Politics Source: Comey to testify publicly about Trump confrontations

Comey confirmed he leaked a government document through one of his friends.

 

*gulp*

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/c...me-apart-with-comey-testimony/article/2625372

Chris Matthews: Trump-Russia collusion theory 'came apart' with Comey testimony

"The assumption of the critics of the president, of his pursuers, you might say, is that somewhere along the line in the last year is the president had something to do with colluding with the Russians … to affect the election in some way," Matthews said on MSNBC, following the testimony.

"And yet what came apart this morning was that theory," Matthews said, listing two reasons why. First, he said Comey revealed that "Flynn wasn't central to the Russian investigation," and secondly, he said that kills the idea that Flynn might have been in a position to testify against Trump.

"And if that's not the case, where's the there-there?" Matthews said.

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...about-trump-campaign-having-repeated-contacts

(CNSNews.com) – “In the main, it was not true,” former FBI Director James Comey told Congress on Thursday.

He was talking about a February 14 New York Times report titled, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

According to that report:

Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation. But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) on Thursday asked Comey if he remembered the article.

Comey said he did; “It was about allegedly extensive electronic surveillance,” he said.

...

Risch told Comey: “So the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?”

“In the main – it was not true,” Comey said. “The challenge -- and I’m not picking on reporters -- about writing stories about classified information is that people talking about it often don’t really know what is going on. And those of us who actually know what’s going on aren’t talking about it. And we don’t call the press to say, hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic. We just have to leave it there.”

 

What a sorry gang of four these people are.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...n-after-comey-statement-contradicts-reporting

CNN has corrected a Tuesday report after the release of former FBI Director James Comey's opening statement for his Thursday testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee contradicted the report's sources.

The CNN report said Comey was expected to dispute President Trump's claims that Comey said he was not under investigation on multiple occasions.

The report, titled “Comey expected to refute Trump," was based on unnamed sources and said Comey's conversations with the president "were much more nuanced," and that Trump drew the wrong conclusion.

The story was compiled by four CNN journalists, including Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017...nd-all-democratic-commentators-are-wrong.html

Dershowitz: Comey confirms that I'm right - and all the Democratic commentators are wrong

By Alan Dershowitz

In his testimony former FBI director James Comey echoed a view that I alone have been expressing for several weeks, and that has been attacked by nearly every Democratic pundit.

Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.

As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct. As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.

Yet virtually every Democratic pundit, in their haste to “get” President Trump, has willfully ignored these realities. In doing so they have endangered our civil liberties and constitutional rights.

Now that even former Director Comey has acknowledged that the Constitution would permit the president to direct the Justice Department and the FBI in this matter, let us put the issue of obstruction of justice behind us once and for all and focus on the political, moral, and other non-criminal aspects of President Trump’s conduct.

Comey’s testimony was devastating with regard to President Trump’s credibility – at least as Comey sees it. He was also critical of President Trump’s failure to observe the recent tradition of FBI independence from presidential influence. These are issues worth discussing but they have been distorted by the insistence of Democratic pundits that Trump must have committed a crime because they disagree with what he did politically.

Director Comey’s testimony was thoughtful, coherent and balanced. He is obviously angry with President Trump, and his anger has influenced his assessment of the president and his actions. But even putting that aside, Comey has provided useful insights into the ongoing investigations.

I was disappointed to learn that Comey used a Columbia law professor as a go-between to provide information to the media. He should have has the courage to do it himself. Senators must insist that he disclose the name of his go-between so that they can subpoena his memos and perhaps subpoena the professor-friend to provide further information.

I write this short op-ed as Comey finishes his testimony. I think it is important to put to rest the notion that there was anything criminal about the president exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and to request – “hope” – that he let go the investigation of General Flynn. Just as the president would have had the constitutional power to pardon Flynn and thus end the criminal investigation of him, he certainly had the authority to request the director of the FBI to end his investigation of Flynn.

 

Crickets from the impeachment crowd. Not surprising in the least.

CNN is trying to figure out how to spin this, it's funny to watch.

They're clearly backing off the impeachable offense claims, and their months' long narrative is in shambles.