Former director of the FBI, James Comey. (photo: Getty)
FBI's Comey Sacked by People With Much to Gain by Firing Him
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
10 May 17
Why does Comey, already under investigation, need to be lynched?
FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz started investigating FBI Director
James Comey and other FBI officials no later than January 12, 2017, in
response to "requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of
Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of
the public." In his May 3 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Comey said he welcomed the investigation, because if he'd done something
wrong, he wanted to know about it. Comey also confirmed again that the FBI
was investigating the nature of the relationship between representatives of
the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
In a tweet on May 8, the president apparently attempted to interfere in the
latter investigation, an arguably illegal and impeachable act. President
Trump tweeted at 6:46 p.m.: "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total
hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?" In the first place, it is
false to call the story a "total hoax" when there are so many documented
Russia-Trump contacts, including most notably the man Trump first chose to
be his national security advisor. More importantly, the president's tweet
seems aimed directly at James Comey, the official who could limit or shut
down this complex investigation into so many of the president's men. In a
functional government, the president has no authority to interfere, directly
or indirectly, in an ongoing investigation.
Later on May 8, ProPublica ran a story based on leaks calling Comey's Senate
testimony "inaccurate" as it related to Hillary Clinton emails on Anthony
Weiner's laptop. The story was technically accurate while creating a
somewhat false impression of the false impression created by Comey's
testimony. On May 9, FBI Assistant Director Gregory Brower sent the Senate
Judiciary Committee an official, clarifying letter "to supplement" Comey's
testimony and to provide "the full context of what was reviewed and found on
the laptop," ProPublica reported on this letter with a made up, false
statement: "the FBI acknowledged that only a 'small number' of more than
49,000 'potentially relevant' emails found on Weiner's laptop had been
forwarded.." ProPublica also falsely reported that the "FBI said just two of
those messages contained classified information."
The FBI letter identifies 12 email chains with classified material that had
not been marked classified at the time it was sent. The letter is clearly
and unambiguously written, and there is no reason to believe it was sent
without Comey's approval. ProPublica's treatment of this story seems to
illustrate the difficulty Washington has these days treating anything both
factually and honestly.
Early in his 2 p.m. May 9 press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer
explained away the White House's slow reaction to having a national security
advisor who was vulnerable to blackmail and lying to colleagues this way:
Well, I think, first of all, let's look at the timeline. Sally Yates came
here on the 26th of January. Then she informed the Counsel's Office that
there were materials that were relevant to the situation. It wasn't until
about seven days later that they had access to those documents. After that
time, they did what you should do; frankly, it's an element of due process,
reviewing the situation. They informed the president right away after they
were informed of her giving us a head's up. And ultimately, the president
made the right decision. [emphasis added]
This explanation is based on a lie of omission, since others had warned the
White House about Gen. Michael Flynn long before late January. Spicer's
"timeline" is a complex lie of distortion, since the president fired Yates
on January 30 and the White House stalled before looking at the evidence,
then allowing Flynn to resign on February 13. Spicer tried to lie about the
president defending Flynn, but a reporter reminded him the president had
called the matter a "witch hunt" and also said Flynn "should seek immunity"
before agreeing to testify. Another reporter asked: "But don't you think
it's worrisome that he was still doing that [acting as national security
advisor] when he was a potential target of Russian blackmail?" Spicer
stonewalled.
Near the end of the press conference that concluded at 2:48 p.m., a reporter
asked: "Is the White House concerned that the FBI director apparently gave
inaccurate testimony?... Does the president still have confidence - full
confidence - in FBI Director James Comey?" Spicer tried to evade the
question, eventually saying, "I have not asked the president since the last
time we spoke about this." That pretty much left Comey twisting slowly,
slowly in the wind.
But not for long. Within hours, President Trump not only interfered with the
FBI inspector general's investigation of Director Comey, but effectively
killed it by firing Comey for no specific reason. Nothing we seem to know at
the moment (late on May 9) seems to explain the need to interrupt due
process of law (so important for Flynn) and instead rush to lynch the
subject of an independent investigation. In the context that now seems to
exist, the Comey lynching appears to have been planned for some time, but
then hurried into execution. Why the rush?
The White House was in such a hurry, it didn't even notify Comey directly.
The president called Congressional leaders, including Senate minority leader
Chuck Schumer of New York. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Schumer
told Mr. Trump that he was making a 'big mistake.' Mr. Trump paused. 'O.K.,'
he said. 'We'll see.'" Later the president attacked Schumer on twitter. In
its haste, the White House hand delivered the firing letter to the FBI in
Washington, apparently unaware that Comey was then in Los Angeles. Comey
learned of his "effective immediately" firing from news reports and, at
first, thought it was fake news. His first reaction was to laugh. Comey's
reaction to the letter itself is not known, but it, too, is risible in its
way:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
May 9, 2017
Dear Director Comey,
I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy
Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I have accepted their
recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office,
effective immediately.
While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions,
that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment
of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the
Bureau.
It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public
trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors,
Donald J. Trump
After opening with a paragraph that seems to say "The buck stops with those
guys," the president gets to the heart of the matter, at least insofar as he
seems to be concerned: "I am not under investigation.." But that sentence
goes on to say, "that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau," from
which one cogent inference is that: if you could lead the Bureau
effectively, you would be investigating me. Whatever the president is
actually thinking remains opaque. He offers no justification for his
decision beyond unsupported claims, attributed to others.
One of those others is Attorney General Jeff Sessions who, having supposedly
recused himself from everything related to the Russia-Trump connections
investigation, suddenly emerges to kill it. The Sessions letter does not
even hint at the way Sessions is blowing up his commitment to not act in his
own self-interest in a matter where his conflict could hardly be more stark.
Like the president, Sessions offers no supported argument for why Comey must
go. Also like the president, Sessions kicks responsibility for the decision
down the chain of command to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who at
least offers some argument against Comey, albeit flawed and fundamentally
dishonest. It reads like a brief written by a lawyer ordered to make a case
that had neither weight nor substance, but could be a good excuse for a
lynching. Besides that, Rosenstein was reaching conclusions on matters that
are properly the province of the FBI's inspector general. Rosenstein makes
clear that his memo to Sessions was discussed between them in advance and
that Sessions was in prior agreement with its arguments.
The memo begins with an assertion for which no evidence is offered.
Rosenstein takes it as accepted fact that, over the past year, "The FBI's
reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage." That damage is
unspecified.
In Rosenstein's view, Comey's sin is the way he handled in July 2016 of the
closing of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email
server for State Department business. This has long been a rabid Republican
talking point, frequently summed up in the Trump rally campaign shout, "Lock
her up." Rosenstein is, among other things, a Republican whose own judicial
appointment had been derailed by Democrats in 2007 (the seat having been in
play and vacant since 2000). Rosenstein was confirmed as Deputy Attorney
General on April 26, 2017, replacing Sally Yates, whom Trump fired in
January. Rosenstein was then the longest-serving US attorney (2005-2017),
having been confirmed unanimously by the US Senate.
Rosenstein's indictment of Comey is viciously one-sided. It makes no effort
to be balanced, even-handed, or even logical. The attack begins, referring
to earlier conversations with Sessions:
As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director's
handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's
emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal
judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made
serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse
perspectives.
Pre-empting the inspector general's investigation, Rosenstein concludes that
Comey must be wrong because "almost everyone" thinks so. Almost everyone
thought there were WMDs, almost everyone thought torture was fine and dandy,
almost everyone thinks presidential assassination by drone strike and waging
endless undeclared wars are matters unworthy of serious concern. This manner
of reasoning is a longstanding, fundamental failure of coherent and honest
thinking. It has a formal name, even: "argumentum ad populum." Rosenstein
also uses it with another logical fallacy ("argumentum ad auctoritatem"),
the argument from authority, that because someone in authority says
something is true, therefore it is true (see pervious list re WMDs, etc.).
In other words, Rosenstein's reasoning, like that of Sessions and the
president, is thoroughly specious.
Worse, it is dishonest to its bones. Rosenstein distorts the reality of the
Clinton investigation in July 2016 in multiple ways:
.He omits any mention of Republican pressure, from Congress and elsewhere,
for Comey to produce a political indictment.
.He minimizes the role of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who had
compromised herself by meeting with Bill Clinton, and who reportedly cleared
Comey's action in advance.
.He makes absolute, after-the-fact judgments, condemning Comey's behavior
even though it was known to the Justice Department at the time and no one
chose to head him off.
.He omits any serious consideration of the difficulty of Comey's
unprecedented situation - investigating the Democratic candidate for
president - but rather suggests that what Comey should have done was
essentially nothing, with all the highly-partisan political benefit that
would have given Republicans.
Rosenstein deals with Comey's October 28, 2016, announcement of the new
email investigation in one sentence that refers to Comey's explanation
months later. Rosenstein has nothing to say about Comey's promise to
Congress, or about Republican pressure from within the FBI, or about the
risk to the FBI if the new Clinton situation was leaked. Rosenstein again
judges the situation from a "normal" perspective and not as the remarkably
heated and complex political bomb it was.
The bulk of Rosenstein's memo is devoted to quoting people who agree with
him, as if that were evidence. He knows it's not. Sessions knows it's not.
Who knows what the president knows, or if he ever knew it.
None of the parties involved in lynching Comey have had the integrity even
to mention the FBI inspector general, much less to explain why their
self-serving opinions should pre-empt whatever conclusions he might reach
based on articulated evidence.
Based on their memos, and based on their dereliction of duty in not allowing
the inspector general's investigation to run its course, Rosenstein and
Sessions, at a minimum, should be "terminated and removed from office,
effectively immediately."
Failure to do so would be, arguably, another impeachable offense.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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