Former FBI Director James Comey sat down for a remarkable interview on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” this week. The interview was able to evade any mention of the findings of misconduct and false statements made by Comey. It was impressive how in a target rich environment CNN was still able to hit the small spaces between the scandals.
Cooper cut to the chase and raised the current campaign for president. Comey did not disappoint and declared Trump a “threat to the rule of law.”
I do not object to Comey voicing such an opinion. Comey then went further to declare that the GOP was now a “cult” and held forth on the need to protect the rule of law against political bias.
For those of us who have been long critics of Comey, the interview was almost a mocking parody.
Comey recently celebrated the indictment of Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg despite even some liberal experts denouncing the charges as a political prosecution. The political weaponization of the criminal justice system was declared by Comey to be “a good day.”
The former FBI director, who has been teaching and speaking on government ethics, joined others in celebrating the upcoming arrest of Trump because nothing says “ethical leadership” like a patently political prosecution.
Comey declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton on her email scandal despite finding that she violated federal rules and handled classified material “carelessly.”
He declared, “Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly the truth.”
Yet now Comey is heralding a raw political prosecution.
Cooper also did not ask Comey about the blistering report of Special Counsel John Durham on the repeated failure of his own leadership in pushing an investigation without sufficient evidence. Under his leadership, the FBI took a false Russian collusion theory pushed by the Clinton campaign and continued the investigation despite early refutation of the underlying sources and claims. That included warnings from American intelligence that the agency was using suspected Russian disinformation funneled through the Clinton campaign.
During the Sussmann trial, it was revealed that an agent told colleagues that FBI leadership, including then-Director James Comey, was “fired up” about the alleged secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. That was also a false allegation created and pushed by the Clinton campaign.
It was Comey who was fired after former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein cited him for “serious mistakes” and violating “his obligation to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the traditions of the Department and the FBI.”
It was Comey who violated federal laws and removed FBI material (including reported classified material) after being fired and then leaked information to the media.
None of that was relevant to an interview on allegations of misconduct at the FBI and protecting the rule of law.
It was akin to interviewing Joseph Hazelwood on good maritime practices without mentioning the Exxon Valdez.
For Comey, it was just another “good day” in the media.
James Comey is amazingly lacking in self awareness. The idea that he would go around the country lecturing people on ethics would be funny if it were not so pathetic.
Comey’s latest stunt:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12158265/Jen-Psaki-James-Comey-claim-Trump-accept-nomination-ankle-monitor.html
Comey comes across as a very good man, a man dedicated to doing the right thing, you know, as long as he is protected from pushback, investigation, and prosecution by the news media, the FBI, the DOJ, the intelligence community, corporate America. and academia.
I want dokey to come to my 80….we’re a woman ran for her life….And no one would investigate! Witch is now a killing ground. T hat bc before no one would investigate. The killer even known now to chesterfield he won’t look! The dude the license I called in already. Yes normal…..but dead bodies the end of the field are n ot. The lady with the back pack….who is she? …..where is she? But they are certain the dude who drove up on us is innocent? How certain? He’s got a body buried down there between the trees and his marked cans! Who is the creep fbi? Bc the local sheriff thinks he’s harmless. My gut is worth something and says otherwise! Fbi should do it’s job….has my consent……to unearth that body he already put there. I will show you next week. But you better not blow off the plate me and my kid took down! Like the sheriff did!
CNN should be required to post a disclaimer on every one of its programs, as follows:
“This program is a work of fiction. Any similarities presented or discussed to any actual facts or actual events are purely unintentional and coincidental.”
The question, in my opinion, is what can be done about this? There is clearly a coordinated effort, including ALL cable news, major newspapers, ALL Democrats, almost ALL of government, almost ALL courts of law, and others — in a combined effort to prevent this man from running for office when it is not at all evident he has committed any crime.
Something really needs to be done, now, before the process is permanently violated such that anyone subjected to a sh*tstorm of lies can be precluded.
Stack Pointer: Trump doesn’t need “all cable news, major newspapers, all Democrats, all of government, or all courts of law” to prevent him from running from office. How many gallons of Kool Aid have you drunk, anyway? Trump had a terrible reputation before he decided his ego needed the attention, adulation and power of the US presidency. Most people on earth, and most Americans, for that matter, found him to be loud, braggadocious, obnoxious, racist and misogynistic. He took business bankruptcy 6 times, and was sued thousands of times for refusing to pay valid bills for goods and services. He bragged about forcing his creditors to sue him and then getting them to settle for less than the agreed-upon price to save attorney fees and litigation costs. He said this made him “smart” and a “master dealmaker”, and this is why he was widely viewed as a crook even before running for office. In debates with HRC, he bragged about cheating on his taxes, also claiming this made him “smart”. He had no governmental experience, and had to be schooled on the basics of how our tripartite government works because he really didn’t know. He also didn’t care.
Once he got into office, the successful economy inherited from Barak Obama took a nosedive. He started a trade war with China, he botched the pandemic, making it much worse than it had to be. He constantly lied. His only legislative achievement was passing a tax break that mostly benefitted the very wealthiest individuals and corporations. This caused our national debt to rise ot record levels. He rolled back consumer and environmental protections–which helped the bank failures recently in the news. He alienated our EU and NATO allies, and lobbied on behalf of Russia to try to get it back into the G-7 after it was kicked out for human rights violations. He praised Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius”. He only got into office by cheating–with the help of Russian hackers, because polls predicted he would lose. When he lost again in 2020, he went on a “Stop the Steal” tour, telling his fans that his imaginary “landslide victory” was stolen by a rigged election–something he knew wasn’t true, but couldn’t stop lying about. He told his fans to “fight like hell or you’re not going to have a country any more”, and tried to rig the vote count in Georgia by getting the Secretary of State to “find” votes for him that didn’t exist. He encouraged his fans to attack Congress to prevent Joe Biden’s victory from being certified, and refused to call off his fans for over 3 hours while they hunted the VP with a noose, intending to lynch him. His lawyer was sentenced to 3 years in prison for campaign finance violations, lying to the FBI and tax evasion–all to benefit him over a payoff to an adult film star. He is facing criminal charges for this. He stole classified documents after being put out of office, hid them and lied about returning them. He made up a story about mentally declassifying documents–something he knew wasn’t true. We don’t know yet what he planned to do or has done with our most-sensitive secrets, who he showed the papers to, or what financial leverage he’s used the documents for. He’s being investigated for the documents he stole. We know some of these documents pertain to Iran.
And, you believe that there’s some vast comspiracy “to prevent this man from running from office when it is not at all evident he has committed any crime”? You are just a starry-eyed disciple if you can’t see how dangerously unfit Trump is to serve in any capacity. Oh, and he’s a draft-dodger, too.
Please seek immediate help for your advanced and acute Trump Acceptance Rejection Disorder (TARD).
>> Trump had a terrible reputation before he decided his ego needed the attention, adulation and power of the US presidency.
His reputation was good enough to get him elected. Without cheating (which doesn’t seem possible for Biden).
>> He took business bankruptcy 6 times, and was sued thousands of times for refusing to pay valid bills for goods and services.
I think you mean he was head of six corporations that filed Ch. 11. There were actually four casinos, IIRC, and while the casinos DID file Chapter 11, he paid every nickel he had to make creditors whole. Which is how he ended up with a $950 Million Net Operating Loss Carryforward, the reason he didn’t have to pay taxes for several years.
The creditors were paid, but he ended up penniless other than his real estate equity, for the most part.
This is the MAXIMIUM our bankruptcy code under Chapter 11 requires. Once you’ve given up everything you had, it doesn’t ask for more. Contractors who had not been paid got 85% IRRC. Which THEY accepted. While he is litigious and always has been, half of the lawsuits he participated were required by NJ state law, in pursuit of gamblers who had skipped on debt to casinos. The others were mostly contractors who did not perform what they agreed upon doing. Commercial law deals handily with these issues. You at least have vastly overstated the situation, and to go further you’d have to detail the specifics of a given case. He never bragged about any of this. That is just made up BS.
>> Once he got into office, the successful economy inherited from Barak Obama took a nosedive.
This is a false statement. Trump substantially improved unemployment and vastly reduced the unemployment rate for black employees over his four year term. Biden inherited a great economy, which everyone agreed BEFORE he left office. And Biden gutted it.
I’m done. I won’t respond to further BS from you.
GO TRUMP IN 2024
Obama had the worst economic recovery since WW2, had the 4th worst presidential economy in US history, and was the first Pres to never have a year of 3% growth.
Biden’s economy is even worse.
During the Trump presidency there was virtually no inflation, we were energy independent, median household income rose $6,000 in 3 years, 7 million people off food stamps, poverty rates for blacks and hispanics reached record lows, the bottom 50 percent of American households saw a 40 percent increase in net worth, and black homeownership increased from 41.7 percent to 46.4 percent.
And there were no new wars, no escalation of old wars, Putin didn’t invade anyone, China didn’t surround Taiwan with live fire exercises twice, no spy balloons over the US, NKorea didn’t simulate a nuclear attack against SKorea, and people weren’t talking about world war 3 with Russia.
The only weapon repubs have now is the budget, and some even in the senate seem to be willing to use it.
Why should we be surprised? When a member of the Federal government is interviewed by another member from another branch of the Federal government why should we think that any probing questions will ensue. The truth be told it’s really an interview conducted by The Federal Bureau of CNN. It’s modeled after The Bagdad Bob School of journalism. Why should CNN conduct a tough interview of a Democratic government henchman when CNN is just a another wing of the Federal government? It is silly to expect anything else.
Comey is hubris personified and has no shame, and no doubts of his omnipotence. Trump humiliated him, learning of his firing on TV. I’m sure Comey believes his mission is payback.
Calling the United States a ” banana republic” is an insult to banana republics.