He does that all the time, reverses what he said two minutes previously.
Miriam
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Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: James Comey's Remarkable Story About Donald Trump
Did you notice that he said that Comey vindicated him and before he had a
chance to pause for a breath he said that Comey was lying?
On 6/9/2017 5:08 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I read the statement Wednesday. There was a link to a PDF file in the
article that I posted to this list. Given Trump's personality and his
manner of functioning, he really might just have meant to say to the
FBI director, "You know, Flynn didn't actually do anything wrong so
why don't you just let this go", and that might be true. And he might
not have realized that attempting to stop an FBI investigation would
be seen as beyond the acceptable. He can't get over his presidential
powers. He brags to the Russians about how he gets to see all this
secret material. He's stupid enough to brag about the latest tidbit of
intelligence he's been given. So why wouldn't he think that it's OK to
have a confidential talk with his FBI director and just obliquely suggest
that he forget about this investigation?
Miriam
Former FBI director James Comey testifying in Washington on May 3, 2017.
(photo: AP)
James Comey's Remarkable Story About Donald Trump
By Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
09 June 17
President Trump appears to be guilty of obstruction of justice. That's
the only rational conclusion to be reached if James Comey's opening
statement for his planned testimony before the Senate Intelligence
Committee, on Thursday, is to be believed. The lurch of the Trump
Presidency from one crisis to the next scandal produces a kind of
bombshell-induced numbness, but that should not prevent us from
appreciating the magnitude of Comey's statement.
The statement, alongside other established facts, doesn't just lay out
evidence; it tells a story. In this tale, the President knows how much
power he possesses and dangles it before those who serve him. The
F.B.I. director was in the middle of a ten-year term, which was
designed to give him some insulation from political pressure, but
there was a catch: Trump could still fire him. And Trump clearly knew
it, as he repeatedly demanded Comey's personal loyalty. An early
conversation, on January 27th, over dinner in the Green Room of the
White House, set the tone: Comey was to answer to Trump, or the F.B.I.
director would be gone. As Comey put it, he saw that Trump was trying to set
up a "patronage relationship."
Soon enough, Trump called on Comey's loyalty. The President was
worried about the F.B.I.'s Russia investigation, and he wanted a
premature exoneration from Comey. The director hedged, clearly
uncomfortable with the demand, but finally told Trump, in rather
convoluted ways, that he was not a subject of the investigation-at least not
yet.
But the Russia probe continued to worry the President, and soon he had
more demands. The climax of Comey's statement is his cinematic
recounting of a meeting with the President in the Oval Office on
February 14, 2017. The drama begins after the meeting, when the
President instructs the other officials present, including Vice-President
Mike Pence, to leave the room.
Trump even takes the extraordinary step of asking the Attorney
General, Jeff Sessions, who was Comey's boss, to go, in order to allow
the President to speak with the director alone. Trump then shoos Jared
Kushner, his son-in-law, out of the Oval Office, too. (When Reince
Priebus, the chief of staff, looks in, a while later, Trump also asks
him to stay out of the
conversation.) This insistence on a one-on-one meeting suggests what
prosecutors like to call "consciousness of guilt." All these
high-ranking officials had clearance to hear anything that Trump might
want to say to the director, so the fact that the President wanted
them out of earshot would seem to indicate that he knew that what he
was telling Comey was wrong-that it was, indeed, an obstruction of justice.
When the two men were alone, Comey writes, Trump asked him to help out
the just-fired national-security adviser, Michael Flynn. In Trump's
typical scattershot fashion, he started talking about Flynn, but
segued to the subject of leaks, before getting back on topic. In the
key passage of Comey's statement, he writes:
The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is
a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn't
done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the
Vice-President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to
letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let
this go."
I replied only that "he is a good guy."
This part of Comey's testimony, if it's accurate, is a smoking gun.
The President is instructing his subordinate to stop an F.B.I.
investigation of Trump's close associate.
Comey told the F.B.I. leadership team about Trump's outrageously
improper request, but he did something more, too. When Comey went to
see his direct boss, Sessions, he made an urgent request:
I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any
future direct communication between the President and me. I told the
AG that what had just happened-him being asked to leave while the FBI
Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind-was inappropriate and
should never happen. He did not reply.
The language is uncharacteristic for the lawyerly F.B.I. director: he
implored his boss to put a stop to the President's meddling. But
Sessions, a more loyal soldier, said nothing.
The most important piece of evidence in the obstruction case against
Trump is actually never mentioned in Comey's opening statement. That
evidence is what occurred on May 9th. Comey had not acceded to the
President's request that he cease the investigation of Flynn and the
connection to Russia, and he paid the price with his job. Later, Trump
all but confessed that he had rid himself of this meddlesome director
because of Russia. He told NBC's Lester Holt, "When I decided to just
do it"-to fire Comey-"I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia
thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.' " The day after the
firing, the President boasted to the visiting Russian foreign
minister, Sergey Lavrov, saying, "I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That's taken off."
There is, of course, much more to know about this story. Did Trump use
other government officials to try to stymie the Russia investigation?
During an Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, senators
pressed Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Admiral
Mike Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, about their
contacts with Trump on the issue; they refused to answer. They may
eventually tell what they know-as, surely, will others. But the story
is now complete in its outline, if not its details, and Trump's culpability
is clear to anyone who cares to look.
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