what could go wrong with the optics on that?
Dems and the Left would whine even louder than they are now about "collusion". This time in Trump's Justice department.
what could go wrong with the optics on that?
Actually, I don't agree. Comey wrote the memo. The White House has denied its contents. If Comey did not record the conversation, it is he said, he said. You have to have direct evidence.
Correct, but the media is making the charge of obstruction based on that supposedly damaging Comey memo...so it seems to me that's the "smoking gun" if it's a legitimate charge.
I happen to think it's totally bogus (it's an anti-Trump media driven hoax) but I'd be anxious to see both the NYT and/or Comey discredited either way.
The memo would not be enough. I just watched Turley on Morning Joe. He said it is not enough. There needs to be direct evidence and even Comey's memo, if true, does not suggest obstruction. Hope is not a directive.
Agreed...as far as the media is concerned though it is the crux of their charge of obstruction on the part of Trump. Fox btw is reporting that Trump did indeed ask Comey to "drop" the investigation, at least they are reporting that is what is written on Comey's now famous "memo"
So it seems to me that memo starts the investigation of the legitimacy of the charge, given everything else you say must also be proven in order to make an obstruction charge stick.
The NY Times posted what the leaker read to them from the memo. The word hope was used. Not an order.
Lol, look it up and see what weight memo for records hold in court.Actually, I don't agree. Comey wrote the memo. The White House has denied its contents. If Comey did not record the conversation, it is he said, he said. You have to have direct evidence.
Correct. But apparently (at least according to the Fox report I heard) Comey wrote that Trump did indeed ask him to "drop" the Flynn probe. Im not saying that's true since we haven't actually seen the memo, but if that's true it puts Trump's denial into another realm.
I still think it's bogus, but we need to see that memo and what Comey actually wrote, and in what context it was written.
Lol, look it up and see what weight memo for records hold in court.
I think the Times reported that Trump said he hoped Comey would drop the Flynn matter since Flynn was a good guy. Comey acknowledged that Flynn was a good guy. This is no different than Obama claiming that Hillary was innocent and lacked intent.
Moreover, the memo in and of itself is not nearly enough since the White House disputes the contents of the memo. You can't just accept Comey's word there needs to be additional proof.
Keep pretending it is just Dems and the left on this, only person whining today was your boy at the Coast Guard commencement. Ya'll are like Trumps oompa loompas.Dems and the Left would whine even louder than they are now about "collusion". This time in Trump's Justice department.
What amazes me PAX is there has been no comparison/contrast stories from the media between Obama's April, 2016 speech about the FBI probe into Hillary's investigation, and this Trump allegation.
Seems to me if Trump is guilty of the media's charge of "obstruction" they should at least explain why Obama wasn't guilty of the same thing when he suggested back then that the FBI should drop Hillary's probe and clear her...which they in fact did!
So why is Trump's suggestion "obstruction" and Obama's is not? You'd think they'd at least attempt to show their viewers what the difference is, even if there isn't one?
Media=Lazy, stupid, biased, and WRONG.....always wrong.
Uh, Did Obama fire anyone who was investigating him and then basically threaten him on twitter? Ya'll leave out a lot of **** when you compare this orange to that apple.What amazes me PAX is there has been no comparison/contrast stories from the media between Obama's April, 2016 speech about the FBI probe into Hillary's investigation, and this Trump allegation.
Seems to me if Trump is guilty of the media's charge of "obstruction" they should at least explain why Obama wasn't guilty of the same thing when he suggested back then that the FBI should drop Hillary's probe and clear her...which they in fact did!
So why is Trump's suggestion "obstruction" and Obama's is not? You'd think they'd at least attempt to show their viewers what the difference is, even if there isn't one?
Media=Lazy, stupid, biased, and WRONG.....always wrong.
You and I differ on this a bit. Yes, the media is biased, but they are more than that, imo. They are corrupt. They know exactly what they are doing and executing their plan. It is intentional on their part, not just an accident of bias.
Uh, Did Obama fire anyone who was investigating him and then basically threaten him on twitter? Ya'll leave out a lot of **** when you compare this orange to that apple.
Uh, Did Obama fire anyone who was investigating him and then basically threaten him on twitter? Ya'll leave out a lot of **** when you compare this orange to that apple.
This is where you are misinformed by the Media. Why did Truimp fire Comey? Trump wasn't under investigation as you stated. He fired Comey for his bungling of both the
Hillary probe and the illegal unmasking of illegally surveilled Americans in those FISA warrants.
The FBI is not, nor has been investigating Trump...only allegations into Russian involvement in our elections which to date has not implicated Trump in any way, shape, or form.
They are investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians, but not Trump himself. You said Trump fired Comey for investigating him, and you are just ill infomed about that or you simply do not know what you are talking about.
How about the memo (which could have been a note of Trump's pressing, but not demand of dropping investigation)....coupled with Comey's firing?
At which point , he's no longer obligated as Director of FBI
The two types of inquiry are fundamentally different — dissimilar in their objectives, their processes, and their presumptions about secrecy and disclosure.
I've hear reports that Comey testified earlier but after the Trump memo meeting that no one had ever asked him to stop an investigation. I can't find anything on it.....do you have any info ?The FBI investigation of Hillary was a criminal investigation. The investigation of Russian interference and possible collusion was a foreign intelligence investigation. Two very different investigations.
Andrew McCarthy:
The Democrats’ latest canard ignores difference between criminal and intelligence investigations. There is nothing more inequitable than treating two fundamentally different things as if they were the same. This should be the retort to the media-Democrat complex’s latest “we wuz robbed” 2016 election narrative: The claim that the FBI became a rogue partisan, publicizing the investigation of Hillary Clinton while keeping mum on the investigation of Donald Trump. This theme was hammered by Democrats in the questioning of FBI director James Comey during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. It was, moreover, the leitmotiv of the New York Times’ 8,000-word report on the FBI’s handling of the two investigations — the losing side’s best shot at writing the definitive history. It is also dumb as a doornail. Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, based on mountainous evidence of law-breaking, resulted in a criminal investigation. The suspicion that associates of Donald Trump have troubling ties to Kremlin insiders, based on comparatively sparse evidence, has resulted in a foreign-intelligence investigation. The two types of inquiry are fundamentally different — dissimilar in their objectives, their processes, and their presumptions about secrecy and disclosure. The only similarity is that each is called an “FBI investigation.” To contend that this makes them equivalents, suitable for similar treatment, is akin to saying red and blue must be the same thing because each is a color. A criminal investigation is launched when investigators have a good-faith basis to believe one or more penal laws may have been violated. It is an inquiry that targets a particular person (or persons in the case of concerted criminal activity). Once investigators are convinced that a crime has been committed by the suspect, the objective of the investigation is to build a case fit for prosecution in a court of law — i.e., to amass sufficient evidence to prove the essential elements of the statutory offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The investigators fully anticipate making a formal public charge against the suspect (i.e., an indictment), which will be followed by a public trial — the presentation of witness testimony and tangible evidence in a judicial proceeding open to the media and other spectators. For commonsense reasons, various aspects of criminal investigations are secret. Search warrants and wiretaps would not be very useful if police had to notify the suspect in advance of their raids and surveillances. It would be very difficult to get the cooperation of witnesses or compel the production of relevant documents if grand jury proceedings were conducted in public. Most significantly, the suspect is presumed innocent. To publicize investigative information before a person has an opportunity to test its credibility under due-process rules would undermine the presumption and brand the person a criminal. Nevertheless, even amid the secrecy, an expectation of publicity hovers over every criminal investigation. Because resources are finite and crime is plentiful, police agencies rarely waste their time on unprovable cases. It is anticipated that charges will be filed, and that eventually everything will be revealed: Affidavits supporting warrants will be unsealed and provided to defense counsel; there will also be discovery of the evidence to be presented at trial, the grand-jury testimony of the witnesses, investigative reports detailing surveillances and witness interviews, and any potentially exculpatory information in the prosecution’s files. All of this is disclosed because of what a criminal investigation, in essence, is: an effort by the government to deprive a person of his constitutional right to liberty. We permit this only under the strictures of due process — a trial of the accused before a jury of his peers in which he enjoys the assistance of counsel, the right to confront witnesses, and an opportunity to present any defense he may have. Because the whole point is to assure the society that the government has met its burden of proof before a person’s liberty is removed, the proceedings must be public. The two types of inquiry are fundamentally different — dissimilar in their objectives, their processes, and their presumptions about secrecy and disclosure. This is day-and-night different from foreign-intelligence investigations. The objective of the latter is not to target a particular person for public prosecution. It is to protect the security and interests of the American people by acquiring information about the actions and intentions of foreign powers. Thus, the critical difference: Virtually everything involved in a foreign-intelligence investigation — its existence, any attendant court process, the information gathered, the analysis of its meaning, the methods and sources of its acquisition — is classified. When the information is collected, the presumption is that it is only for the eyes of government agents responsible for protecting national security and other American interests. In fact, even within that “community” of intelligence operatives, the information is closely held — shared only on a “need to know” basis. That is, even an agent with a top-secret security clearance is not authorized to read classified reports outside the agent’s area of responsibility. As we’ve seen, secrecy is regarded as a necessary but temporary evil in criminal investigations — the veil is lifted once a formal charge is filed. In foreign-intelligence investigations, by contrast, secrecy is a necessary obsession. Spies, moles, and other undercover operatives could be captured or killed if their covers were blown, cutting off vital intelligence streams about hostile nations or terrorist networks. In many places where American interests are threatened but American sources are sparse, our nation relies on the cooperation of foreign governments in gathering information. The cooperation would end if it were publicized — endangering Americans. Perhaps most important for present purposes, Americans who are caught up in foreign intelligence investigations are generally not suspected of criminal wrongdoing. If they were, they would be subjects of criminal investigations. The government is not supposed to use its foreign-intelligence collection authority as a pretext to build criminal cases. Consequently, there is an emphasis in intelligence investigations on maintaining the confidentiality of Americans whose identities or activities cross the government’s radar screen. Generally, their identities are concealed (or “masked”) even from intelligence agents working on the investigation. The investigative relevance of these Americans lies in not their own conduct, for the sake of proving them guilty; it lies in what their conduct — whether knowing or inadvertent — can tell our agencies about the plans of foreign powers that could imperil our country. Some Americans, because of their foreign business experience or academic expertise, may be quite valuable to intelligence investigators. Other Americans may act in support of foreign powers in a manner that is transparent and wholly legitimate under U.S. law. Yet it could be ruinous to the reputations of those Americans — and to any intelligence value they may have — if it were to be publicized that they were subjects of “an FBI investigation.” There is a stigma attached to that status, a cloud of suspicion that they must be criminals if the FBI is watching them. Therefore, the presumption is that foreign-intelligence investigations do not and should not become public — the opposite of our presumption for criminal investigations. Indeed, before FBI director James Comey’s startling public revelation (in congressional testimony) of an active investigation of possible ties between Trump associates and the Putin regime, what we knew about the investigation came from the leaking of classified information — a felony. The Clinton e-mails caper landed in the FBI’s lap as a public scandal. Before the criminal investigation commenced, it was a controversy featuring hacking reports, Freedom of Information Act litigation, congressional investigations, and a report and referral by the intelligence community’s inspector general. Throughout the investigation, moreover, there was intense congressional and media interest, including periodic leaks from Justice Department sources sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton. Because Clinton was running for president, it was a constant campaign topic. President Obama commented on it. There simply was no avoiding the fact that the criminal investigation’s existence was publicly known. What was not publicly known, until director Comey’s press conference on July 5, 2016, was what had been uncovered in the FBI’s investigation, and what calculations had been made about the legal merits of formally charging Clinton with crimes. Though I don’t agree with director Comey’s stated conclusions in the latter regard, I sympathize with his main concern, which was to demonstrate, in a matter of intense public interest, that the FBI had done thorough, credible investigative work. Sympathy can go only so far, though. There are many situations in which law-enforcement officials would love to go public with investigative information they’ve learned in uncharged cases, especially when they are wrongly accused or suspected of corruption. They are not allowed to do that, however, because there are higher national interests than their own reputations — than even the FBI’s reputation. Democrats crowed in delight over Comey’s public pronouncement that Mrs. Clinton’s case was not worthy of prosecution. The pronouncement flouted law-enforcement protocols, yet Democrats made it a centerpiece of their 2016 political campaign. Had they not done so, they would have a point in complaining about the FBI director’s highly irregular public description of the damning evidence amassed against an uncharged suspect. They’d be in the right to cry “foul” over his subsequent updates about the reopened and swiftly reclosed status of the investigation in letters to Congress in the two weeks prior to Election Day. As observed above, we endorse secrecy in criminal investigations mainly to uphold the presumption of innocence that is rooted in the Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process. That is why law-enforcement officials are not supposed to acknowledge the existence of an investigation or reveal its findings unless and until they level a formal accusation in court. But let’s pretend that Democrats had been victims wronged, rather than opportunists advantaged, by director Comey’s public statements. There would still be no good-faith basis to protest the FBI’s proper adherence to secrecy rules in the foreign-intelligence investigation of purported ties between Trump associates and Russia. There is no equivalence between criminal and intelligence investigations — the former expected to result in public disclosures, the latter classified and presumed secret. To claim otherwise is to elevate politics over national security . . . or to be just plain dumb.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...d-trump-associates-intelligence-investigation
I've hear reports that Comey testified earlier but after the Trump memo meeting that no one had ever asked him to stop an investigation. I can't find anything on it.....do you have any info ?
If Comey thought Trump was obstructing justice by telling him to drop the investigation, Comey was legally required to inform the DOJ and if he did not, subject to criminal prosecution.
Do you think if you just repeat it so many times, it will make it true?
![]()
Read the legal analysis from Fox News that I posted moron
I don't have to read the legal analysis. There is a room full of attorneys laughing their *** off at you right now. [laughing]
Do you really think Comey noted that Trump told him to drop the investigation? Do you think Trump is dumb enough to come out and say that directly?If Comey thought Trump was obstructing justice by telling him to drop the investigation, Comey was legally required to inform the DOJ and if he did not, subject to criminal prosecution. This is not hard to understand.
There were many reasons cited for Comey's firing. Many coming from Democrats.
Do you really think Comey noted that Trump told him to drop the investigation? Do you think Trump is dumb enough to come out and say that directly?
But like I said, maybe Trump suggested Comey drop the investigation while insinuating that Comey could lose his position. Maybe Comey noted it, but didn't feel it was an actual attempt at obstruction. Then when he didn't drop the investigation, he was fired. Now Comey knows, but isn't bound by the obligation you describe having been removed.
Enough maybes to go around......it's funny that Comey (who served as Deputy AG under Bush) is more of a focus in your mind than Trump in this scenario.
But like I said, maybe Trump suggested Comey drop the investigation while insinuating that Comey could lose his position. Maybe Comey noted it, but didn't feel it was an actual attempt at obstruction. Then when he didn't drop the investigation, he was fired. Now Comey knows, but isn't bound by the obligation you describe having been removed.
Did Comey ever testify after the memo meeting with Trump that no one asked him to stop an investigation. If he did, it would imply that he did not think Trump asked him to stop the investigation. I'm not sure how many times Comey has testified after the memo meeting.I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Can you clarify?
Did Comey ever testify after the memo meeting with Trump that no one asked him to stop an investigation. If he did, it would imply that he did not think Trump asked him to stop the investigation. I'm not sure how many times Comey has testified after the memo meeting.
Did Comey ever testify after the memo meeting with Trump that no one asked him to stop an investigation. If he did, it would imply that he did not think Trump asked him to stop the investigation. I'm not sure how many times Comey has testified after the memo meeting.
Don't feel sorry for me and believe me....I'm not naive. It's funny that I've always thought of you as the naive one. I guess it depends on our view of naive.HUH?
Some of you are so naive, I feel sorry for you. God help you if you ever have someone try to put the screws to you (get you to do something illegal, unethical or inappropriate). You don't cave in those situations. You document what happened for future reference. Make very thorough notes with many details, date, place, time, etc.
Doing the right thing doesn't imply that he didn't think Trump attempted to coerce his actions. That's ludicrous.
HUH?
Some of you are so naive, I feel sorry for you. God help you if you ever have someone try to put the screws to you (get you to do something illegal, unethical or inappropriate). You don't cave in those situations. You document what happened for future reference. Make very thorough notes with many details, date, place, time, etc.
Doing the right thing doesn't imply that he didn't think Trump attempted to coerce his actions. That's ludicrous.
ThanksComey did not but the current acting AG did. He said the investigation is ongoing.
Asking to stop an investigation is not obstruction. Withholding information, wiping a server clean, lying to an FBI agent is obstruction.So IF he decided to not throw a newly elected President under the bus by claiming he obstructed justice, he should be arrested? Right? It's Comey that would be the problem then? Comey? Because he didn't pursue an obstruction of justice charge against the President?
You realize that IF this was true, Trump would have had to actually obstruct justice, right?
This is the same govt that is supposed to keep secrets? Your excuses are pathetic. First, asking Comey to stop the investigation saying that Flynn had suffered enough is not abstuction. Withholding supeonaed emails, wiping a server, lying to an fBI agent is obstruction. Nothing like that happened here. Now, HRC did all three.Comey learned it as part of the greater Trump campaign/Russia collusion investigation. It was mentioned last night that he would have issues on specifically who to tell and when. It was also mentioned that he may have thought that sharing the contents of the memo with the DOJ for instance could have interfered with the larger investigation as the info could go public and that would not help matters. Maybe Comey had a larger window of opportunity to take that info to the DOJ and that simply because he didn't do it then doesn't mean that he has legal problems now. There sure are a lot of **** house lawyers (including yourself) on the board today. These matters will all be sorted out in time and I'd say that anyone making definitive statements here today simply don't know what they're talking about, are just guessing and could either be right or wrong but that happens on the board all the time. As you were.
But I thought you said that Clinton's service, intelligence, and beauty warranted her a free pass? Didn't you say that?Asking to stop an investigation is not obstruction. Withholding information, wiping a server clean, lying to an FBI agent is obstruction.
Asking to stop an investigation is not obstruction. Withholding information, wiping a server clean, lying to an FBI agent is obstruction.
I'd rather suck a big tranny cock than be forced to **** her. Can you imagine what that thing smells like? Or picture her in a thong? I bet that's the angriest looking ham wallet in the history of mankind.But I thought you said that Clinton's service, intelligence, and beauty warranted her a free pass? Didn't you say that?