You wanna make an Omlette? You gotta break some eggs.
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Yup, Comey’s been fired by President Trump. You’re probably wondering how he ended up in that situation.
Comey The Canary:
NPR: “this is because of Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton emails.”
NYT: “political interference by a sitting president into an existing [Russian] investigation by the nation’s leading law enforcement agency. ”
CNN: “Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Flores denies Comey asked Rosenstein for more [FBI] resources”.
NBC: “Trump claims that he was going to fire former FBI director James Comey regardless of recommendations to do so.”
YahooNews: “Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI, and still does to this day.”
Each media outlet is presenting a different angle, so what’s really going on?!
It was the best possible “termination” and personal outcome for James Comey – he just doesn’t know it yet.
Trump said he fired Comey at the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein [considered “the architect of Comey’s demise”], who questioned the FBI head’s judgment…
So Comey was fired over a vote of bipartisan non-confidence, or was it something worse? Maliciousness and stupidity seem similar, depending on the observer, so let’s figure out which is which.
“Grandstanding” The First 100 Days:
After his first 100 days, Trump blamed the constitutional checks and balances built in to US governance. “It’s a very rough system,” he said. “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.”
The system is archaic, but they exist for the reason of ensuring that tyranny does not go unchecked. It was a system set up by the Freemasons to specifically prevent a constitutional monarchy (or just plain ole’ monarchy) from spreading again, akin to Globalist Britain in the 18th century.
It’s essentially why we fought the American Revolutionary War.
Yet the checks and balances remain, and can be used in pursuit of good or evil.
If Trump actually were evil, then the legislative-judicial overreach (with the Russian probe, with the elections probe, with the “double-agents” sovereignty probe, with the “religious test” probe, etc) would be justified.
However, if Trump is good, then those same checks and balances can be used to stonewall a good President, to ensure that nothing he promises will get done, to ensure he is impeached starting in 2018, and jailed in 2020.
The unfortunate reality is that evil prevails when good men do nothing (or their jobs, militantly).
Hannah Arendt talked at length about the “banality of evil”, how bureaucrats through their sense of duty could collectively become the very evil they personally wouldn’t have ushered in themselves.
Yet Hannah Arendt is wrong, because her “concept study”, from which she made the general observations, came after witnessing the aftermath of WW2. Her oft-quoted rhetoric fails to mention that in Hitler’s Third Reich, it wasn’t the banality of evil that caused normally good men to enact a systemic, state-run machine of Jewish genocide. Instead, the German people bought wholesale into the idea of cleansing Jews from their society, simply because they didn’t like them very much (the myth of the Clean Wehrmacht):
The myth began in the late 1940s, with former Wehrmacht officers and veterans’ groups looking to restore honor and evade guilt; in 1950, as part of the rearmament of Federal Republic of Germany, the Western Allies endorsed the myth as a matter of public policy. The myth still has defenders to this day: a few German veterans’ associations, and various far-right authors and publishers in Germany and abroad. Modern defenders downplay or deny the Wehrmacht’s involvement in the Holocaust, largely ignore the German persecution of Soviet prisoners of war, and emphasize the role of the SS and the civil administration in the Third Reich’s atrocities.
In other words, what we’re seeing here in the Senate/House is the concept of the Clean Wehrmacht – politicians who are “all-talk, no-action” (many compromised themselves).
Those clamoring to fire Comey over his press conference on Hillary are now stating that to have fired Comey is tantamount to treason.
Donald just took away their excuse for getting nothing done. When the Democrats were calling Comey in for questioning, they were doing it to shift the blame to “investigations”. When the Republicans were calling Comey in for questioning, they were doing it to highlight the fact that it is inappropriate (and illegal) to comment on on-going investigations.
Neither partisan requests made Comey look too good. He was their whipping boy.
And thus it is ironic that the most headway was made by Comey himself, when he took the initiative to comment publicly in press conferences that he’d orchestrated. The FBI Vault is the FBI’s FOIA electronic archive. It is part of the FBI Records Management Division. It is the FBI – something Comey would have ordered shut down a long time ago if it wasn’t under his control. But there’s little anyone can do when all others are against them, for their own agendas.
After all, isn’t life just a giant game of “The Hot Potato Of Blame”?
And isn’t it a bit surprising that the only “leak” to come of this revelation is his reaction? The copy-and-pasted story reeks of FakeNews, simply because it is undeniably oozing smug. Him learning of his firing from a TV set. At a Diversity Meeting. In Florida (away from his office). The implication being that he was caught unaware, out of office, unable to warn anyone in advance (which, legally, could be treason) – it makes Trump seem unhinged, gives an opposite mood against Comey’s verifiable resignation letter, and makes Comey seem dangerous:
Former FBI Director James Comey was furious at the lack of respect the White House showed him in the way he was fired, sources have told ABC News.
This story is no different from the FakeNews presented about Milo’s firing, how a 16 year-old girl found the video that forced his resignation. The story broke on Vox, titled “Meet the 16 year-old Girl Who Took Down Milo Yiannopoulos”…and never presents the girl, claiming she wants to remain anonymous (while virtue-signalling her associations of pro-Islam, pro-LGBTQ, etc).
It’s nothing more than a liberal spin.
Comey was actually ousted for his own good:
You can even see it in Rosenstein’s letter, wherein Rod says he’s recommending Comey be fired over the handling of the Loretta Lynch fiasco (a scandal really meant for a different department and different figurehead):
The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict.
The Daily Caller notes that it seems like a “turf war”:
The use of terms like “usurp” and “supplant” are both arresting and telling, as is Rosenstein’s assertion that Comey effectively “assumed command” of DOJ. This section of the memo argues Comey’s public statements stripped DOJ officials of prosecutorial discretion. In disclosing legal conclusions to the public, the former director foreclosed a number of options for department officials, leaving them little choice but to decline to pursue a case against Clinton. What’s more, the memo also states it was improper for Comey, whose role is restricted to finding facts, to reach any legal conclusions in the first place.
But isn’t it interesting that the item to get Comey fired is something that was not only Old News, but relatively Scandal-Free?
For the record, here are Comey’s exact words on July 5th:
FBI Director James Comey said his office is not recommending prosecutors bring charges against Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information in connection with private email servers while secretary of state.
“Although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case,” Comey said Tuesday.
Comey clearly mentioned that the DOJ would take precedence in applying charges, and that they make a final decision (but only after seeking a case made by the FBI). His words are far less dramatic than Rod Rosenstein’s letter claims, and truth be told, this is the archaic system at hand. Two departments, different jurisdictions, different capabilities – all designed to prohibit overreach, consolidation of power, tyranny.
The Tyranny of Cankles:
Comey’s findings, outlined negatively in Rosenstein’s letter, were actually well-founded. Lynch is certifiably insane – but protected – threatening “blood, marching, death on the streets“.
She is a woman who will “protect Hillary at all costs“.
Indeed, Comey said he personally felt “boxed in” and a “victim of circumstances”. He even said that “Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton was the turning point in the email investigation”.
The Tarmac-airplane, grandchildren-and-golf meeting was a warning to Comey to not recommend charges the first time around — an event that occurred just before Comey said that “no reasonable prosecutor would recommend charges”, one he notes changed the direction of the FBI investigation.
As I maintained initially when considering Comey being the ultimate source of the leaks, when you’re squirming for a way out of (certifiable) “suicide”, you’d probably be happy to live, even if your career is torched in the process.
And speaking of career-torching…one of the biggest criticisms against Comey’s actions as FBI Director is over promising immunity deals to witnesses who lied in their testimony. When GOP lawmakers were calling out Comey for this infraction, they failed to mention that the only one who can sign off on immunity deals… is the DOJ.
Still, Chaffetz said he was “absolutely stunned” that the FBI would cut a deal with someone as close to the investigation as Mills. By including the emails recovered from the laptops in the immunity agreements, the Justice Department exempted key physical evidence from any potential criminal case against the aides.
“No wonder they couldn’t prosecute a case,” said Chaffetz, R-Utah. “They were handing out immunity deals like candy.”
Disappointed the FBI didn’t recommend criminal charges, congressional Republicans are seeking to keep the issue of Clinton’s email use alive through the November election. Clinton has called her use of the private server a mistake.
In blaming the FBI for a decision only the DOJ can make, in failing to discern the legal concept of immunity deals in a public hearing broadcast to millions of viewers, in nitpicking the details of an FBI investigation in order to, again, making Comey out to be a whipping boy, it was clear this was a bipartisan effort to stall the requirement of doing any work whatsoever.
Chaffetz resigned from his job earlier this month, I guess we’ll never know his motives.
But let’s say it is about the intent within Hillary’s emails and classified information. That still means nothing.
Why? Because Comey’s “admission” of an actual lack of intent (ironic) regarding the emails found (e-backup vs forwarding) is the most vanilla way to get shitcanned. On one hand, it officially ruins an investigation that would never happen anyway (Lynch and Clinton are still protected and protective). On the other hand, in the case of Anthony Weiner’s pedophilia charges, and Huma Abedin’s foreign espionage charges, intent (in terms of an e-backup or a forwarding chain) means nothing because they’re completely unrelated terms legally.
If you’re fucking children, the emails themselves can be used to imply intent. If you’re in bed with the Saudis, your actions against America are tantamount to treason. Regardless of whether you have the security clearance to view or access specific emails, if they’re found on your computer versus them being forwarded to your computer, that still counts as possession.
The excuse given is so “low-energy” that it becomes apparent that Comey is getting let off the hook for having to play cat-and-mouse with the power players.
So while Loretta Lynch is definitely malicious in her proactive attempts to sway the DOJ. Comey reaches the threshold of incompetence (in doing his job militantly in not commenting on live investigations), but hasn’t done anything proactive to impede an investigation. So he’s incredibly incompetent (publicly), stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“Malicious” would be him giving the order to delete hundreds of thousands of email strands in order to remove intent…like, with a cloth. And/Or anyone whose threatening to protect her at all costs (Lynch).
The real losers in all of this, however, are the Senate/House, all the fairweather friends who now have to put their money where their mouth is.
Either way, “you won’t have Comey to push around anymore”.
Because, remember, Comey (as a Justice Deputy) was instrumental in the DOJ’s rejection of the NSA Spying Program back in 2004. He’s the reason Ashcroft didn’t sign off of the White House’s spying of Americans. The situation was so crazy, that it even involved a high-speed chase to a hospital so Bush Attorneys wouldn’t attempt to coerce the former Attorney General Ashcroft into signing something he wasn’t of sound mind to authorize.
Comey was merely an Acting Attorney General at the time:
COMEY: I was headed home at about 8 o’clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was — on Constitution Avenue — and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft’s chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call…and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft. […]
So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and — with whom I’d been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week — and told him what was happening. He said, I’ll meet you at the hospital right now.
Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital.
I got out of the car and ran up — literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to that.
No wonder he took offense to the “weasel” comment.
So what does this mean in the grande scheme of things?
1,2, Sessions Coming For You:
Sacrificial Lamb (Definition), “they have been blamed unfairly for something they did not do, usually in order to protect another more powerful person or group”.
A day after being fired by President Trump, FBI Director James Comey wrote an email to the bureau explaining that he is “not going to spend time” thinking about the decision to fire him or how it was executed.
“I will be fine,” Comey assured his former staffers.
“I have said to you before that, in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty and independence,” the email read. “What makes leaving the FBI hard is the nature and quality of its people, who together make it that rock for America.”
Comey wrote that “working with you has been one of the great joys of my life.”
Comey’s refusing to comment on the situation of his termination, which is extremely telling (and extremely professional as he has always acted) when considering his defacto replacement, Andrew McCabe (a man who is, as opposed to Comey, under investigation by the DOJ and the Senate Judiciary Committee).
https://twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/862704138169204736
“a rock of competence, honesty and independence” – something McCabe is not.
This FBI raid is obviously occurring after Comey has been fired.
Rogers, whose firm has worked with campaign committees for Maryland Senate and House of Delegates candidates, said the FBI investigation concerns work the firm performed during the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial campaign of former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican.
In the gubernatorial race, Cuccinelli was facing off against Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Libertarian Robert Sarvis in the general election, collecting 47.8% of the vote; Cuccinelli garnered 45.2% and Sarvis received 6.5%.
It was very, very close vote, and it is ironic that the GOP candidate would be investigated when the DNC is currently embroiled in a federal lawsuit claims of election rigging. And he’s a personal friend of the Clintons:
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) Said He And The Clinton’s Are “Best Friends” And That They Have Been “Family Friends” For Three Decades. “We’re best friends, I’ve been family friends with the Clinton’s for thirty years. It’s a great relationship, we vacationed together for years, we’re just very personal friends, and I wanna see her in the White House. And I’m just thinking, imagine her in the White House, Bill, and I’m still as governor. We can have a great year together, really getting a lot of assets, rightfully so, moved to the commonwealth because that’s where they should be. You should forget those other 49 states, I’m gonna try to convince her, everything should go to Virginia.”
For clarification, the Clinton Global Initiative is not under investigation for campaign contribution misconduct – only McAuliffe is.
McCabe, now the FBI Acting Director, the sole actor in all of this defending Comey’s reputation within his own agency, is connected to McAuliffe’s illegal campaign contributions scheme. Well, McCabe’s wife, actually.
Virginia Democrats, led by Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, identified and began recruiting Dr. Jill McCabe to run for the state Senate months before the FBI began its investigation into Clinton’s emails. And the FBI says McCabe’s husband, Andrew McCabe, was promoted to deputy director of the FBI and took a supervisory role in the email investigation three months after his wife’s unsuccessful campaign had ended.
The Democratic governor’s political action committee donated $675,000 to McCabe’s failed state senatorial campaign. Again, McCabe’s wife (a Democrat) ran for a safe republican seat and had no chance of winning. When you factor that in, it looks more like a straight up bribe.
So in the end, Rod Rosenstein was on the right track. There was inappropriate handling of the DNC server investigation, but the blame didn’t lie with Comey, rather it sat square on McCabe’s shoulders.
However, the only way to prosecute a deputy director (without it seeming like an excessive overreach of executive power), something Barack Obama ironically, definitely did, is to ensure that they are placed in a position to be terminated.
Comey was “fired” by Trump to ensure that Andrew McCabe would be forced into the Acting Director role. He didn’t want to comment on his termination, lest he accidentally reveal the 4D Chess underlying (he would have been fired anyways, realizing that the FBI Director always serves at the pleasure of the President).
The raid a few days after his termination (which Comey would have known about since the investigation is at least four years old) was designed to ensure that McCabe himself would be fired out of the defacto position, and investigated accordingly (if it is proven that McAuliffe’s campaign illegally colluded with FBI resources). This FBI investigation in Annapolis also provides fodder for not only the McAuliffe case, but for the general “DNC election rigging” case making its way through the docket.
Trump hasn’t come up with a replacement for Comey’s position (even though he’s mentioned wanting to fire Comey for months) because he wants the mainstream media attention on McCabe. McCabe, for his part, is playing into Trump’s hands in supporting the non-existent Russian probe story…
Tl:Dr: Comey, the FBI Director, was a sacrificial lamb. Ironically, the “intent” (lol) was proven in the secret message Trump left Comey in his termination letter.
UPDATE (2.5 months after the original posting of this article):
Shit’s about to get real…
John Grayson @ Protonmail . Com 
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“Success in this game depends less on strength of body than strength of mind and character.” – Arnold Palmer
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