Y’all watching the Stephanopoulos interview? I’m struck anew by Comey’s overweening self-regard. He thinks he shits marble.
I’ve received several news alerts based on transcripts that say Comey calls Trump “morally unfit” and possibly “vulnerable to Russian blackmail” during this interview. That part hasn’t aired yet.
But Stephanopoulos talked to him about his role in the election and asked Comey straight out if he’d send the letter to Congress about reopening the email investigation in the final 10 days before the election, “knowing that it would elect Trump.”
Comey said he would do it all again because if he did otherwise “the FBI would be destroyed.” Yeah, so America is destroyed instead. Great job, you fucking putz.
Open thread.
Davebo
It doesn’t really take a G Man to figure out Trump is unfit to be president.
But it took one to MAKE him president!
RedDirtGirl
He’s a sanctimonious twat-waffle.
Corner Stone
I’ve been yelling at him for 40 minutes!
SiubhanDuinne
There are times I regret not owning a TV.
This is not one of them.
Just the Facts
God, I hope Rachel goes after his inconsistency/hypocrisy when she interviews him. He’s really insufferable.
Citizen Alan
I hope from the bottom of my heart that someday James Comey has a moment of clarity in which he understands how completely he has violated his oath of office and failed his country. And then, immediately does the right thing and kills himself.
Mike J
Bob’s Burgers is on and is a better window on America than Snuffleuphagus and a guy who tried, and succeeded, in undermining Hillary.
Corner Stone
@Citizen Alan:
He is clearly incapable of that feat. He firmly believes he is the one that had to do this. And would do it again.
Elizabelle
WaPost recap: they were allowed to review the 5 hour transcript:
Elizabelle
WaPost: Comey, kind of undermining Rosenstein, who undermined him with the memo:
Major Major Major Major
@Just the Facts:
Joke’s on you, I just ate ninja pies and pancakes from a ninja cafe.
@SiubhanDuinne: seconded!
hellslittlestangel
If what he says injures The Orange Better One, I’ll give him credit. Whether I find him likeable or loathsome seems irrelevant.
Corner Stone
I am so very happy Comey got pantsed in front of the entire nation by Trump firing him from 3000 miles away through his bodyguard. The only better outcome would have been if I could have done it in person.
Elizabelle
WaPost: the douche dissembles:
As he has in the past, Comey offered a vigorous defense of his handling of the Clinton email investigation.
rikyrah
Did I miss the picture of the Shrek cake?
Amir Khalid
All this, because Comey can’t bring himself to admit that his act of monumental stupidity has had (and is still having) catastrophic consequences.
efgoldman
@RedDirtGirl:
His picture is in the dictionary next to sanctimonious
He’s more sanctimonious than a cathedral full of bishops.
@Corner Stone: .
Does it change anything? Mrs efg does that all the time; all it does is raise her blood pressure.
chuckInAustin
Yeah, F that guy.
Elizabelle
Slippery.
Elizabelle
The top reader comment on the WaPost story:
Tenar Arha
OMFG WTF is wrong with this sanctimonious f*ckwit?
Augh, augh, aieeeee! You complete dumbazz, your actions ARE now destroying the FBI you pyrrhic stick of hypocrisy!
ETA typo
Corner Stone
Comey, it is clear, is not only an insufferable prick but also dumb as a fucking stump.
efgoldman
@Tenar Arha:
Nice!
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: exactly. Fuck that guy.
Corner Stone
What a smug and insufferable fucking prick. Let, “the American people off the hook”? Fuck you asshole.
Citizen Alan
And with that remark, I’m coming around to the idea that the FBI should be destroyed if its director can be both so powerful and so arrogant that he thinks he can decide for the whole nation who is worthy of being President and have a good chance of making his thoughts reality.
Amir Khalid
Someone needs to say it to his face: “Mr Comey, what you did was very stupid, even if you don’t care to admit it, and its consequences are endangering the republic that you tell yourself you serve.”
Edited for emphasis.
efgoldman
@Steve in the ATL:
You actually home? For real?
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Clear-eyed and well stated.
I wonder who Comey would listen to on that front.
opiejeanne
Oh Betty, I love you. You have such a way with words, and I share your sentiments wrt Mr Comey.
We are watching Bosch instead and trying to remember what happened last season.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle:
Gosh almighty, Comey is *really* full of himself. The timing of the lambasting could be questioned*, but Comey *richly* earned a lambasting much worse than that.
*In all probability Rosenstein was asked for a memo discussing Comey’s handling of email business and gave a pretty straight answer, which was then used as an excuse for the firing without Rosenstein ever knowing what was up.
Edit: and yeah, Betty, “thinks he shits marble” is the *perfect* phrase for him.
efgoldman
@Elizabelle:
No-fucking-body. In his own way, he is as arrogant and rockheaded as Weasel Face himself or Darth Cheney.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: OT did you see my follow up questions?
Amir Khalid
So as far as Comey is concerned, FBI > USA.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Corner Stone:
We heard you.
Waynski
I think I’d rather buy a copy of OJ’s If I Did It book than Jim Comey’s. OJ (and Trump) at least seem to realize they’re telling the Big Lie. Comey’s lying to himself and the American people. Twaddle.
tobie
What kills me is that Comey still won’t own up to the fact that the request to investigate HRC’s email server was inherently political. The House GOP caucus demanded the investigation to hurt her and Comey happily complied. Equally crazy-making is that he won’t ever admit that Clinton was right that she didn’t receive or send classified material on her server. (Elijah Cummings got him to admit that when he testified.) Some material on the server was retroactively classifed…and one wonders if this was done to hurt HRC too. Man, I didn’t realize just how raw I still am from the whole campaign.
efgoldman
The Caps are being the Caps, and choking.
Even though it didn’t cost a goal, I hate hate hate the delayed offside replay rule.
TS
It seems Comey knows he helped the russians to elect trump – and he’s very proud of what he did.
The Clinton email server was a massive nothing – which Comey used to elect trump.
SectionH
Agreeing with all of you, well, up through comment 7*, and there’ll be some more before I finish typing. Oh, and technic’ly not CS because not watching, but if yelling helps those watching, wth.
*Well, it was 7 when I started typing. Then the cat happened. But the consensus is still pretty solid.
@SiubhanDuinne: I have a TV-like object, and basic cable is included in our HoA fee. The twain have never met.
@Amir Khalid: Ayup. And His own ego>FBI… as Kay says, all he had to do was his job. eta: Nothing less, and FFS nothing more.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Maddow is interviewing him this week. She won’t say it in those words, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she makes that point. I hope she does.
@rikyrah: No — sadly, because of a series of clusterfucks that unexpectedly consumed several hours of our day, we ended up with a regular old text-only cake. ?
eemom
S-t-e-p-h-a-n-o-p-o-u-l-o-s.
Whaddaya know, just like it sounds….as I’ve heard 87 zillion times in my life.
chopper
oy, fuck that guy.
Yarrow
I’m not going to watch that crap. Why give them the ratings? If anything interesting comes out of it I’m sure we’ll hear about it. I’d much rather do something much more pleasant like laundry.
Mike J
@eemom: Georgie is a worthless piece of shit himself, who cares how you spell it?
efgoldman
@eemom:
Everything there is going on, and THIS is what you whine about?
OK, then
Mary G
Not listening to interview, not reading any more articles, not buying or reading his book. Appreciate all your epithets. He should have followed the damn rules and kept his mouth shut. Period.
eemom
@Mike J:
I agree, but it’s a Greek thing. I usually make some effort to spell names right even if I despise the namee.
eemom
@efgoldman:
For Christ’s sake, you are obtuse, aren’t you? And don’t blame it on age.
azlib
@Mary G: @eemom:
Agreed.
MoCA Ace
Comey:
I so love the FBI that I could not stand to see her destroyed…
So I killed her myself!
efgoldman
@eemom:
Since i don’t do telepathy, and you didn’t provide any back story until comment #48, above, I guess I am.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Talk to her about fraternities and sororities. It is fun.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s a her?
(My rule of thumb is that if it’s unhelpful and online it’s male.)
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Does it require mind reading?
smintheus
Comey suffers from grandiosity; he’s a hero in his own epic tale.
The trouble is he’s dopey. The more I hear him talk and from the drivel he’s peddling as his memoir, he seems like a B- sophomore who thinks he’s an A (secretly an A+) senior.
Mary G
Welp, not going to read this either, but if you really hate yourself. ABC has posted the entire transcript of Comey’s interview, which ran five hours.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: Is English, French, and Greek still a thing since you can state explicitly things that had to be encoded before?
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
There is no way. Maddow is too polite and deferential. We need a Joy Reid or Steph Ruhle to tell him he sucks eggs and just fucking admit it, you pompous clown!
ETA, I’d take a tag team sub in with Soledad O’Brien given a chance.
Steve in the ATL
@efgoldman: yep! Hearing in Texas postponed. Not sure what to do here….
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL: hang out with the pool boy?
jl
The question of existence, or not, of serious wrongdoing wrt HRC emails was settled beyond a reasonable doubt, long before the 2016 general election campaign. Only ruthless GOP partisan smears kept it going. Comey was deep down the rabbithole and inside the mirror of self-righteous gullible buy-in to all that crap when he made is unprofessional and unethical statement at the conclusion of the investigation. An honest interview would get into that issue. I don’t have time to watch but will read through the transcript.
I wonder if anyone is tracking down the Trumpsers, inside and outside of the FBI that started destroying it from the inside with a partisan witch hunt against a Democratic candidate who committed the crime of being able to win an election. (Edit: in a just world, maybe we’d have some proceedings that would wipe that smug out of Rudi G).
Steve Crickmore
‘Liberal partisans like to play up the idea that James Comey “cost” Hillary Clinton the presidential election when he “reopened” the investigation of her emails days before the election. To some, this has become an article of faith, the lone bit of scaffolding upon which they can make sense of November’…Here’s a question: have you ever actually read the Comey letter?. That is seriously all he said in a letter written directly to a limited audience of legislators. Given the high risk of a leak that these emails existed and had not been reviewed, Comey’s entirely measured and balanced letter just sought to place this development in its properly insignificant context. Comey didn’t “announce” anything. He wrote a letter to a congressional committee to functionally amend his testimony and the GOP members of the committee leaked this to the world…https://abovethelaw.com/2018/04/james-comey-is-back-and-the-medias-got-another-craven-effort-to-blame-him-for-their-screwups/
Betty Cracker
Comey said his wife and four (five?) daughters were devastated about the election outcome and participated in the Women’s March in DC. He didn’t say if they think he’s a goddamned putz for helping the Russians put Trump over the top.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: She is a she.
@efgoldman: No.
@Mike J: Greek cam have multiple meanings. It can be an ethnicity or a membership in a fraternity or sorority.
Mary G
Vhh
Comey is taking on Trump, bigly, and that is enough for me. The madder Trump gets, the more mistakes he makes.
Mary G
I wonder if it will penetrate Comey’s thick head that people don’t see him as a hero? Prolly not.
sukabi
@tobie: he’s likely still stuck in “Watergate” mode with regards to Clinton. Plus a bit of latent misogyny…women with power seem to be “suspicious” to him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve Crickmore: Yawn. Based on your name and shit. What made you show up tonight after such a long absence?
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: In ye olden dayes before I was born, in personal/hooker ads English meant discipline, French meant oral, and Greek meant anal.
trollhattan
@sukabi:
Do we know if he ever golfed with Kenneth Starr?
hilts
@Corner Stone:
I would have preferred to see Chris Hayes or Lawrence O’Donnell interview Comey.
trollhattan
@Steve Crickmore:
Wow, 8:00 a.m. on the nose in St. Petersburg. You fuckers are nothing if not prompt. What’s for lunch?
Mary G
One more:
Mike J
10 minutes into Lost in Space and it doesn’t seem the least camp.
Brachiator
For the sake of my blood pressure, sounds like I will be avoiding the tv segment and maybe reading the transcript. I might take a peek at Maddow’s interview.
Thanks for all the reactions.
Betty Cracker
@eemom: Fixed. Thanks. Kinda.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: I just meant Greek Letter Organizations.
efgoldman
@Steve Crickmore:
So we all imagined a press conference in July?
Bullshit.
Comey violated process and established procedures and rules multiple times. He let himself be pressured by the Yahoos on Gowdy’s committee. He became a political actor, which no FBI head should ever be.
trollhattan
@Vhh:
Based on some of the transcript excerpts he’s going to blow a gasket or five tonight. Will he have some new Comey adjectives for us?
sukabi
@hilts: Joy Anne Reid or Stephanie Rhule(sp?).
Corner Stone
@Vhh:
Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.
Steve Crickmore
@Omnes Omnibus: Normally I am a lurker. I agree with the general line and tenor of Balloon Juice, particularly as Trump is a disaster, with not much to add, but I rather like Comey as being straight and stern. He was a prosecutor of the mob after all. It might be interesting to hear John Cole’s views. He may not be so willing to dump on Comey, as most of you.
SectionH
@Mary G: You give him enough credit to wonder that might happen? Good for you – I don’t.
Corner Stone
@hilts: Chris Hayes is a wuss in tough interviews and LO’D always has his next question ready, no matter what the previous answer is. Joy or Ruhle would have shut Comey down, bigly.
hilts
@sukabi:
They’re fine, but my personal preference would be Hayes or O’Donnell.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: out of curiosity i read the linked article. The author says Comey’s real original sin was the July press conference and that the letter was the correct thing to do, but only because of his initial colossal fuckup.
sukabi
@Corner Stone: If the choice is a male to do the interview I’d pay money to see John Oliver do the interview. Adding or Michael Avenatti.
Origuy
I didn’t see this mentioned before. Another Russian journalist “fell” from the fifth-floor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve Crickmore: Fuck you.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
Borscht and bullshit, apparently.
Stan
@tobie: this!
Steve Crickmore
@efgoldman: I was referring to October in reply to the comment that before the election.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: Por que no los dos?
sukabi
@hilts: neither one is willing to stop their interviewee from lying. Neither one pushes for a truthful answer. Neither one has appropriate follow up questions.
hilts
@Corner Stone:
New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick is interviewing Comey this Thursday at Town Hall in NY. It will air later this month on The New Yorker Radio Hour https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/tnyradiohour
cmorenc
Unfortunately, we are stuck with Dudley DoRight (Comey) as one of our more valuable assets (other than Muller) helping toward bringing Trump down and out, as unforgivable as Comey’s self-righteous destructive actions were in the 2016 election. I will be happy to resume my unending public condemnation of this preening prick once the Ds have the Presidency back, at least, hopefully with majorities in the House and Senate as well – but until Trump is driven from office, our too-vocal condemnation of Comey will perversely play into Trump’s attempt to sell Comey as untrustworthy. It galls me that this is the situation we find ourselves in, but…eyes on the #1 prizes: driving Trump from office, and electing a Democratic President, House, and Senate.
SFAW
@Steve Crickmore:
And no doubt you like Trump for being a tremendous deal-maker, as well as a businessman who puts his name on only the highest-quality offerings.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to discern whether you are naive, stupid, or lying/trolling. [Then again, as some might say: porque no los dos? (Mas o menos)]
sukabi
@Steve Crickmore: October didn’t happen in a vacuum, it was the direct result of his statement in July chastising Clinton for her handling of email. The entire thing was political in nature, even if he won’t admit to it.
EBT
@Steve Crickmore: You should follow John’s twitter where he as been slagging on Comey just as hard. The man was a self obsessed, self important fool.
Duane
@Corner Stone:I heard you yelling from over here. Decided not to watch. Thanks for the warning.
jl
Comey could also break down during the interview and start screaming at a snot nose fake journalist punk like Stuffapuffalous. “You people made me do it, you made me! Every time I turned on the damn TV, the emails the emails THE EMAILS!!! And Trump’s empty lectern. And the EMAILS the EMAILS the EMAILS! God damn you to hell, you little snot nosed punk fake journalist!”
So, if something like that happens, please let me know. I’ll watch that clip.
Emma
@Steve Crickmore: Horse puckey. He knew how that letter would be used. He did it on purpose. The FBI assumed Hillary Clinton would be president and set out to hobble her.
smike
@Corner Stone: That is the morsel that constricts the craw. No way in hell would the announcement serve to further immediate justice, and the only thing it seems it could do is damage Clinton before the election. The guy is a stone-cold republican who sanctimoniously sacrificed the county because ‘his side’.
SFAW
@jl:
I was going to say I just saw him do exactly that, but then I realized it was probably just the Owsley kicking in.
Corner Stone
He probably is feeling the same way I am about the Comey interview bullshit.
SFAW
I’d like to see Joy (or someone) ask him “Are you a moron? Because only a moron, or someone lying to cover his own ass, would make the ridiculous claims about doing what you did to prevent some nebulous boogeyman from ‘destroying the FBI’. So which is it?”
Mnemosyne
@sukabi:
FWIW, that’s mostly what the linked article seems to be arguing: Comey boxed himself into a corner when he decided to do that grandstanding press conference in July, which left him without much choice in October.
The writer’s main point is that for the October part of the story the press is more to blame than Comey was, because they took a pretty ordinary informational letter and blew it up big. But there wouldn’t have been a story if Comey hadn’t decided to make his big speech in July, so IMO Comey gets a good share of that blame, too.
Corner Stone
@cmorenc:
Fuck that garbage. Fuck James Comey. Fuck him up his stupid ass.
No Drought No More
“Great job, you fucking putz”.
It’s too bad Jared Kushner didn’t seek your advice before advising Dad* to fire Comey. Instead, and with supreme arrogance, J.K. stupidly failed to credit rank and file democrats with the capacity to differentiate between Comey’s wretched decision making during the 2016 campaign, and his adherence to truth telling under the rule of law.
You know what would make a great plot twist to this surreal situation? If Trump is indeed absolutely innocent, and his youngest son is masterminding his downfall by weaving a plot so damnably intricate that he will have ultimately imprisoned and/or otherwise disenfranchised all siblings and family members that stand between himself and the Trump fortune (think Kind Hearts And Coronets, starring Alec Guiness). All without anyone realizing it, of course, not even Mueller Inc. His mother’s inexplicable silence after being publicly humiliated by Trump would lend it plausibility, and their plotting would make a fine sub-plot to the story (the fade out of the movie would be a close up of his ‘666’ birthmark). Starring Justin Beiber as “The Kid On The Stuffed Lion” (also the film’s title), Bette Midler as Melania, Pauly Schorr as Don Jr., Richie Incognoto as Eric Trump, and Alec Baldwin as the whip smart, innocent, guileless, truth-telling man Trump has been all along..
*
Mandalay
@sukabi:
You hardly ever see any TV interview with a politician where anything interesting emerges. Politicians either lie, or clam up, or ignore the question and talk about something else, and there is rarely any forceful follow up. As tweety famously admitted, no interviewer wants to fall out with the person being interviewed because then they lose access.
Ironically, tweety tenaciously pestered Trump and got him to admit that he believed women should be punished for having abortions. That was over two years ago. Has any TV interview with a politician revealed anything of note since then?
SFAW
@No Drought No More:
Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class?
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: since his “statement” in July was contradictory to FBI protocol, and he was advised by several people including his superiors not to do it, AND he was well aware of the media’s propensity to shit on Clinton because that’s what they’ve done for the last 30 years, this entire thing is on his shoulders. And I hope it breaks him.
Peale
@smike: yep. Seems to me that the FBI did go to war against Clinton for no reason. None. Did Bill Clinton try to destroy the FBI? Nope. Did Obama? Nope. When Hillary was SoS oe Senator did she do anything that should make them feel threatened? Beyond not being a heman like Darling Rudy? What a bunch of whiny babies.
Citizen Alan
@Steve Crickmore:
On this issue, I really don’t care what you or John or anyone else thinks about that son of a whore. We will never fully recover from Trump becoming President, and James Comey was more responsible for it than any single individual including Fucking Wilmer. And now he’s out peddling his book and preening about how morally superior he is to everyone else. I hope from the absolute bottom of my heart that he dies in agony, that he spends the last years of his life begging people to kill him and end his suffering.
sukabi
@No Drought No More: only if his youngest child is the product of one of his extra marital affairs, now THAT would be funny.
Corner Stone
@Citizen Alan: Preach.
SectionH
@Betty Cracker: ;->
magurakurin
@Mike J: was Russian Golden Showers?
SectionH
@Citizen Alan:
@Corner Stone:
You speak for me, boys.
Viva BrisVegas
I might be misremembering recent history, but the reason for that letter just before the election was that Congressional Republicans, particularly Nunes, had effectively stated that they were going after Comey’s balls if he didn’t provide them with ammunition against Clinton. Which was why Comey bypassed the DOJ and delivered the letter straight to the Republicans, who immediately leaked it just as Comey should have expected. Comey was no longer working under the direction of the DOJ, he was now reporting directly to Nunes.
People are right in that the letter was a nothingburger. However it feed straight into the media narrative about “Crooked Hillary” that had been generated over the previous 18 months by right wing/Putin operatives and amplified by the MSM. Comey knew this but was to much of a coward to do anything about it. It may not have been the only factor in Trump’s victory, but it was certainly a factor, and in an election that close every factor had the potential to be the critical factor.
What Comey is really saying here is that, “Congressional Republicans blackmailed me through personal threats and threats to the FBI to force me to use whatever influence I had to throw the election in the direction of Trump”.
Comey fully deserves whatever Trump would like to do to him, but obviously not for the reasons that Trump wants to do it.
Steve Crickmore
@Mnemosyne: Comey toned down the original July statement. Comey’s infamous statement on Hillary email probe was watered down to remove any implication she was guilty of a crime
Former FBI director changed much of the wording in draft to soften criticisms
Changed claim it was ‘reasonable likely’ emails hacked by enemies to ‘possible’
Removed reference to ‘grossly negligent’ acts as term has criminal connotations.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5182449/James-Comeys-statement-Clinton-emails-watered-down.html#ixzz5CoCkHBrd
Corner Stone
@Viva BrisVegas:
Jason Chaffetz. Who retired/resigned a long time ago. Because he was a coward who knew he could not investigate Trump. Chaffetz leaked/made the press announcement of the Comey bullshit.
Steeplejack
@Steve Crickmore:
An alternate take on “straight and stern” Comey: political and corporate fixer. He is not some noble career FBI man or government attorney tragically snared in partisan politics. Oh, and he was a deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee back in 1996. So he’s got history with the Clintons.
joel hanes
@Steve Crickmore:
I remember that Comey faced down Gonzales over Ashcroft’s sickbed, when the W misadministration demanded a sign-off to ignore the surveillance laws. That took conviction and courage. I think others in the Bureau might have just signed.
But at the crux, his honorable allegiance proved to be too narrow: allegiance to the Bureau, rather than to the nation and to the rule of law, and his actions had large political effects, which might have been anticipated by someone with broader vision. Honor-bound and proud, but a limited man who either blundered or is fooling himself (and you) about his motives.
Rob Massing
Betty, I’ll never forget your headline when Comey sent his letter reopening the investigation. “Fuckity-fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!!”
Steeplejack
@Viva BrisVegas:
I believe another factor was that Comey was said to be trying to check the FBI’s rogue New York office, where agents were supposedly going to leak that “OMG, crooked Hillary is still under investigation!” Remember that Giuliani was going on all the talk shows and hinting at ominous revelations just before the election.
Steve Crickmore
@SFAW:In Bush’s private dining room, the president was warm and kind, saying that Comey should let him take the burden of the program’s reauthorization. Comey, a religion major at the College of William & Mary, tried to connect with the religious commander in chief, telling him, “As Martin Luther said, ‘Here I stand, I can do no other.’” They spoke at length, before Comey played the trump card, “I think you should know that Director Mueller is going to resign today.”
Bush shifted uncomfortably; his face made clear the shock he felt. No one had told the president that his FBI director was about to walk out. He promptly excused Comey and had the Secret Service summon Mueller; Mueller didn’t budge. The NSA program was illegal; if the administration proceeded, he and the Justice Department leadership would resign. As Mueller said later in a speech, “The rule of law, civil liberties and civil rights—these are not our burdens. They are what makes all of us safer and stronger.” Most of you probably liked Comey then (and Mueller) for being righteous and a stickler…..not so much now. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/18/james-comey-trump-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller-fbi-215154
Major Major Major Major
@Steve Crickmore: come on, the daily mail?
joel hanes
Comey was said to be trying to check the FBI’s rogue New York office
That’s exactly my understanding of the “protect the bureau” motive for Comey’s first announcement.
Rumors at the time said that Hillary-haters in the NY office were about to go rogue and public over what they imagined to be the HRC classified email crimes and other alarums and excursions, unless a superior did so first – so to placate and forestall them, Comey’s first statement barely skirted dishonesty while casting all possible shade on Clinton.
I cannot explain the second announcement in any positive way. It was a disaster for the nation.
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
Jason Chaffetz
In a decade rife with punchable faces, his always stood out.
Viva BrisVegas
@Corner Stone:
Yes, Chaffetz not Nunes. I got my Republcan traitors mixed up.
Steve Crickmore
@Major Major Major Major: The Daily Mail has great photos. It is to be expected since… Hacker: Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.
piratedan
well.. for me its not so much what he said, because we’ve seen people parse the words into whatever stance they prefer, what pisses me off, is what he did….
did he investigate HRC’s use of an e-mail server, yes he did. had her predecessors used said same…. yes they had, was she guilty of misuse? No she wasn’t end of fucking story and THIS sordid tale of shadows and nuance and doubt was kept in the limelight for over a year by this motherfucker….
on the other side… we have a guy who’s being funded by outside foreign interests, financially, his income sources are occluded with no transparency whatsoever and he’s got multiple sexual assault transgressions, some of which we know about and yet others that are being suppressed and about him, we hear nary a motherfucking thing about THAT investigation.
Those actions speak volumes about his supposed character and loyalties…
If we end up finding a nice lawful way to convict this President for his crimes, I would be happy to suggest that Mr. Comey be relieved of his government pension because he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve one/
Steve Crickmore
@joel hanes: It was only a disaster because she lost the election. If she had won…the Republicans would have been somewhat neutered in their main argument against Hillary, the emails and Comey would have been thought to have been eminently fair and neutral.
Mnemosyne
@Steve Crickmore:
There was no need whatsoever for Comey to make a statement in July. Zero. In fact, he broke longstanding FBI policy to make that statement.
Comey should have kept his mouth shut per FBI policy. He chose not to, because he hated Hillary Clinton just that much. He should have watered his statement all the way down and not made one in the first place.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Ex-fucking-actly!
Viva BrisVegas
@Steve Crickmore:
Had Clinton won the election with the current makeup of Congress, her trial would be working it’s way through the Senate right now, having already been impeached by the House.
What charge? Anything they like.
patrick II
I am the umpteenth commentator to highlight this quote, but my question to Comey would have been — Who do you think was going to destroy the FBI?.
The answer has to be the leadership of the Republican party — so why then would you help the people who would destroy the FBI?
A couple of answers. First, he was more worried about his reputation being destroyed. Like Nixon as a president who kidded himself that attacks on him were attacks on America, the reaction of Comey to fear of attacks on him is justified in his mind as fear of attacks on the FBI. Which is a pretty clear demonstration of both his narcissism and cowardice, hiding behind the skirts of the FBI to justify his law breaking.
SectionH
@Mnemosyne: I will keep saying this until I die.
@Steve Crickmore: That summary of Brit papers was funny. Mind, not internally consistent, nor accurate, and srsly out of date. But it got close enough a few times. Well, a couple of times. Well, there was one line. Sort of. But it was a good line.
I personally don’t own any country, thank FSM, but I do like the FT. Mostly because they have the best cryptic crossword. At least the best one I can do on my own in a 3 hr flight.
T S
@Steve Crickmore: Tough crowd, eh? :-) You even got called a Russian troll. Wait…are you?
Steve Crickmore
They are as profane as the conservatives. Good to get a reality check.
Viva BrisVegas
@SectionH:
I’d have said it was dead on. As accurate now as it was in the 80s.
The only quibble I would have is with the Daily Mail description. The wives of the people who run the country read Tatler.
Daily Mail readers are just Sun readers looking for more and better conspiracy theories.
T S
@Steve Crickmore: A few of ’em. I think it’s territoriality, that’s all. This is THEIR hangout, and they are set in their ways. Half of them can’t even see I’m writing this because they blocked me for saying some of the dems are too tepid. Maybe what I said was half-cocked, etc, fine, but I got smugly scolded and lectured or just berated and honestly it was all pretty hypocritical. However, that’s fine. People are people. I don’t want to re-litigate it. I’m sure they’re mostly alright if you can get to know them…and if they don’t warm to you they can filter you out and you all don’t have to cross paths again.
Viva BrisVegas
@Steve Crickmore:
Don’t take it too much to heart, just remember you get to give a return “Fuck you”. But smile when you type it.
Amir Khalid
@Steve Crickmore:
Hillary losing the election was a foreseeable consequence of Comey’s ill-advised announcement, so even if she had won he should still be on the hook for it.
Citizen Alan
@Steve Crickmore:
You’re out of your fucking mind if you believe this.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Yes I did see your follow-up question . I am working on a reply. I think I might have a couple of other thoughts but it’s midnight and I don’t have my notes right here.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: just making sure! No rush.
SectionH
@Viva BrisVegas: ok, your call. I liked some Brit papers before Rupert bought most of them… And of course, being a neolib, I subscribe to the Gruaniad.
SectionH
.
Sorry, dupe.
T S
@Steve Crickmore: Actually, I think it would have been a disaster no matter what because the GOP was going to use every single pretense it could to ruin her Presidency and the House might have even gotten locked into repeated impeachments like they did for Obamacare repeals. So, yeah, Comey wouldn’t have caused a disaster, because the GOP/Cambridge Analytica/Russia would have done EVERYTHING to make it a disaster anyway. However, Comey didn’t help a thing, and wouldn’t have.
mai naem mobile
I don’t remember all the details of the email investigation because I thought it was so stupid but didn’t Comey do rhe press conference because Chaffee or Gowdy was pushing him? Aldo wasn’t one of the theories that Comey was one of the investigators on Whitewater or one of the Clinton faux scandals and that he thought they had gotten away with stuff because the FBI couldn’t prove any wrongdoing?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@T S:
Sanctimony and “holier-than-thou-ness” isn’t a good look on anyone.
BRyan
I’m trying to understand who is the anticipated audience for Comey’s book? And are his interviews/TV appearances more likely to increase or diminish that potential audience?
Kathleen
@efgoldman: I scream at Chuck Todd when I see him on TV, which I try to keep to a minimum.
T S
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Sure isn’t. I think if you really think about it, what I just wrote was a very reasonable thing to say, given the shit you and others have said. However, I do regard BJ as the hangout of the regulars and realize you are all very opinionated and not obligated to be perfect, fair, or congenial with every response to some stranger on the internet. However, what you just wrote…applies to you, a little. A lot of things you write that are about someone’s style or pretense…they apply back to you. I really think you felt the need to respond to me just now not because you solely find it ‘sanctimonious,’ but because what I articulated is a little bit accurate. But let’s not worry about it. Everyone is like that to some degree, especially when it’s about something important. You just don’t notice when they agree with you 100%.
Look, I always vote D, often straight ticket. I don’t protest vote or say “both sides.” I even volunteer a bit. I’m not stupid, and I don’t “give up,” despite what some of you think. My personality is pessimistic and negative and at times impatient. Maybe you all don’t want hear what you might call me wailing about the hopelessness of it all, so fine, I’ll try to contain the pessimism. However, I’ve seen some pretty f-ed up rants on here that were much more problematic, so I don’t exactly feel bad.
And no, I wouldn’t have written this if I didn’t care what people think. I do…a little. Enough to write this. Fine.
Take care.
Kay
Senior Democrats have called on the F.B.I. to investigate whether any of Donald J. Trump’s aides are colluding with Russia. Some of his aides have ties to Russian interests, but they have denied any wrongdoing.
He didn’t have any decisions to make. He just had to follow the rules for both candidates. The rule is there for that purpose– so it won’t left up to individuals with bias or poor judgment.
toschek
@Steve Crickmore:
FWIW, I appreciated the link in your first comment. The media’s obsession with false equivalence throughout the 2016 campaign did a lot more damage Clinton’s chances than anything Comey did or said IMO in the end. The Times for one spent so much time worrying that bone to the virtual exclusion of reporting on Trump’s many, many scandals — it really seemed at the time (to me at least) like of all the papers the only one that was giving Trump the kind of vetting needed was the Washington Post — in particular David Fahrenthold (who is a national treasure!) — and consequently WaPo is one of the few outlets I can take seriously these days.
Unpopular opinion here, but I kind of feel like Clinton kind of fucked this whole thing up on her own to some extent. That’s not to say that I don’t like her (I do) or that I wouldn’t have voted for her (I did, and would do so again), but the whole “I need a private email server and I don’t want to have to carry around two phones” thing did her no favors in the end. Why did she need to go around State Department policy when she knew that she’d be running for President shortly and that the Republicans would be looking for ANYTHING they could find to hang around her neck to accuse her of some kind of wrongdoing? Even if her conduct was entirely innocent (which I think it was), why did she stumble into so many own goals leading up to the campaign? It’s not just the emails, it’s the speeches to Goldman Sachs, the deplorables comment and other minor, stupid things that were totally avoidable that IMO at least cost the election ultimately. Sure, Comey is a convenient target for everyone’s ire, but Clinton did some stupid, unnecessary things that someone with her ambition and experience should have known not to do.
BTW, anyone know any good borscht recipes?? Asking for a friend.
Major Major Major Major
@T S: I also enjoy hanging out at a website at 3am complaining about how much that website sucks.
Seriously though, it would be nice if we could try harder to not use ad hominem around here. I’m working on it myself, and reserve it for a small handful of flagrant assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@toschek: the election was close enough that a thousand things were the determinative factor. Comey is a popular choice because he’s one person making one to two colossal errors which, in any honest analysis, probably affected the vote by at least 1%. The other causes are too nebulous or not as focused on one person. And of course it goes without saying that many people treat republican votes as though they magically fall from the sky, and don’t blame the voters…
Kay
This should bother people because this “information” the FBI got was probably from Russia- so this late in the game they had no fucking idea what was going on, as far as Russian interference:
The public was completely in the dark that all this was happening behind the scenes with Russia, but also (apparently) the FBI had no idea either because this “Lynch controls the whole government” theory was taken seriously.
That’s always what worried me- not that the FBI were biased or pro-Trump, but that they’re incompetent. They don’t have that great a track record, really.
T S
@Major Major Major Major: I think this website is just fine. I like it a lot. I don’t think saying you guys are a bit territorial and opinionated but probably still good people is all that bad of a thing to say. I think I’ve heard some of the front pagers and even Cole talking about getting some new blood around here? Well, sorry, I’m not exactly young, but you aren’t going to get new blood around here if you run everyone off for being imperfect. I’m imperfect. I’m happy with that…well, content with it. That’s why I’m not already run off by some of the more cranky ones around here.
Major Major Major Major
@T S: yeah, I feel like there’s been an uptick in trigger-happy hostility in the last year. Think everybody’s a little on edge. It’s certainly led to me cutting back here. And watching myself more elsewhere. Maybe I’ve changed!
T S
@Major Major Major Major: I’ll try to be less miserable myself. I have my limits, though.
T S
@Kay: Yeah, I get torn between being happy sometimes they aren’t in total control of everything and totally omnipotent versus, well, hell, they should at least know SOMETHING.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I think pessimism is seen by a lot of folk here as a form of indirect voter suppression. Comey’s shit was a good example of indirect voter suppression.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: good point on both counts, but when it’s coming from commenters that have actual history (which is not insane) I feel like maybe there’s room for the benefit of the doubt. Especially since deep threads here aren’t exactly undecided voter central.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: True, it works both ways…if a commenter gets a lot of push back on their view, they might want to give that view some thought before reiterating it.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: but it’s so much easier to assume the people with opposing opinions are just holier than thou insiders/outsiders and/or Russian trolls!
Sab
First time in months that I actually slept through the night, and I wake up at 6 am and discover there was activity on BJ at 3 am.
Most nights at 3 am BJ has crickets.
Tractarian
By going on this book tour now, Comey is knowingly harming his credibility. Which will make it much more difficult for Trump to be held accountable for his misdeeds. And why is he doing it? Money.
Well, I guess we always knew he was a Republican….
Mayur
@Steve Crickmore: You’re quoting the Daily Fail? Now I am beginning to think you’re a Russian bot.
BTW, regarding what John Cole thinks of this, there was an entire post about it:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/04/13/fbi-fapping-bunch-of-insufferables/
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Frats and female frats are despicable people sneering and looking down their noses at regular people in school
I was a Gamma Delta Iota… GDI… which stands for God Damn Independent, in my first college, which was old, hallowed and tres Greek, although the school built identical small dorms for each fraternity/sorority and called it the Quad. Then I got drafted.
Frats are usually guilty of hubris, snobbery, arrogance and worse. They get people killed with hazing stunts, they get people addicted to alcohol, one of the worst drugs to be hooked on if you’re prone to addiction.