The Tuesday Night Massacre

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As you may have heard, President Trump has just fired FBI Director James Comey.

This is truly Nixonian Saturday Night Massacre level action.

Trump previously ran on, indeed got elected on, and likely only on, the scurrilous rogue comments of Jim Comey starting with the rogue July 5, 2016 press conference where Comey went off all rails on DOJ and PIN protocols. Here is the New York Times original report:

Mr. Comey’s dismissal was a stunning development for a president that benefited from the F.B.I. investigation of the Democratic nominee during the 2016 campaign. Separately, the F.B.I. also is investigating whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election.

The abrupt firing raised questions over whether Mr. Trump was trying to influence the Russia investigation. But he said he was following recommendations from the Justice Department, which criticized how Mr. Comey concluded the investigation into Mrs. Clinton.

Trump actually saluted Comey for this at one point. What a micro-moment self serving, not to mention narcissistic jerk.

If anybody in the world thought that that Trump is not as craven and against the Constitutional form of government we all were born and raised on, let that no longer be a question.

And if the media cannot get their heads out of their asses and realize the danger is NOT just to their First Amendment rights, but to the core of our republic and democracy, then they too should go the way of the dodo bird.

The foundations of this cowardly play were always there if you followed the ever changing voice and words of Donald Trump regarding the Clinton email issue and how the Department of Justice handled it.

If you thought this point, and/or Comey was the one only voice that could not be fired or silenced, you are sadly mistaken.

This blog has never, and I am being kind across my writings, Marcy’s and those of our departed friend Mary, been a friend of Jim Comey. He has long, and more presently, been an uneven and self serving voice mostly interested in preservation and enhancement of his own voice and position. Comey has been preternaturally successful at this.

That said, tonight I will be in Comey’s camp. I await what my friends at Lawfare and some others may have to say regarding the Tuesday Night Massacre.

Because this is a day that should live bright for a very long time.

People glibly talk about the “Resistance”. How naive. The battle is now, and has been joined in full by a cabal that makes Nixon look like a piker. The place is here. The time is now.

The temporal fact that it is Comey that tipped a scale of justice is immaterial. It has happened.

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82 replies
  1. P J Evans says:

    I hope that Comey gets called to testify under oath at many, many hearings.

    I hope that Comey has to do it under oath.

    I hope that Comey actually tells the truth instead of lying to protect himself.

    • jonf says:

      I doubt he will be called, but, like you,  I would certainly like to see it. Maybe he will give an interview but I doubt that as well. He has little to gain from it.  Whatever he says he can’t prove in any case.

  2. klynn says:

    I wondered what was up at the hearing yesterday as the GOP kept coming back to HRC instead of staying on track with the Russian investigation. Now we know.

  3. scribe says:

    This was never a matter of whether, only of when.

    It was a given that Trump would want to have the FBI beholden to him, so removing anyone remotely independent was a necessity.

    I’m betting his nominee for FBI director will be … Rudy Giuliani.  Or maybe Chris Christie.  They’re both available.  (Christie’s term-limited and he’s out of office come January 1 regardless.)

    People keep telling me what an idiot Trump is, how he’s a lousy businessman, make fun of his old AC casino selling the other day for pennies on the dollar of what he built it for, yadda yadda.  Well, NYC real estate is a very rough business filled with very rough characters.  Trump was in that business for decades and never wound up floating face-down in the harbor.  That is a not-uncommon fate for bad businessmen (or at least their careers).

    And, yes, I’m betting that at some point, HRC winds up in front of a grand jury (just like in the 90s, for Whitewater or her billing records or something, IIRC), only this time she gets charged.  Maybe even WJC for obstruction – for bolluxing the DoJ investigation by insisting on meeting with the AG in her airplane on the tarmac.  Or Obama, for murdering Anwar al-Awlaki’s teenaged son with a drone strike weeks after the old man was dead.

    These guys play rough.  I mean, Nixon sent Al Gore to Vietnam once his dad lost re-election.

    • jdmckay says:

      And, yes, I’m betting that at some point, HRC winds up in front of a grand jury (just like in the 90s, for Whitewater or her billing records or something, IIRC)

       

      I’m afraid you may be right.  Not for “justice”, rather only to send message not to fuck with Donald.

      It’s going to be a depraved 4 yrs for the country, and I suspect a long hangover afterwards as there was with GWB.

       

    • jonf says:

      I also think they will come after Hillary again. This firing seems to have two angles to it: first, curtail or end the Russian investigation and second get some revenge against Hillary.

  4. klynn says:

    People fire by Trump:
    Sally Yates
    Preet Bharara
    James Comey

    People investigating Trump:
    Sally Yates
    Preet Bharara
    James Comey

    • harpie says:

      January 26, 2017-Sally Yates tells McGahn she knows that Flynn DID speak with Kislyak.
      January 27, 2017-Yates and McGahn speak again.
      January 30, 2017-Yates is fired. The stated reason is that she said she would not enforce the travel ban Executive Order.
      March 10, 2017 -Trump asks for the resignations of 48 US Attorneys. Preet Bharara refuses to resign.
      NYT:  

      [Trump’s request] also came the same week that government watchdogs wrote to Mr. Bharara and urged him to investigate whether Mr. Trump had violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars federal officials from taking payments from foreign governments.

      March 11, 2017-Preet Bharara is fired.
      May 3, 2017-FBI Director James Comey confirms in a Congressional hearing that:

      the FBI is investigating potential ties between Trump Associates and the Russian interference in the 2016 campaign

      May 9,2017-Comey is fired. The stated reason is the way he handled the Clinton e-mail investigation.
      May 9, 2017–NYT
       

      Senior White House and Justice Department officials had been working on building a case against Mr. Comey since at least last week, according to administration officials. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire him, the officials said.

    • harpie says:

      Sen. Elizabeth Warren   

      [Yates…, Bharara…, Comey… investigate and get fired…] You put those together and it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. Donald trump doesn’t want anyone coming any place close to an active investigation into the relationship between the Russians, the Trump campaign and Donald Trump, himself.

  5. GKJames says:

    Agreed. While Comey was, for me, too obsessed with his own virtue, he has more of it than the president and Sessions et al. One thing’s certain: Republicans in Congress — ceaselessly preaching about the law and their fealty to the Constitution when a Democrat’s in the White House — will do everything to protect this president against legal accountability. Time for the Fourth Estate to roll up its sleeves. P.S. Do anti-Clinton progressives still believe there’s no difference between her and the president?

    • lefty665 says:

      re: P.S. Some of us thought, and think, they are horrid in mostly different ways. However, one of the ways they seem similar is in keeping score and getting even. Progressive is still pretty far to the right.

      • John Casper says:

        C’mon lefty665.

        Remember when you wrote, 

        “Trump seems to be making a few good appointments. Mattis at Defense is head and shoulders a better choice than Obama holding over Gates at the beginning or Carter at the end – bookends, and not so great in between either. McMaster as national security advisor is also arguably far better than Rice (either one). Gorsuch would never be my choice for the court, but he appears to be a decent human being and a big step up from Scalia. It will not be hard for Tillison to be a better Secretary of State than either of Obama’s choices. Trump can hardly make worse economic advisor choices than Summers, Geithner and the whole Rubin Citi crew, although he seems to be trying with the Goldman gang. The point being that not all of Trump’s choices are Bonkers Betsys, and in many ways (some better, some worse) this is just another presidential transition, the 43rd since Washington handed the reins to Adams.”
        https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/02/21/ask-uncle-ed-3a/#comment-711144

        You didn’t mention Comey.
        You didn’t mention Sessions, who was confirmed Feb. 9.

        • John Casper says:

          lefty665,

          173 of the 192 words you characterized as “blathering,” are yours.  

        • lefty665 says:

          Zzzzt wrong again twit boy John. You’re as inane and blathering as ever.

          This is an interesting and topical thread about Comey’s firing. Attempting to redirect it into an attack on me by quoting me out of context from a prior unrelated post pollutes the current thread. It is also disrespectful of Emptywheel and the people who have to wade through your garbage.

          In short, go fuck yourself twit. Practice your un-skills for the twit race offline.

        • John Casper says:

          lefty665,
          “Zzzzt wrong again twit boy,” phony lefty.
          “You’re as inane and blathering as ever.”
          What was “out of context” or did you lie at 8:41?
          “It is also disrespectful of Emptywheel and the people who have to wade through your garbage.
          In short, go fuck yourself twit. Practice your un-skills for the twit race offline.”
          Speaking of “disrespectful,” how much did you contribute to this site in 2016?

    • Let some air in says:

      I am an anti-Hillary voter who voted for Hillary in the elections, albeit with nose tightly clamped.  Just because Trump is beyond the pale does not make Hillary wonderful.

      Hillary better not run in 2020, because I’m not voting for her again

  6. lefty665 says:

    Wonder how long it will take his replacement to review the evidence and recommend to AG Sessions that Hillary et al should have the opportunity to face a grand jury? They can argue that 793(f) is simple, clear, never mentions intent, and there was TS/SCI transiting her unsecured email server.

  7. Charles says:

    And yet there are so many who think that the investigation of the Russian connection was a chimera, that the “real” threat came from the “Deep State”–people like Comey and Clapper–rather than the rather obvious collection of psychopaths in the Trump Administration.

    I’ve been the first to say that the more likely impetus for the distribution of Clinton documents may have been Trump, rather than the Russian government. It always struck me as fantastical that the Russians, with long memories of what right-wing demagogues did to them in World War II (and almost did during the Cold War), would hesitate to play with fire.

    But the Russia connection always deserved to be investigated. Fairly. Fully. Without interference from Trump or the Republicans. And if the trail led to Russia, so be it.

    Now Trump has stacked the Supreme Court, controls the Justice Department, has his minders in control all throughout government, has the Congress filled with theocrats and authoritarians, has a largely compliant media. Now the fate of the Republic is up to the despised bureaucrats and the hated Democrats and the moderate, middle-class rest of us, despised by the extremes as “sheeple.”

    I hope that those who have been imagining stuff about Trump as the friend of the common man fighting “the Deep State” will come to the realization that to the extent the “Deep State” exists, it’s Big Money and Big Oil, not people who came up middle-class, like Obama and Clinton.

  8. earlofhuntingdon says:

    We are in uncharted waters here. Trump makes Michael Corleone look like Sir Galahad. He.Has.No.Restraint. He doesn’t follow rules, even constitutional ones. He thinks their purpose is to entrap the naive and to be circumvented gleefully and profitably.

    Mr. Trump is not a Rotarian. The presidency is not a voluntary stint as a low-paid public employee, to give back to the country from which he has taken so much. It is a venue from which he can take more. He will make a deal with anyone who can enhance his position. He will throw anyone or anything under the bus, especially anyone who challenges his self-image by exposing him to reality.

    The Senate is the point of the spear in containing him. Federal Courts are another. The owners of corporate America and their principal courtiers, the ones that fashioned themselves around captured institutions, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, are another still. But there’s no substitute for an angry crowd. To borrow the title of a Daniel Day-Lewis film, there will be blood. And not just figuratively, as the 45,000 medically under- and uninsured who die prematurely each year in America attest. And the people who die prematurely because their work disappears and those whose workplaces become less safe, those whose food and water and air become dangerous to eat and drink and breathe. Even Nancy Reagan would Just Say No to what Donald Trump has in mind.

    • harpie says:

      Cue “The Godfather” theme music.
      Katy Tur‏Verified account @KatyTurNBC 

      “It was done to send a message … It’s like the horse head in the bed” – Fmr sr intel official tells @KenDilanianNBC re Comey firing.
      *

       

      “The way this was done, I think was done to send a message to the FBI agents left behind. It’s not just that they removed him—it’s that they did it in the most thuggish and humiliating way possible. No notice, no nothing—instant execution. The body guard delivers the letter to headquarters. I think that was designed to send a message: cut this shit out, or this will happen to you. This is like horse head in the bed.” 

  9. Avattoir says:

    Having read the Rosenstein letter, & having worked for many years within that milieu, I’m fairly confident that we should recognize the political abuse of the purpose for which it was written (Indeed, I’m inclined to suspect the memo’s face date represents more the date on which it was ordered sent, rather than the date of its being drafted.).

    That said, there are some important factual details & some whopping big institutional differences between the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre and the 2017 Tuesday Night one.

    Rosenstein’s memo does an excellent job of concisely expressing the several problems with Comey’s behavior in: July 2016 in his press conference & Congressional testimony; October 2016 with his letter to the Gang of 8; and otherwise his failure to accept having acted mistakenly or wrongly or both in those events (I’m including in the latter his partisan mis-characterizations about what was on the Weiner-Abudin PC & how SoS Clinton emails came to be in its hard-drive, as well as his months of dithering over correcting the record.).

    But AFAIR, there was never anything remotely equivalent, indeed nothing at all, in the conduct of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Watergate investigation that could have been pressed into service in support of the massacre.

    And back in 1973, following the 1972 Congressional elections, Democratic party critters were in the majority in both the House (242 to 192 Republican members) & the Senate (56 to 42 Republican senators). Whereas now … . And this leaves entirely aside any consideration of the relative QUALITY of Republican congressional critters.

    Finally, there are imposing differences in sheer scale & national security implications between Nixon’s CREEPy burglaries & cover-ups OTOH, & what’s been going on with Trump as candidate, nominee, president-elect & POTUS. We’re in way more trouble here & now – way more. AOT, there’s an entire political party in control of all branches of the federal government & the clear majority of state government that, whatever the differences among its members, believes between fervently & generally in single party rule & have shown no compunction about breaking laws & the Constitution to ensure just that as matters of practicality, practice & power.

    • bmaz says:

      And yes to every bit of this as well. The QUALITY of the men and women in Congress at the time of the Saturday Night Massacre was far higher than the current rodents. There is madness pulsing through the veins of our country.

        • prostratedragon says:

          Thanks, I was hoping this got through the justifiably much louder Comey story.  Thompson is due to address the ACS (American Community Survey) data users’ conference tomorrow. I decided not to attend, but will be checking out the video once available.

        • harpie says:

          You’re welcome! Will you advise of how things go at the conference tomorrow?

          I was just coming back to post the following:
          Julia Angwin‏ @JuliaAngwin  [ProPublica]    

          The underfunding of the Census is a really big deal for accountability journalism. I use Census data in nearly every big data project.

           

      • seedeevee says:

        Those QUALITY men and women of your imagination funded and supported US war crimes in SE Asia – murdering millions, destroying nations and supporting right wing dictatorships, started our current insane drug war and prison building spree, oversaw Israel acquiring nuclear weapons and solidifying its brand of apartheid in Palestine, and on and on and on.

        This fantasy of the good old days won’t get us anywhere.

      • Avattoir says:

        I should note that Marty Lederman at Just Security was clearer than I was on the Rosenstein memo, noting it was NOT a “letter” as the WH stooges claimed but in fact a memo, and that there was in fact no actual recommendation within it to do anything.

        Also consistent with what I felt, now WaPo is posting that Rosenstein has threatened to resign in response to the WH stooge gallery trying to foist the firing decision onto him.

        Rosenstein appears to be yet another one of these life-long rock-ribbed R administration careerists who are capable of excellent work in the abstract, but who are just simply staggeringly to unimaginably gullible in imagining that the Republican machine will hesitate even a moment in using and abusing them.

        Typically we don’t learn about how ridiculously Pollyanna-ish these folks can be until they get to one rung too close to the political types. It’s possible now that Rosenstein might resort to the same rules to appoint a special prosecutor on Trump & Russia as Comey resorted to way back in 2003 in appointing Fitzgerald on the CIA leaks scandal, but I’m not holding my breath: I think Comey’s such a nob, he took some critical part of his resolve in that story from his 2i/c service to AG Ashcroft, the R nobhead’s nob; but more articulate & overtly less egotistical Rosenstein is still sufficiently in the self-righteous R nob mold that I’d expect him to need something more in the way of an independent booster shot of professional courage than merely being wrongly shamed by Trump.

        These types just don’t learn from history.

        • bmaz says:

          I think Marty went a tad easy on Rosenstein. Rosenstein authored the document, had to know what it’s purpose was, and duplicitously framed it in terms he “thought” he could step back from. No. Just no.

          There is simply no other possible reading of the Rosenstein May 9, 2017 memo. If Rosenstein did not understand the purpose his memo was intended for, he is too stupid to be in the DAG job he is. Assuming he has the minimal smarts to understand, then he is a craven and already a failed servant of the American people as DAG. Either way, Rosenstein is terminally compromised.

        • greengiant says:

          Option C:  The WH or Sessions copy/pasted the original document Rosenstein signed?   The guy bit his tongue off not revealing they jacked his signature.   ( Just a guess )

  10. earlofhuntingdon says:

    It would be consistent with Donald’s past practice if he fired Comey to get back at the DoJ, which made him fire Flynn, regardless of how much Flynn deserved not to be NSA.  But Trump has carried so much dirty linen around with him for decades, probably enlarged considerably during his campaign, that the list of reasons to divert public attention, to replay his Apprentice power on a larger stage, and to interrupt the DoJ and FBI could be long.

    • P J Evans says:

      I’m not surprised, after he refused to be a good little minion for Little Donald.

  14. der says:

    I wonder if the same loyalists in the FBI who tipped Rudy off to the Clinton “October Surprise” are inside the Russian investigation and let Sessions in on who, what and where Comey was going, getting closer to both the midget, big eared AG and the occupant of the White House who knows not that checques and balances means something not related to art and deal making.

    Sure we’ll never know and it’s tin foil hat fiction, but that’s all we have. Because that oath congress raised their hands and swore to is meaningless.

  15. Desider says:

    Was it Comey’s Grand Juries already going forward with Team Trump indictments, or simply that Trump doesn’t like to share the spotlight with his underlings?
    And it was Chaffetz who leaked the October letter, not Comey.

    • bmaz says:

      Comey does not run grand juries, US Attorneys and Assistant US Attorneys do. And Chaffetz, as big a total dick as he is, did not “leak” anything. Comey handed him a letter and he made it public within seconds. But it was not a “leak”.

      • Desider says:

        I’m largely a complete idiot when it comes to the legal system (guess should have gotten arrested more early on like my friends), just hoping for the shithouse to come down around Trump’s team, led by federal attorneys, Schneidermann, or civil cases.

        As for “leak”, from what I understand this info was privileged for Chaffetz’s committee, not a public pronouncement – yeah, expected to not stay quiet for long, but does that excuse Chaffetz? (including misconstruing basic info – I thought that was Comey’s side of the street…)

        • bmaz says:

          Heh, please do NOT ever get arrested. I have thirty years of clients that would tell you such is the wrong way to learn the legal system. Other than that, you are doing fine in looking at all this. There is nothing easy, and there is only some concrete.

        • Desider says:

          Speaking of which, I could really use some advice offline on 1 such friend who got himself in a pretty pickle if you’re able to gmail me at decader.

  16. Kathleen says:

    Comey’s righteous stance on the Ashcroft scenario had me in his corner for a long time, The situation with Clinton’s emails took so many twist and turns it was hard not to feel tied up in the knot. Testifying before congress in regard to the Russian investigation so murky. Sure seemed like he would have liked to keep the investigations quiet.

    He sure was being battered by all sides. How does one keep their head above water when everyone seems like they want you to drown.

    Firing Comey almost makes it appear that Trump is throwing himself under the bus…self inflicted. Maybe he really does miss his old life

    Republicans turning.

    Do you think Comey will testify on Thursday even though he has been defrocked?

  17. Desider says:

    There are Grand Juries already convened. Comey sure won’t screw their outcomes at this point. Whether he backdoors documents to Schneiderman’s office for safe keeping is another question.

    • P J Evans says:

      I’d rather have someone honest in that job. Or at least someone who can do the job without letting their prejudices get in the way.

  20. wayoutwest says:

    I think that Trump may have been sitting on this decision waiting for the most useful timing of the firing and its capture of the news cycle.

    The Clintonites, after a brief respite, were back beating their witch-hunt drums with a new lady inquisitioner trying to resurrect this dead meme. After Mustang Sally Yates’ first stage performance but before she was shopped out to the chattering classes Trump dropped the Big One. With all the hand wringing and pearl clutching caused by this executive action the bloviators will be too busy to help Sally with her political ambitions.

    • harpie says:

      Jim Sciutto‏Verified account @jimsciutto 
       

      These photos of Trump-Russia meetings are courtesy solely of Russian MFA because no US press allowed in. [emphasisadded-harpie]

    • harpie says:

      Peter Baker‏Verified account @peterbakernyt  

      Which White House aide thought the two people Trump should be seen with today are Russia’s foreign minister and Henry Kissinger?

       
       
      Andrea Chalupa‏Verified account @AndreaChalupa  

      Reminder that Henry Kissinger advised Trump to accept Crimea as part of Russia:

      • harpie says:

        John Dean on Kissinger/Trump meeting:
        John Dean‏Verified account @JohnWDean  

        No greater sycophant ever sat in the Oval Office than HAK and sycophants are Trump’s favorite people. (Sycophants sub for dogs with DJT.)

        OUCH!

      • harpie says:

        Judd Legum has screenshots:

        ColinKahl: Was it a good idea to let a Russian government photographer and their equipment into the Oval Office?
        David S. Cohen [former deputy director CIA] No, it was not. 

         

    • harpie says:

      Presence of Russian photographer in Oval Office raises alarms; WaPo; 5/10/17 9:23 PM

      […] The administration official also said the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov’s official photographer without disclosing that he also worked for Tass.
      “We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” the administration official said. […]

      They actually admitted it!
      This administration has NO qualms about blaring their gross and dangerous incompetence before the world.
       
      They. Do. NOT. Care.

    • harpie says:

      Authoritarianism 101, First Fire the FBI Director; Opinion, Globe and Mail; Sarah Kendzior; 5/10/17

      Another tell-tale sign of autocracy is the blatancy of the administration’s actions. The firing of Mr. Comey can be reasonably interpreted as an admission of guilt – but the transparency does not bother them. In fact, it pleases them. Their actions are meant to tell the public: “We know that you know what we did, and we do not care, because there is nothing you can do about it.” [emphasis added-harpie]

  22. harpie says:

    Manu Raju‏Verified account @mkraju  

    Burr and Warner urged Comey to speed up Russia inquiry; Comey asked Rosenstein for more resources. Next day, Comey fired, per @SaraMurray 

    • harpie says:

      Matthew Miller‏Verified account @matthewamiller   

      Rosenstein and Sessions need to be before Congress under oath immediately. This is a bombshell and there are more to come. [emphasis added-harpie]
      >>NYT: Days before he was fired, Comey asked for a significant increase in $$$$/personnel for FBI Russia investigation<<

      • wayoutwest says:

        This is more fake news from the Clintonites trying to sell another bogus conspiracy theory. The FBI has a budget of over $8 billion, they don’t need to beg spare change from this committee.

         

        • wayoutwest says:

          Acting FBI director McCabe verified that the Comey begging the committee for aid fable  was fake news. He stated clearly at his last committee appearance that the Bureau had what was needed to do their work unimpeded.

  23. seedeevee says:

    “Trump previously ran on, indeed got elected on, and likely only on, the scurrilous rogue comments of Jim Comey”

     

    What absolute bullshit.

  24. M says:

    Donald’s an especially awful person. So disgusting that even Roy Cohn was repulsed at the end. And one of Donald’s traits is his lack of gratitude; Comes got him elected even with a minority of the vote. And firing Comey won’t help Donald vis a vis the Russian thing. If he was a more decent sort of person, he’d come clean (unless it’s that bad). But that would be admitting that he was wrong, which he is fully incapable of doing.

    Foolish of me to even hope that the corporate media would get his number, but still. Ditto the GOP; if they want their agenda passed (assuming it’s possible), it would be a lot easier with someone sane and relatively knowledgeable as POTUS. Time will tell… On the other hand, the longer he serves, the worse for the GOP and their fragile coalition of extremist nut jobs.

  25. Evangellista says:

    I suspect the primary motivation for the sudden Comey firing to be the ‘undesired’ Comey reference to the clintonmail data transferred to the Weiner laptop, which got extra press for Comey noting it transferred, and then, apparently under pressures deriving from the controlling state to deploy damag-control, noting the transferring to have been effected through ‘back-up’ software (which is ‘damage-control’ in patina only, since, of course that would be how bulk-transferring would be done).

    The Weiner laptop, long out of Abaden’s “co-“possession, and so long out of any legitimate connection to clintonmail, or Abaden, had no business being in a loop connecting to the clintonmail server.  Not for a Long Time before the transferrings, and a Long Time before Weiner’s use of it for a crime got it into FBI possession.

    In fact, the Weiner laptop, only really connected to Abedin by marriage, had no business being in the clintonmail server loop at any point in its time.  Weiner receiving emails from Abedin, or anyone else, from clintonmail sender addresses would not be ‘in the clintonmail server loop’.

    As far as I am concerned, Comey’s action to slam the doors closed around the Clinton campaign after receiving word of the extent of the Weiner laptop conduit for illegal access to Classified Content resident on clintonmail.com was one of the few FBI actions of recent years that was patently and prima facie correct, and NOT tainted with cheap’n-sleazy political-jugglery  overtones.  Because there was Classified U.S. State Department content on clintonmail, and the Weiner laptop was an obvious Great Big Hole from outside into clintonmail, and so to the Classified Data resident on clintonmail, through which hole data was indicated actively leaking well after there was any legitimate reason for there to be any flow, National Security unequivocally trumped any electioneering effect potential.  The immediate closing all doors and windows for review and investigation was requisite.  It was not optional.  Comey had no Legal choice:  He could violate National Security, to not upset stupid Ms. Clinton, or he could secure the leak while investigating where it went and what damage it might have done, pissing the stupid Ms. Clinton off, and giving her and all idiot enough to in her entourage a crap-excuse to cry, as all of them have, “He made me Lose!” Clinton lost by her own stupidity, or by her being a foreign agent, if it was not stupidity.

    Comey, in his testimony that is under fire by the idiot-horde, opened the laptop can of worms, that co-conspiring parties wanted to keep closed.  Retaliation came swiftly to the rogue, from where it had to come from to slam the doors closed that the conspirators wanted to keep closed.  It is not the first time ‘bipartisan’ agreement has surfaced of a sudden where the danger is not a partisan danger in the present presidential era:  Recall the Stein-triggered votes recount, which began to show patterns of corruption that were evidencing bipartisan sponsorships of election manipulating, and both parties, and courts, leaping to quash the recounting movement.

    The Ship is springing leaks and the Rats are panicking.

  28. P J Evans says:

    Chaffetz wants to investigate the Comey firing – mostly because  it’s another shot at the emails.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/jason-chaffetz-just-called-for-an-expansion-of-house-oversight-committee-investigation-to-include-comey-firing/

     

    (And Kevin McCarthy ran off on Twitter and said that he serves at the pleasure of the president. Um, idjit…LEGISLATIVE branch.
    .@GOPLeader: In Washington, “we serve at the pleasure” of the president..”if we lose the confidence,” then we can lose our jobs
    https://twitter.com/cmarinucci/status/862461795361075201)

    • harpie says:

      Tweets about Rosenstein from:
      Matthew Miller‏Verified account @matthewamiller  

      Weak. He’s a willing accomplice in firing Comey & then leaks that he’s a profile in courage after the deed is done. Doesn’t work that way.

      and Susan Hennessey‏Verified account @Susan_Hennessey  

      Obvious Trump played Rosenstein. But when you sign your name to something, knowing consequences, you are accountable for those consequences.

       
      Sarah Kendzior knows a lot about authoritarian regimes:
      Sarah Kendzior‏Verified account @sarahkendzior

      GOP reps should remember that in the end, they too will get hurt. Short-term opportunism or cowardice not worth the long-term consequences./ Regimes like this are paranoid, insular, prioritizing kin and elite cadre. Everyone else is ultimately disposable. Don’t keep getting played

    • harpie says:

      Rosenstein seeks meeting with Senate Intelligence leaders
      5/11/17; 11:52 am EDT [13 minutes ago]

      […] Rosenstein was seen walking into the Senate Intelligence Committee space as the panel was holding a hearing on worldwide threats. […] It’s unclear whether Rosenstein made the request to the committee unilaterally, or took his request through officials channels at the Department of Justice. He arrived with a security detail.

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