Comey Testimony's Red Meat, Admits He's a Leaker

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My first thoughts about today’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by James Comey, the former FBI Director? Comey admitted he’s one of the leakers.  He did not follow protocol, and his memo, which is the property of the United States Government, was provided to the outside world without even a whisper towards the processes required to be followed before releasing government owned communications to the general public. . . or in his case, Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman.

Comey’s testimony did not convince this writer that he was pressured by Trump to end the investigation, but the former FBI Chief did reveal that that kind of pressure is not solely a Republican game.  Comey testified that Loretta Lynch, the former attorney general under Barack Obama, pressured him to downplay the Clinton email server investigation and only to refer to it as a “matter.”

Comey said that when he asked Lynch if she was going to authorize him to confirm the existence of the Clinton email investigation, her answer was, “Yes, but don’t call it that. Call it a matter.” When Comey asked why, he said, Lynch wouldn’t give him an explanation. “Just call it a matter,” she said.

Comey added later that he was concerned about that direction as it was false. He was further concerned because it aligned with the Clinton campaign’s spin on the investigation.

Lynch’s order, Comey said, “concerned me because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI’s work and that’s concerning.”

Democrats have still decided that Comey’s testimony is enough to go after Donald Trump for obstruction to justice, but not only has it not been proven that Trump tried to influence the federal investigation, as the top man of the executive branch, he has the authority to direct the FBI Director as necessary.

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.

Senator James Risch (R-Idaho) asked Comey if he remembered the article.

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

Risch noted that after the report came out, Comey “sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not factual.”

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.”

The New York Times got it wrong because they assumed they had it right, and the real evidence would eventually reveal itself.  Except, the predicted storm never arrived, because there was no truth to it.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) noted that one of the three things Trump asked Comey was: “Can you please tell the American people what these leaders in Congress already know — what you already know, you told me three times — that I am not personally under investigation.”

“You know,” Rubio continued, “this investigation is full of leaks, left and right. I mean, we’ve learned more from the newspaper sometimes than we do from our open hearings, for sure.

“You ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that’s never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?”

Comey responded: “I don’t know, I find matters that are briefed to the Gang of Eight are pretty tightly held, in my experience.”

Trump’s lawyer jumped all over Comey’s testimony.

Marc Kasowitz said that Comey’s testimony proved that Trump did not collude with Russia during last year’s election nor try to obstruct justice in the FBI investigation — and went on to accuse the former FBI director of directing unauthorized news leaks designed to damage the president.

Comey’s testimony, he said, “makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election.”

“And in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the president told Mr. Comey ‘it would be good to find out’ in that investigation if there were ‘some satellite associates of his who did something wrong.’”

Kasowitz said Comey, in reference to the leaked memos, “admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president.”

Comey said he leaked the memos because he hoped news reports would prompt the appointment of a special counsel.