RUTHFULLY YOURS

Before the election, Nancy Pelosi had hinted that Hillary would fire FBI Director James Comey.

“Maybe he’s not in the right job,” the House Dem leader had coyly suggested. “I think that we have to just get through this election and just see what the casualties are along the way.”

The FBI Director was at risk of becoming a “casualty” over his handling of the Hillary investigation.

There was no outrage and no front page editorials at the New York Times and the Washington Post. No comparisons to Watergate or calls for an investigation. A top Dem suggesting that the FBI Director would have to leave because he was investigating another top Dem was just “good government.”

And there would have been none of the hypocritical media outcry if the election had gone another way and Comey were being told to pack his bags by President Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager had also hinted that Comey might have to step down because of his bias against Hillary. Now he claims that Trump’s firing of Comey “terrifies” him.

After Comey’s letter, Schumer had declared, “I do not have confidence in him any longer.” That is what top government officials say before demanding someone’s job. But now Schumer is outraged. “If we don’t get a special prosecutor, every American will rightfully suspect that the decision to fire #Comey was part of a cover-up,” he tweeted.

Were the Dem calls for Comey to resign also part of a cover-up?

Harry Reid had called on Comey to resign. Congressman Steve Cohen even wrote an op-ed titled, “For the Sake of the FBI, Comey Should Resign.” Now he touts Comey as a recipient for the Profiles in Courage award and accuses Trump of firing him because Comey “threatened his presidency.”

From Comey must go for investigating Hillary to Comey must get an award for investigating Trump. Did Cohen want Comey to resign then because he threatened Hillary Clinton’s presidency?

The incoherently official position of the Dems is that Comey should have been forced out for investigating Hillary. But that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to fire him because that’s a cover-up.

President Trump has fired FBI director James Comey, who had made himself eminently fireable.

Last July, Comey took it upon himself to become not only the nation’s top policeman, but its top prosecutor, explaining in a long press conference that Hillary Clinton had clearly broken the law by hosting classified information on her private e-mail server, but that there was not “clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws.” As we observed at the time, the relevant statute does not require “intent,” only “gross negligence” — which adequately described the behavior Comey termed “reckless” and “extremely careless” — and, in any event, deciding whether to prosecute was not up to him, but to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The entire event was, as longtime Justice Department hands noted, unprecedented.

Democrats, who in the wake of Tuesday evening’s news are breathless with Watergate comparisons, seem suddenly to have recalled their past enthusiasm for Comey’s “independence” and “integrity.”

Most Democrats have spent the last several months incensed at Comey, after he announced just days before November’s presidential election that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, based on evidence found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton’s right-hand woman Huma Abedin. (Yesterday, the Justice Department confirmed that Abedin did in fact send classified information to Weiner’s unsecured e-mail account.) Democrats, among them then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, suggested that Comey’s letter may have violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by certain government officials. That anger intensified when, a few days later, Comey said, in effect, “Never mind,” and re-closed the reopened investigation, reaffirming the FBI’s previous conclusion: She broke the law, but so what?

On Tuesday evening, accounting for Comey’s termination, this sequence of events was laid out in a long memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, whose tenure at the Department of Justice began just two weeks ago. Rosenstein’s presentation of the facts is fair and scrupulous. In addition to explaining how Comey repeatedly defied longstanding Justice Department precedent throughout the Clinton e-mail investigation, he cites critical comments from attorneys and deputy attorneys general from the last several administrations, both Republican and Democratic. Rosenstein rightly observes: “Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.” Indeed, the only person who did not agree is James Comey, who has seemed incapable of admitting obvious errors, and has in effect asserted that his investigative “independence” makes him accountable to no one.

Democrats, having spent the last several months accusing Comey of intervening to throw the presidential election to Donald Trump, are now suggesting that he is an indispensable man. Senator Brian Schatz declared on Twitter: “We are in a full-fledged constitutional crisis.”

Deep breaths, Senator.

Nixon. Watergate. Tuesday night massacre. Coup. Dictator. Impeachment. Those are the words political elites are throwing around after President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, and that’s in the news stories. The meltdown reflects the temper of the times and hostility to Mr. Trump, but it also ignores the need to repair the damage that Mr. Comey has done to the Justice Department and FBI.

Most of the political class loathes this Administration, and so the natural default is that it must be lying about the reasons for Mr. Comey’s dismissal. If you’re invested in the Trump-Russia collusion theory of the 2016 election, you assume this is a cover-up. The references to Mr. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation are an excuse, a deception, a Big Con.

Not that the White House does much to rebut these claims. A terse 6 p.m. press release doesn’t answer many questions. Neither Attorney General Jeff Sessions nor Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein held a press conference to explain their memos recommending dismissal. Mr. Trump managed to inject his ego even into his dismissal letter to Mr. Comey, saying that “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.”
And on Wednesday the White House descended into a leak-fest with aides depicting Mr. Trump as raging at Mr. Comey even as he was conflicted about firing him. This crowd couldn’t sell gold bars to inflationists.

Yet for those willing to take Mr. Rosenstein’s memo seriously, there are good reasons for canning Mr. Comey that don’t trade in conspiracy. And his arrival at Justice may also explain the timing of Mr. Comey’s firing.

Mr. Rosenstein was confirmed by the Senate only two weeks ago, and one of his obvious first tasks was to dig into the Russia probe because Mr. Sessions has recused himself. Senate Democrats demanded this during the confirmation hearing as they pressed him to name a special counsel. This also meant contemplating the role and responsibility of Mr. Comey and the FBI in the Justice Department hierarchy.

One concern of longtime prosecutors and former Justice officials is that Mr. Comey became a force unto himself. He didn’t tell Attorney General Loretta Lynch until the last minute that he would hold his July press event exonerating Mrs. Clinton. His excuse afterward was that Ms. Lynch was compromised after meeting with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac. But then what about Deputy AG Sally Yates ? What was she, a potted plant?

Federal Judge and former Deputy AG Laurence Silberman laid out these and other concerns in these pages on Feb. 24. His conclusion—that Mr. Comey’s “performance was so inappropriate for an FBI director that I doubt the bureau will ever completely recover”—resonated widely across the government.

And it must have resonated with Mr. Rosenstein, who quotes Mr. Silberman in his memo to Mr. Sessions. He also quotes a long list of former Justice officials from both parties who have been highly critical of Mr. Comey’s violation of Justice Department standards. Mr. Rosenstein clearly understood he had to re-establish supervisory control over the FBI as a matter of accountable government.

This is one of the reasons we advised Mr. Sessions in January to seek Mr. Comey’s resignation, and if he refused to recommend that Mr. Trump fire him. The timing would have been better with the change of Administrations. But Mr. Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia probe, and the scenario we recommended eventually took place when Mr. Rosenstein arrived.

If you read nothing else while fighting through the maelstrom around President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, read the full text of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein’s memorandum titled “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI.”

Mr. Rosenstein’s memo makes meticulously clear the short version of this grandiose episode: Director Comey’s behavior violated numerous standards of federal prosecutorial procedure and lines of authority inside the Department of Justice.

Specifically, writes Mr. Rosenstein, “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.”

Mr. Rosenstein cites a useful analysis of the Comey saga, published in the Washington Post, by former deputy attorneys general Jamie Gorelick and Larry Thompson. Mr. Comey’s conduct, they wrote, was “real-time, raw-take transparency taken to its illogical limit, a kind of reality TV of federal criminal investigation.”

That is an apt metaphor—a kind of reality TV—for everything the dazed public is reading and hearing now about James Comey, the federal investigation into a Russian connection with the Trump campaign, and reveries about Watergate.

But I know where to begin: with the news in March 2015 that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a private email server in 2009. CONTINUE AT SITE

At National Review last weekend, I addressed the Democrats’ loopy claim that the FBI became a Trump partisan in the 2016 election. The claim is worth more examination in light of President Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.

In Clinton World, self-absorption always triumphs over self-inspection, so nothing could be more predictable than Hillary Clinton’s scapegoating of Comey, a diversion from acknowledging what really cost her the election: her own manifest flaws. Congressional Democrats are along for the ride: those who were swooning over Comey in July when he announced that Clinton would not be charged, then ripped him in October when he reopened and quickly reclosed the FBI’s investigation, and then branded him a Trump partisan hack after the votes were counted, are suddenly back in swoon mode.

Comey, of course, hasn’t changed through all of this. He’s always been the same guy. The laughably transparent explanation for all the careening around him is politics.

Mrs. Clinton was hoping to put the e-mail scandal behind her by arguing that she had been vindicated by a thorough, highly professional FBI investigation. But she lost, so the investigation that was to be her credential for office became the downfall that denied her. Comey thus became Rationalization 1 for her defeat … at least until Rationalization 1A, Russia, got some media traction. So now, Comey has gone from villainous J. Edgar Hoover to valiant Elliot Ness again – not out of anything he did, but because Democrats calculate that framing his termination as part of a “cover-up” may resuscitate the Trump-Russia narrative, which has grown stale in the absence of concrete evidence of collusion.

Note that in all of this, Comey is always in the center of events, but he has never been in control of events. Don’t be fooled by appearances. The FBI director has been the most visible player, but he has not come close to being the most consequential.

Yes, the FBI that actually carries out the dual functions of criminal inquiry and foreign intelligence collection. In either type of investigation, it is the Bureau that performs the rubber-meets-the-road work of gathering information and analyzing it, searching for the connections that prove actions and intentions. Consequently, Director Comey has gotten top billing in this drama – a happenstance made more pronounced by the director’s very forceful personality. It has made him look more important than, in fact, he has been.

Some perspective, please. There could have been no indictment against Hillary Clinton unless the Obama Justice Department approved it. Comey headed an investigative agency; he had no authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion – to decide whether charges got filed.

Donald Trump’s decision to fire James Comey has set off a firestorm, mostly along party lines, but not entirely. Some Republicans have expressed concern, too, and more will wring their hands in the next few days if the Democrats’ narrative takes hold. http://www.zipdialog.com/05/10/2017/a-quick-guide-to-the-political-firestorm-over-comeys-firing-what-matters-and-why-what-democrats-and-republicans-will-argue

How long the fire lasts and how much it consumes depends, crucially, on information that will emerge out over the coming days, as media organizations pump their sources and Comey defends himself.

Here are the basic messages you will hear from Democrats and Republicans, starting immediately.

The Democrats’ message is remarkably disciplined. They are speaking with one voice, Chuck Schumer’s.

They will repeat two key words: Nixon and Watergate.

Their meaning is clear: Comey was fired to cover up Trump’s crimes.

Here is their message:

Trump, not some underlying, is the person who fired Comey.
Advice from the Justice Department is just a cover, they will say.
Key question here: Was the firing top-down or bottom-up? Did Comey’s new boss at DOJ initiate this or was it really an order from the White House.
The new boss is Rod Rosenstein, an esteemed, career prosecutor, considered politically neutral. He received a lot of Democratic backing when he was approved recently. Here’s an excellent, brief description of his professional background, which is sterling. (US News)
But Politico is reporting that Trump was fuming over the Russia investigation.
Trump fired Comey because the FBI was getting to close to uncovering malfeasance by the Trump campaign and transition.
This is focused on Russian collaboration with Trump and usually implied rather than asserted directly. Why?
First, the intelligence agencies agree that Russia actively meddled in the US campaign, sought to harm Hillary Clinton, and favored Trump.
We know that some Trump advisers had connections of various sorts to Russian entities. The most important is Michael Flynn, who was briefly the National Security Adviser. There are reports that he and his associates are now under investigation by a grand jury. Some questions have also swirled around Paul Manafort, head of Trump’s campaign in the summer, and Carter Page, a lower-level figure.
Key question: Do the connections between the Trump team and Russia rise to the level of collaboration? If so, that would be a huge scandal and lead to calls for impeachment. If such evidence were found and were convincing, many would consider it a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
So far, no evidence of such collaboration has been found. Senior figures of the intelligence community, associated with the Obama Administration, have specifically said that they have looked and that there is no such evidence.
Because Trump “interfered” with the FBI, which was investigating the Russia issue, we cannot leave this investigation to the Congress or Department of Justice.
Key claim: We are now seeing a Watergate-style coverup by the Trump Administration since they cannot fairly investigate themselves and we cannot count on the FBI, the DOJ, etc.

President Trump abruptly fired embattled FBI Director James B. Comey Jr. late yesterday afternoon for exceeding his authority during the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email abuses.

The long-overdue termination of Comey, who inappropriately injected himself and the FBI into political matters, came three-and-a-half years into his 10-year term. It was based on the recommendation of the Department of Justice and was effective immediately.

Comey’s firing is a reaffirmation of the importance of the rule of law. He was more powerful than an FBI director ever should be. As commentator Brit Hume observed, “For better or worse, no FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover had taken so large a role in the political life of this country as James Comey.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were intimidated and scared by Comey, Tucker Carlson editorialized on his Fox News Channel show.

Just how powerful was James Comey? Let’s it put this way: He was feared in a way that no appointed bureaucrat should ever be feared in a free society. Time and again elected lawmakers on both sides came on this show and expressed worry and concern about his behavior, but they did so only during commercial breaks with the cameras off. Why? Because they were terrified at the prospect of criticizing him in public. They certainly don’t have that fear of the sitting president of the United States and that tells you everything you need to know about Jim Comey.

After taking this necessary step towards draining the Washington swamp, Trump was upbeat, saying the FBI “is one of our nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement.”

Here is the text of the president’s letter informing Comey of his firing:

Dear Director Comey,

I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.

It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.

I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

The passage in Trump’s letter about being informed he was not under FBI investigation seems out of place. While not relevant to the subject of the letter, perhaps it was inserted to color media coverage of the news. It may constitute an “I told you so” in the eyes of Trump but it is odd and Trump’s critics will no doubt seize upon it.