Obstruction Of Justice Case Dismantled By Senator Risch

While this is not a highlight you’ll ever see replayed on any MSM outlet throughout the day, Senator Jim Risch just completely dismantled any ‘hopes’ of an obstruction of justice case against President Trump with the following exchange:

Risch: “Boy you nailed this down on page 5 paragraph 3, you put this in quotes, words matter, you wrote down the words so we could all have the words in front of us now.  There are 28 words there that are in quotes and it says, ‘I hope’, this is the President speaking, ‘I hope you can see your way claer to letting this go, to letting Flynn go…I hope you can let this go.’”

“Now those are his exact words, is that correct”

Comey:  “Correct.”

Risch:  “And you wrote them here and you put them in quotes?”

Comey:  “Correct.”

Risch:  “Thank you for that.  He did not direct you to let it go.”

Comey:  “Not in his words, no.”

Risch:  “He did not order you to let it go.”

Comey:  “Again, those words are not an order.”

Risch:  “He said ‘I hope’.  Now, like me you probably did 100’s of cases, maybe 1,000s of cases charging people with criminal offenses.  And, of course, you have knowlege of the 1,000s of cases out there where people have been charged.  Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice, for that matter of any other criminal offense,  where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome?”

Comey:  “I don’t know well enough to answer.  And the reason I keep saying ‘his words’ is I took it as a direction…”

Risch:  “You may have taken it as a direction but that is not what he said.  He said, ‘I hope.’  You don’t know of anyone who has ever been charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement?”

Comey:  “I don’t as I sit here.”

Comey: “I took it as – this is what he wants me to do” when Trump said he hoped he’d lay off the Flynn, but I didn’t do it pic.twitter.com/Uoz4wf2ORg

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017

Of course, other media outlets will dismiss the crux of the exchange above and instead focus on Comey’s statement that he “took it as a direction” even though he admits multiple times in the same exchange it, in fact, was not a direction.  All of which brings up the larger point that if it was “a direction” and Comey didn’t notify anyone then is Comey also in legal jeopardy?

And while you’ll also never hear this on your nightly news, here is Comey confirming that neither Trump nor anyone else in his administration ever asked him to back down on the Russia investigation:

#gamedev #indiedev Comey on whether Pres. Trump tried to stop Russia investigation: “Not to my understanding, no.” https://t.co/RtpPvi8Usr

— ???? (@bestermcbest) June 8, 2017