Posted on 08/29/2019 12:05:47 PM PDT by robowombat
Trump: Comey 'thoroughly disgraced' after DOJ watchdog report BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 08/29/19 02:24 PM EDT
— . — Trump: Comey 'thoroughly disgraced' after DOJ watchdog report
—
President Trump on Thursday said former FBI Director James Comey “should be ashamed of himself” after a Justice Department watchdog report faulted Comey for his handling of official memos about his interactions with Trump.
“Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just released Inspector General’s Report. He should be ashamed of himself!” Trump tweeted.
The Justice Department inspector general report released earlier Thursday said Comey violated FBI policies and his employment agreement with his handling of memos he wrote detailing his interactions with Trump before being fired as FBI director.
The watchdog passed its findings to the Justice Department without making a recommendation on whether Comey should be prosecuted, but Attorney General William Barr declined to bring charges against Comey.
Trump’s decision to fire Comey in May 2017 as the bureau investigated Russian interference in the election triggered questions about whether the president was trying to obstruct justice. Comey has said he provided one of his memos to a friend with the hope of triggering the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling and any connection between Moscow’s effort and the Trump campaign.
His hope was realized weeks later when the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.
The inspector general faulted Comey for passing the memo, which was unclassified but determined to contain sensitive material about ongoing investigations, to his friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, with the instructions to share its contents with a journalist.
The memo detailed a conversation between Comey and Trump during which the former FBI director says the president asked him to let go of the investigation into Michael Flynn, his onetime national security adviser. It was reported on by the New York Times in May of 2017, after Comey's ouster.
The inspector general also found that Comey passed four of the memos to his private lawyers in violation of bureau rules, and faulted him for not immediately alerting the bureau about the disclosure when he learned that it had determined one of the memos included classified material.
Comey has argued that the memos were personal recollections and not official records, something the inspector general refuted in the newly released report.
Comey was unapologetic on Twitter, noting that the investigation found no evidence that he or his attorneys shared classified information with the news media and accusing his critics of “defaming” him.
“I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a “sorry we lied about you” would be nice,” Comey tweeted.
“And to all those who’ve spent two years talking about me ‘going to jail’ or being a ‘liar and a leaker’—ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president,” he wrote.
Comey and Trump have engaged in an extended war of words since the FBI chief’s ouster. In June 2017, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his interactions with the president and revealed that Trump had asked him to let go of the Flynn investigation.
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BY ORGANIZATION OF IRANIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to, because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a friend of mine to do it,” Comey told the committee.
Trump has refuted Comey’s account and called him a liar. The president and his allies have attacked Comey and other top Justice Department officials over the Russia investigation, accusing agents of being motivated by bias against Trump in their decisions with respect to the probe.
Mueller concluded his two-year investigation earlier this year, without finding evidence to charge associates of Trump’s presidential campaign with conspiring with Russia. Mueller did not make a decision one way or another as to whether Trump obstructed the investigation.
Comey thoroughly untouched and defiant after watchdog report.
Trump stayed away from indictment or illegality. Sad.
Bigger fish to fry.
I've been saying for months that the facts of this particular case -- the Comey "leaks" to the New York Times -- would never support any kind of criminal prosecution.
There were three items in particular that come into play here:
1. The documents were classified retroactively, which means a prosecutor would have an extra hurdle to clear in order to make the charges stick.
2. The documents were Comey's own infantile memos to himself -- which means a prosecutor would first have to prove that the information contained in them was true in order to get a conviction. This is a critical point. We've been saying from the beginning that the memos were a bunch of self-serving nonsense, and were filled with a lot of fiction. You can't have it both ways. Either the documents were childish fiction, or they were classified matters of fact. I'll go with "Childish Fiction" for $500, Alex.
3. If Comey were ever prosecuted for leaking those memos to the NYT, he'd have the right to call President Trump as a witness to testify about whether the information in them was true or false. There's no way in hell that was ever going to happen, folks.
Sorry, but this is losing Mr. President.
Barr chooses not to prosecute!
Hey Barr, keep telling US that Epstein suicided, at least I can laugh at that one.
Excellent points and well spoke.
Thanks for an insightful post. It’s refreshing to read facts and logic prevailing over the infantile defeatism dominating some of these threads.
Personally, I’m much, much more interested in Comey’s role in the FISA abuse, about which we have yet to hear. Leaks happen, get over it.
But when FISA gets perverted, it’s a direct threat to our rights under the Constitution.
Thank you for the concise, cogent summary. As a legal layman I’ve been troubled by the lack of indictment but this gives me perspective at least.
I take it as a bad sign that they don't have the balls to go after high level folks like Comey, that they will never be able to after Clapper and all the Obama minions who violated other laws and federal regulations.
If that is the case it may be impossible to drain the swamp. If the swamp is to be drained for good, lots of people will need to go to jail.
Mr. President, that ain't nearly enough ! !
IF THEY COULD HAVE ‘EXONERATED’ HIM THEY WOULD HAVE SAID SO.
EXCEPT 1) I’ve never heard of this “classified retroactively” before
How do you mark something top secret AFTER it’s been out in the public? Do you ask everyone to forget they saw it?
NEVER have I heard this before this crew of criminals used it as an excuse.
Someone needs to inform Morgan Chalfant that Mulehead spent two years finding ZERO evidence of ANY crime despite extreme bias in EVERY one of his investigators. That is as clear an exoneration as you can get.
No, Mr. Trump, your DOJ is the disgrace.
Dunno what else to tell you.
The why isn’t your Attorney General prosecuting him, Mr. President?
Yep, there were a couple articles a few weeks ago about how the Justice Department was looking at this. They made a calculated decision not to prosecute because they thought it would look petty and political and be counterproductive. To me the timing of the release — just prior to Labor Day — means they’re not wanting it to be a distraction. I think they’re clearing the decks for the bigger stuff later.
It must feel really good to have that wall of deep state protection from allowing justice’s fingers anywhere near you. Kind of like a nice big blanky the evil truth can’t penetrate.
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