I know he was uncomfortable, and with good reason, but I would have had to know WTH “That thing” was. It could’ve been Trump just bullshitting that there was some kind of tie that bound them, something Trump perceived as Comey acting in his favor or in collusion with him, or anything else, possibly a set up (like: you know you’re part of this). How could Comey just let that part go?

I realize the situation was unpresidented, but FFS, Comey had experience with the mob, he had to know there was some signaling going on. How could an investigator, with so many years under his belt, just let that fly without the curiosity killing him? Maybe it was the non-linear style of conversation intended to leave the ground unsteady, but still…I’m sure Trump wasn’t the originator of non-sequitur as a methodology to disrupt the flow, deflect and cause confusion.

That said, I think the analysis of Comey has been unforgivingly/unsparingly harsh versus the treatment of the daily shitstorm that Trump brings, with the latter given so much editorial benefit of the doubt. Comey is judged by a higher standard, which I understand on one level, but not on the other where Trump always gets graded on a curve (when the standards to assess the president should be equal to, if not higher than that of FBI agents).

I think Comey made gross judgement miscalculations during the election, but suffered not from those choices, yet instead for being part of an investigation against Trump. He lost everything in one fell swoop, and has been chastised and attacked persistently and relentlessly ever since. Since his ‘injury’ is ongoing, I think it’s difficult to truly reflect and write a more objective perspective about decisions, without some time and distance on all of the events, after some recovery from the damage inflicted on his psyche. That’s not a ‘pass’, but maybe an element of empathy or sympathy since he has been a Trump target.

We still don’t know what other elements might have influenced his actions, ie: the FBI/Giuliani leaks and disinformation campaign on Fox, which might have created some pressure for him to respond.

I assume the answer to the Flynn FISA warrant question was “no”, if only because Priebus certainly would have had follow up questions if the answer was yes. Instead, the conversation appears to have moved in other directions.

In the memos, Trump twice told Comey that he had not spent the night in Moscow in 2013. We now know that’s not true. Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller testified last year to Congress that someone had offered Trump five prostitutes, and that Trump had turned the offer down. Schiller said that he had kept watch outside Trump’s door for a period of time that night – this would have been after the early a.m. afterparty with oligarchs – but then went to bed. Social media and other evidence was reported to show at least two nights spent in Moscow:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-13/trump-s-two-nights-of-parties-in-moscow-reverberate-years-later

It should be noted that before this trip, where the Agalarovs paid $20 million to host the Miss Universe pageant, Trump tweeted that he hoped to use the opportunity to become Putin’s “new best friend”. Emin Agalarov is also connected, of course, to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Why would Trump choose to lie about this if, in fact, the pee tape didn’t exist? Why not just deny the existence of any tape, instead of adding on a gratuitous lie that can now be easily disproven?

Memos, details, sex partners are life’s memorials. Palace’s Rose colored glasses, while providing hue, don’t hold memories. Past behavior allowed for “fixer’s” removal of memorials. Palace’s new address isn’t so convenient. Power is bending reality. SDNY, and SC’s other venues are succumbing to Palace’s powerful onslaught. Saying prayers for non-governmental-initiated court actions.

A. “Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?”
That’s how Comey chose to draft his ex post note on a question he attributes to Priebus.
The correct answer, AFAI understand, should have been: ‘No’.
Tho, more completely something like:
‘FBI did not seek, nor am I aware of, any other USG agency obtaining a FISA court order that directly authorized surveillance &/or seizure of Flynn’s oral communications.
‘However, bear in mind that:
1) phone conversations generally include words spoken by more than one person. Consider someone, call him Yakker, is named, or his oral communications otherwise covered by a court order authorizing surveillance and/or interception of phone communications. The same order almost certainly would also cover anything said by whoever Yakker talked to.
‘2. Court-authorized wiretapping is a form of search warrant. The FISA court is not the only court with power to issue those.’
Tho, I can understand someone in Comey’s position being concerned something like the latter version might come across a tad prolix.

B. James Comey, Slayer of the Dragon Gotti

Not buyin’ it.
The grands fromages in the Gambino family prosecutions Comey would have been in on (to whatever extent), were EDNY US attorney Andrew Maloney and AUSA John Gleeson.
Gleeson was the show runner. 2 years later Bill Clinton appointed Gleeson a federal judge.

Gleeson was 7 years older, graduated law school 5 years earlier, and was hired into EDNY 2 years earlier than Comey was into the SDNY.
Comey’s Wiki entry reads:
“He joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he worked from 1987 to 1993. While there, he served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and helped prosecute the Gambino crime family.”
That’s it.
But look at THAT: from raw recruit to DC of the CD of the freaking SDNY in SIX YEARS! That tells me – anyone – either Comey was hired in as a desk warrior, or that path hove into view pretty early.
I’d have no problem accepting Comey was involved in logistics: coordination of info flow, action plans, budgeting, resource allocation, including doing the intensely unromantic bureaucratic labor involved in coordinating various USa offices & NYPD sections involved in the Gambino project.
But that’s it.
Years ago, during & after the 1990-92 case that resulted in Gotti being put away, I read everything out of that case I could lay eyeballs on: pre-trial motions, argument memos, transcripts of the motions plus most if not all the public parts of the trial itself, a few house subject memos, press coverage of course… none mentioned Comey.
The Gotti conviction drama took place over a period of less than 2 years. Dec 11, 1990, FBIs and NYPDs jointly conducted a raid on a nightclub that resulted in arrests of Gotti, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, and one other.
It was part of a larger project to roll up the Gambino family, particularly Gotti since his acquittal in 1989. Each were charged variously, Gotti with, AOT, 5 mob murders. All 3 were denied bail.
A big chunk of the pre-trial process in 1991 (the chief reason my professional interest in the case was piqued) involved the motion to disqualify criminal defense attorneys – notably the notorious flamboy Bruce Cutler – from acting for any of them. The government put forward reasons that included not-very-veiled allegations Cutler was effectively a mobster, effectively consiglieri to the Gambino family, a potential witness, or too bound up in the narrative flow of the case against Gotti. That last one stuck as enough to disqualify him. And from all I read and know otherwise, that disqualification brought Sammy the Bull to flip. That motion, how it was supported and executed, how it was ‘won’, was, by far, the my particular source of my interest. Again: I recall no mention of Comey in any of that.

So, I suggest we not get enamored of the image of a Comey-Gotti staredown, cuz that never happened.

Via Erik Wemple and Greg Sargent, Rachel Maddow’s interview with Comey last night (April 19th) elicited this Comey statement:

I commissioned an investigation to see if we could understand whether people were disclosing information out of the New York office or any other place that resulted in Rudy’s report on Fox News and other leaks that we were seeing in the media.

I don’t know what the result of that was. I got fired before it was finished, but I know that I asked that it be investigated.

Has anything been reported out from this investigation? Was this the same investigation that got McCabe fired? Or were there two separate IG investigations?

Re who leaked Comey memos and why

Jeremy Stahl at Slate argues that the leak of the memos was a hamfisted attempt to bolster the lie/line that Comey had leaked classified information ( namely his own memos, some of which were classified, some of which weren’t)

Stahl’s take which outlines how a feedback loop of the WH FoxNews and Congressional Republicans fall overthemselves constructing and bolstering a dodgy narrative to smear Comey, seems to me to be a plausible admixture of cock-up and conspiracy  theorist.

I presume Rosenstein was resistant to release the Comey memos for a reason. I wonder what additional info was revealed that caused him to be so? Doesn’t seem like much, but what am i missing?

We don’t know who leaked that Trump got briefed on the memo, and I don’t rule out CIA leaking it.

It was probably Brennan. He took credit for starting the Russia investigation and had the biggest role before leaving that January. He did everything in his power to pressure the White House to respond, as well as the FBI and Congress. There’s no doubt he turned to leaking after the election, and probably before it, he was heavily invested in the case and he was frustrated. It was also reported that he had a personal obsession with taking out Assad and knew if Trump won he would be out of the job.