I don’t understand how leaking them contributed to getting Spec Counsel appointed.
How did it?
Thank you for asking and I sure hope someone answers. It seems I went to work and came back and boom! Special counsel. After eight years of Obama’s crimes and Trump gets a special counsel in few hours because someone who is already fired asked for it!? All I could think was Valerie Plame, here we go. Does anyone remember how serious the press took the Valerie Plame ordeal?
Comey said in Senate testimony that that is the reason he leaked them to the press through the friend. Comey said that’s why he leaked. Look it up.
“I don’t understand how leaking them contributed to getting Spec Counsel appointed.
How did it?”
I would think it provided a foundation, a pretext for the starting the investigation. They were saying “there’s something there with respect to Trump and Russia.”
Comey alleged in the memos that he felt pressured by Trump to drop the investigation into Flynn. The media used this to accuse Trump of “obstruction” into the Flynn investigation, and question the independence of the investigation, calling for the special counsel. Sessions had already recused himself from this matter, so Rat Rosenstein had all the excuse he needed to appoint Mueller.
I researched and wrote a 30k+ word paper on this just to understand it for myself.
That part is easy: The media hyped Trump influencing Comey re the Flynn investigation as a result of the memos. The Tweet-storm was mere theater which fed the frenzy (ala “tapes”).
After the dossier, that was stage 2 of the Op, but once again Trump didn’t back down, forcing the media and other players to circle the wagons.
They then went all-in on “Russian collusion” and, in the wake of the renewed IG office’s powers at DOJ, we’ve been learning the truth ever since.
That’s the short answer; it’s a LOT deeper that that with over 100x more details.