continued, calling Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe “outrageous.”
The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is now investigating whether Comey gave one of his friends memos regarding his conversations with Trump that included information he knew was classified, a "source familiar with the probe" confirmed to Fox News.
Steven Mulroy, a former federal prosecutor, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Comey did not leak classified information to his friend.
"We won't know for sure until the inspector general has concluded his investigation about what all the facts are for sure. But The Wall Street Journal has reported that there were only two memos that Comey gave to his friend that had any classified information," said Mulroy (shown above, far right).
"In one of them, [Comey] went through and redacted out the classified information. And the other one wasn't classified at the time. It was only classified later on," Mulroy claimed. "So it seems like his course of conduct here was fairly ... inoffensive. You can't very well blame him if the document wasn't classified until a later point in time."
But Mukasey refuted those claims, telling Ingraham, "I think we ought to put to rest something that one of your last guests said on the last segment about how, 'Well, the memos weren't marked classified at the time.'"
"They were classified as soon as [Comey] wrote them," Mukasey said. "And those weren't Mr. Comey's memos. They were the government's memos. And the information in them, if it was classified, was classified as soon as he put it down on paper."
"Personal thoughts and reflections are fine, but if they are personal thoughts and reflections about classified information, then they are classified personal thoughts and reflections," Mukasey continued. "You can't simply take them out and leak them."
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Thomas H. Dupree Jr. (shown above, far left) told Ingraham that even Comey's "defenders" must admit "he's walking a very fine line here" in defending his leaking during his press circuit promoting his new book, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership."
Related: Mukasey: Comey Is 'Always the Hero of Every Story He Tells'
"If the difference between criminal jeopardy and innocence is where you draw the line ... I mean, my goodness — I wouldn't want to be in Jim Comey's shoes if the IG is digging into these memos line by line trying to see if he might have left something in that shouldn't have gone out the door," Dupree said.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Ingraham that "it's important to point out that was malicious leaking of government documents" on Comey's part.
"I asked [FBI Director] Christopher Wray under oath, 'Is it appropriate for FBI agents to leak their work product to the press?' And he said, 'Absolutely not,'" said DeSantis (above, second from right). "I do think [Comey's] facing exposure because some of that stuff very well may have been classified."
"The damage is enormous because the head of the organization becomes the figurehead that everybody looks to judge how the organization performs."
"But at the end of the day, this is a guy who took those documents, [and] he wanted to generate a special counsel" to investigate allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, DeSantis said. "This thing smells very badly, and I think he's going to have to answer more questions about that."
Dupree said that "one of the many tragedies" in this saga is that Comey's behavior during and after his tenure as FBI director "undercuts" the FBI's historical image as a "nonpartisan, independent law enforcement agency."
Mukasey concurred, saying, "Regrettably, I think the damage is enormous because the head of the organization becomes the figurehead that everybody looks to judge how the organization performs."
The Clinton/Obama slime machine, probably had dirt on all of them, but I would not be even a little surprised, if they were threatened with Arkancide.
Loretta has no grandkids.
Many don’t want to admit or pursue the obvious. Many are weak. Many have the defeatist philosophy of “let’s move on”. It always has been this way. Criminals and traitors always take advantage of this weakness .
Yep.
That would make TOTAL sense.
Every (or nearly every) action from the media, DNC, HRC, OFA, etc. has been a REACTION to the improbable but PROVIDENTIAL victory of Donald Trump. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and they are kicking against the pricks.
Funny you should mention gallows.
First thing I thought of was the guillotine.
Agree with you completely.
Comey has gone out of his way in his recent interviews, to stress that he and his wife, were Hillary supporters. He has also claimed that Trump is “morally unfit” to be president, and—-the real stunner— Hillary believes in our institutions and supports the rule of law.
Seems like you may have something interesting to add but can’t quite get your words out...
Would you be willing to try again?
“But at the end of the day, this is a guy who took those documents, [and] he wanted to generate a special counsel” to investigate allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, DeSantis said. “This thing smells very badly, and I think he’s going to have to answer more questions about that.”
Doing it the way that he did is a fraud upon the American people, as well as involving the actual illegal acts that he performed. The SOB deserves to go to jail for that, especially because as FBI Director he is supposed to be the very embodiment of Mr. Clean.
Charging him, McCabe, and Lynch with crimes will get one of them too flip on other people. Sooner or later, if the pressure is kept on, you get to the Wicked Witch of Chappequa. Then you get to Obama. And damn the riots if that son of a Commie bitch gets investigated, indicted or convicted. It is way past time to flush out all of those who would destroy our form of government, and thereby partially or wholly enslave the American people.
I watch that interview and had a question as to, statute of limitations, on all involved in email sharing with HRC?
Will we ever indict our royalty? Regrettably no, because of the ones we send to DC, convert/ morph into Swamp Creatures themselves!
Bring charges against Huma and a few others, then watch them flip/flop like a fresh caught mullet! A dream, we will never see.
LOL, I'm stealing all these descriptions!!GREAT POST!
That’s a shame this didn’t happen. With Clinton & Obama on the hook,someone might have spoke up & brought the whole sorry mess down.
Well, Comey didn’t want to be seen as ignoring new
evidence totally. Had Hillary won he would have said
that they looked at the new evidence and found no there,
there. No news service but FOX would have bothered with
it. The rest of the news services would have been
patting themselves on the back over picking the first
female POTUS.
Thanks MarvinStinson.
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