Wow, here's some news: Comey fired

[CitizenBBN]

I was surprised they didn't do it in January, and that there wasn't a joint resolution of Congress with it.

Grassley probably said it best, he'd lost the confidence of the department and simply become too controversial to lead the agency.

Interestingly the reactions are all political, despite the fact that people like Schumer called for his head in November.

What is most interesting is to see the old guard of the GOP and what sides they take, b/c it's very telling of how Trump isn't just battling the Democrats but a big part of the GOP establishment as well.


Personally I think he was a poor director and have for some time. The first Clinton press conference thing was inexplicable, as were facts like how little she was interviewed, how the timing of those interviews worked, etc. Lots of inconsistent, somewhat inexplicable actions. Some helping Clinton and Trump, some hurting them, so I don't think it was political, but I never got the moral logic under which he seemed to operate.

[UKHistory]

I have mixed feelings about comey.

But I don't have about trump. I fear for our democracy with him at Pennsylvania Avenue. Flynn is clearly connected to the Russians and others too.

Unrelated to trump but a part of our conversations I wanted to share this information.

Also the "swat teams" which are part of each agency's OIG was not initially considered to be a part of the agency cuts.

Government officials are discussing if the OIGs will or should be included in potential cutbacks.

[MickintheHam]

I have absolutely no mixed feelings about Comey. Obama should have gotten rid of him, but he was part of the fix and the two tier justice system the Democrats have created. I can't link it, but the Asst. Attorney General's recommendation letter was a serious rebuke of Comey. And he was an Obama appointment.

[PedroDaGr8]

I was surprised they didn't do it in January, and that there wasn't a joint resolution of Congress with it.

Grassley probably said it best, he'd lost the confidence of the department and simply become too controversial to lead the agency.

Interestingly the reactions are all political, despite the fact that people like Schumer called for his head in November.

What is most interesting is to see the old guard of the GOP and what sides they take, b/c it's very telling of how Trump isn't just battling the Democrats but a big part of the GOP establishment as well.


Personally I think he was a poor director and have for some time. The first Clinton press conference thing was inexplicable, as were facts like how little she was interviewed, how the timing of those interviews worked, etc. Lots of inconsistent, somewhat inexplicable actions. Some helping Clinton and Trump, some hurting them, so I don't think it was political, but I never got the moral logic under which he seemed to operate.

As much as I think you were right on some things about his behavior, I think the timing was just TOO convenient. He is getting closer to investigating Trumps and Sessions ties to Russia and boom, now he is fired. I think there is a lot more to Trump's Russia ties than many of his fans are willing to admit. I was quite skeptical at first thinking it was just the usual politics. Not anymore, there is just too much coincidence, circumstance and outright lies and things being hidden for it to be anything else. If not Trump himself, the ties to a huge portion of his administration are indefensible. Russia has their hands all over this, just as they had their hands all over Hillary, if not more so. It bothers me, a LOT, that people are willing to overlook Trump's Russia ties because "Hey, he's not Hillary". My biggest problem with Hillary was her corruption and likely nepotism. In those realms, Trump hasn't done much better.

[UKHistory]

He has done far more and might be more financially tied to the oligarchs through business dealings well before the campaign. It is a concern.

[ShoesSwayedBlue]

Trump praised Comey during the run up to the election for his last minute press conference about the Clinton emails, which turned out to be nothing, and was blowing him kisses a month ago and calling him a hero.

Trump told Comey to officially publicly exonerate him. Comey said no, rightfully, and Trump fired him.

[KSRBEvans]

This administration can't get out of its own way. It needs to be focusing on health care reform, tax reform and immigration. Unless their plan is to create a distraction*, this does nothing to drive their agenda.




*--Which may be their plan, given how unprepared they seem to be to execute any plan on those 3 issues.

[suncat05]

Comey had to go. Eventually. And he did. But the circumstances around this entire situation is murky, at best.
Not sure what else to say here. Lots & lots of questionable actions on BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE on this story.

And none of it is good for America.

[UKHistory]

There are truly political positions and there are political appointments that work at the pleasure of the president that are not supposed to partisan.

The supreme court should not be partisan but is. The FBI director should not be partisant. Ideally neither would the attorney general.

And while politics is a part of life.

[CitizenBBN]

To be honest I find all this talk of Trump's ties to Russia to be almost comical. And, sorry, missing the mark within the context of what we know to be the full extent of foreign influence in this country's leadership.

First, if you want ties to Russia we can start with the $1million dollars paid directly to Bill Clinton while his wife was SoS reviewing the approval of uranium rights purchases for 20% or so of the US uranium reserve to a Russian company backed by Putin. Or Hillary being the one who pushed the "Reset" with Russia and directly recruited Apple, Google, etc. to move operations to Moscow.

Now I'm not deflecting, but if THAT, which is all established cold hard fact, isn't a conflict worthy of catching your hair on fire, then an investigation that apparently started more than a YEAR ago under Obama of Trump's ties and has produced not a single shred of actual evidence of any collaboration at any level surely doesn't justify this kind of reaction.

Seriously, how is it we overlook deep and abiding ties on one hand and on the other just some innuendo and suspicion is enough for an independent prosecutor?

Hey, I'm not for ANY Of the deep foreign involvement that both sides seem to have to other countries, but if we're going to be worried about other nations influencing our policies then let's really worry about it in a sober way, and that means looking at both sides and not dismissing things that are technically legal but just right up against the law but then losing our minds over what to this point has amounted to little more than accusations.

So far we know that one guy in the Trump admin had conversations with a Russian counterpart and that he had other possible financial ties. OK, John Podesta's brother is a registered foreign agent of a Russian bank, the Clinton Foundation has taken in 100s of millions in foreign money from numerous nations including Russia and Putin, BIll Clinton was paid directly by companies backed by Putin, etc. and we're all OK with that but not this?

I have no idea why Trump chose now to fire Comey, but he needed firing on January 20th, and despite all the hand wringing it seems both sides of the aisle agree he has real issues.

As for doing it to somehow impede this Russia investigation, that's got issues at a lot of levels.

1) This investigation has been going on a year apparently, with nothing to show, so let's not act like this is some new, hot thing. If the shoe was on the other foot, like during Hillary's email investigation, both sides would immediately switch their pitches, so this like everything in Washington is more about politics than any search for the truth.

2) If this is how they plan to stop it, that's dumb as a rock on their part. This will only fan the flames big time, and of course it doesn't even slow down the FBI, b/c it's not like Comey is there late at night doing this on his own.

3) Given the leaks surrounding the deep state, if there was anything of much interest at this point I imagine we'd already know about it. When Comey announced his stuff on Hillary every bit of it was already in the public domain already, that's how this works. If there is some bombshell they're trying to bury we'd already have it, and we'd have had it months ago probably b/c this investigation was started by Obama.

4) There is one part of this investigation people don't want to talk about but that's all the leaking and unmasking itself, which should also be a big part of this investigation. Maybe Comey was fired b/c he didn't want to do his job on that front, b/c he's sure soft peddled it so far. that's a good reason to fire someone isn't it, that he won't do his job investigating crimes?


I'm fascinated at the way people perceive Trump versus a more polished politician, and how people fit their suspicions to people. We have more evidence that the Obama administration may have been using the intelligence community to spy on political rivals than we have of Russia and the Trump campaign colluding to win an election, yet the former is utterly ignored and the latter is the big story.

BTW i'm not saying that it didn't happen. I am saying that a) the idea that Trump is more of a threat to democracy than Obama is completely unsupported by the facts thus far b/c Obama has done a lot of things that are very questionable (and he's not alone there either), and b) it's far more likely that Russia is doing what it is doing to drive exactly this narrative and they would do that while in on way coordinating with a particular campaign.

Don't lose sight of that last one. They're suspected of doing the same thing with the French election, and this seems more and more to just be an elaborate scheme to weaken the functioning of rival nations generally rather than them engaging in some coordinated engineering of outcomes with certain campaigns.

if anything the Clinton people had more clear ties to Russia than the Trump people, but the fact that they all do is what we should really be discussing.

Don't forget, the guy currently at the center of this was on Obama's Intelligence staff, and while he was dismissed after publicly disagreeing with Obama's policies, Obama never revoked his security clearance, and now those same people are saying he was ripe for being manipulated by the Russians. That alone should have us worried, far more than some as yet unproven ideas of actual treason. The real world gross negligence and influence peddling is more than enough.

[Darrell KSR]

I don't want to be that old grumpy guy that talks about the good old days, but there's no point in my life I have felt worse about our country than I do today.

[CitizenBBN]

Oh, and don't let's get started on the other grave questions this has raised, like how the FISA court works, or how a widely discredited bunch of crazy stuff from a guy not part of US intelligence (the Trump dossier) may have been part of stuff put before that court to get warrants.

It should trouble everyone that it may be a rubber stamp process that allows US intelligence to spy on any American they want, and given Snowden's releases it does seem that is the case.

I just don't get how actual, real evidence of our democracy crumbling around us from the "deep state" is never discussed in favor of the supposed threat from a single man who is more questioned, observed and pushed back on than any President in modern history. Trump isn't a threat to anyone b/c the Fourth Estate and everyone else is all too happy to keep him in check. it's these guys running around behind the scenes that this whole episode shows is the real threat to our nation.

Ike was right. The triumverate of big corporations, big government and big labor is the real threat. Trump is a blip on the radar.

[CitizenBBN]

I don't want to be that old grumpy guy that talks about the good old days, but there's no point in my life I have felt worse about our country than I do today.

The basic social war that launched in the 60s is reaching a critical juncture, and our politics reflects that fundamental schism.

Individual liberty cannot co-exist with social justice. One or the other must dominate, and we are in a pitched battle to see which one does. It has turned our politics into something akin to a third world nation. No one has come to blows yet, but it will happen.

The last such great test was the Civil War of course, when it did come to blows in the Senate.

[PedroDaGr8]

First, if you want ties to Russia we can start with the $1million dollars paid directly to Bill Clinton while his wife was SoS reviewing the approval of uranium rights purchases for 20% or so of the US uranium reserve to a Russian company backed by Putin. Or Hillary being the one who pushed the "Reset" with Russia and directly recruited Apple, Google, etc. to move operations to Moscow. Now I'm not deflecting...

And then you proceed to attempt to deflect it. Basically, your rationale is, because Clinton sucks at being corrupt, it is bad. Because Trump is at minimum marginally better, it is acceptable. That doesn't hold water to me. Corruption is killing this country (much more so than SJW, Anti-abortionists, race relationtions, etc.) and I refuse to play sides on this issue. If both are corrupt as sin (which it appears they are), f*** 'em both. I was, and still am, vehemently anti-Clinton. I have become much more vehemently Anti-Trump as he has shown himself over time. He didn't drain the swamp, he just changed the water.

both sides of the aisle agree he has real issues.

Both sides are also guilty of being in some pretty corrupt ****. So I while I agree he has shown some rather jarring incompetence, I would not use that as my barometer. I would argue, pissing off both sides is in general a sign he is actually doing well. Just in this case, he is also rather hamfisted if not outright incompetent.

1) This investigation has been going on a year apparently, with nothing to show, so let's not act like this is some new, hot thing. If the shoe was on the other foot, like during Hillary's email investigation, both sides would immediately switch their pitches, so this like everything in Washington is more about politics than any search for the truth.

Investigations of this scale can, and SHOULD, take a long time. If they step wrongly and don't build the case against everyone together, then it will be easy to not get the full picture. It appears there have been some sealed indictments recently passed down, so clearly the investigation is moving forward. The contents of which, we don't know but it is clear the investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, attempting to dismiss things as "just politics", which is what you attempting to do, is a logical fallacy. It could be 100% politically driven and ALSO be 100% correct.

2) If this is how they plan to stop it, that's dumb as a rock on their part. This will only fan the flames big time, and of course it doesn't even slow down the FBI, b/c it's not like Comey is there late at night doing this on his own.

This administration isn't known for subtlety, but their track record of removing people of power as they investigate their Russian-ties speaks for itself. This isn't a one-off occurrence. There have been a variety of forced resignations and firings whenever someone starts getting close in these investigations. They are attempting to silence their critics by threatening their jobs. This is common behavior in the business world, when you want to silence whistleblowers. So common in fact, that we had to make a law against it. Additionally, install a new director whom is favorable and he can immediately put a stop to most investigations by simply preventing employees from spending time/resources on it.

3) Given the leaks surrounding the deep state, if there was anything of much interest at this point I imagine we'd already know about it. When Comey announced his stuff on Hillary every bit of it was already in the public domain already, that's how this works. If there is some bombshell they're trying to bury we'd already have it, and we'd have had it months ago probably b/c this investigation was started by Obama.

Another logical fallacy, that because there were massive leaks in one investigation, that there would be massive leaks in another too. It might be (especially in light of the indictments) that only smaller stuff is getting leaked. It might also be exactly as you said, but you can't speak to it with ANY degree of certainty.

4) There is one part of this investigation people don't want to talk about but that's all the leaking and unmasking itself, which should also be a big part of this investigation. Maybe Comey was fired b/c he didn't want to do his job on that front, b/c he's sure soft peddled it so far. that's a good reason to fire someone isn't it, that he won't do his job investigating crimes?

If he was such a "liability" why was he not replaced on Jan 20th or anytime in the past couple months? Why did Trump sing his praises, right up until he started focusing much more heavily on Trump's ties to Russia? Sorry, but to ignore this timing is tribalist at best. If it was a one off occurrence, then I would agree that it is just coincidence. It is not and I strongly doubt that it is not.


You keep harping back to Obama, as if that somehow makes what Trump is doing better. This is simple deflection and tribalism, two wrongs do NOT make a right. If Obama did what is claimed, then why didn't the Republicans in the Senate actively go after him? Why didn't they actively push for his investigation? They sure as hell did multiple times on something as RELATIVELY mundane as Benghazi, so you can't tell me they didn't have the power to go after him. I would hope they can operate independently of the news media, which is clearly biased. If the evidence is as strong as you claim, they could, and should, still go after him now but they choose not to. Why?

The fact of the matter is, we have a sitting president, who has shown all signs of being compromised by Russia. In fact, it looks like in our last presidential election BOTH candidates were compromised by Russia and as an American that is something that infuriates me to no end. As for France, Russia failed because they tried to use the same playbook in France that they used here. It didn't work because the French have different triggers, being a different culture and all.

[PedroDaGr8]

Oh, and don't let's get started on the other grave questions this has raised, like how the FISA court works, or how a widely discredited bunch of crazy stuff from a guy not part of US intelligence (the Trump dossier) may have been part of stuff put before that court to get warrants.

It should trouble everyone that it may be a rubber stamp process that allows US intelligence to spy on any American they want, and given Snowden's releases it does seem that is the case.

I just don't get how actual, real evidence of our democracy crumbling around us from the "deep state" is never discussed in favor of the supposed threat from a single man who is more questioned, observed and pushed back on than any President in modern history. Trump isn't a threat to anyone b/c the Fourth Estate and everyone else is all too happy to keep him in check. it's these guys running around behind the scenes that this whole episode shows is the real threat to our nation.

Ike was right. The triumverate of big corporations, big government and big labor is the real threat.

You don't here one word of disagreement on FISA courts. They are about as un-American as you can get. Combine them with the sealed investigations, gag-orders, etc. that go with it and you basically have an end-run around the Constitution. IMHO the Patriot Act, was, and still is, the greatest violation against liberty that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

As for Ike being right. Voting Republican OR Democrat isn't going to help on that. Republicans blindly support Big Corporations, Democrats blindly support Big Labor and BOTH blindly support Big Government (just in different ways).

The basic social war that launched in the 60s is reaching a critical juncture, and our politics reflects that fundamental schism.

Individual liberty cannot co-exist with social justice. One or the other must dominate, and we are in a pitched battle to see which one does. It has turned our politics into something akin to a third world nation. No one has come to blows yet, but it will happen.

The last such great test was the Civil War of course, when it did come to blows in the Senate.

I disagree completely. Social justice is, like abortion, a side show. A slight of hand to distract from the REAL issue, corruption. It is a scapegoat which they can point their hands at and say "See look at that over there, isn't it so evil?! See that lunatic fringe? That's everyone in the movement." I know many people who fight for social justice who are fighting real inequalities and aren't authoritarian psychopaths. I also know many people who are pro-life who are not crazy fundie lunatics. Yet both sides try to paint the fringe as representative of the base. The Dem's do it to hide their corruption, the Rep's do it to hide their corruption; they do it EVERY SINGLE TIME!

[CitizenBBN]

I disagree completely. Social justice is, like abortion, a side show. A slight of hand to distract from the REAL issue, corruption. It is a scapegoat which they can point their hands at and say "See look at that over there, isn't it so evil?! See that lunatic fringe? That's everyone in the movement." I know many people who fight for social justice who are fighting real inequalities and aren't authoritarian psychopaths. I also know many people who are pro-life who are not crazy fundie lunatics. Yet both sides try to paint the fringe as representative of the base. The Dem's do it to hide their corruption, the Rep's do it to hide their corruption; they do it EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Of course it's used a political football, but that doesn't change the fact that a big chunk of this country thinks that leveling economic outcomes is more important than individual rights, and the other side thinks individual rights are more important than leveling economic outcomes. it works as a political football b/c about 1/3rd of the nation believes in it.

The nation has always been roughly divided into thirds, since our birth. IN a way it's the same thirds. One third that drug us to revolution believing in individual liberty, one third believing in the government, and one third that really doesn't care. In some ways we aren't too off from that.

But the fundamentals aren't compatible so it's in a constant state of friction that is reaching a fever pitch right now, just as it has in the past.

But IMO the left has reached a level of absurdity that yes, is egged on by the politicians, but it also caused the blowback that is Trump. But the reason civility is gone is b/c no one is in that middle or even interested in co-existing any more. That's when an unsteady truce becomes open warfare, which is what I see going on socially in this country.

[CitizenBBN]

The rest I'll have to answer later, but on this part no I'm not trying to deflect. I simply want to see justice and investigations and outrage being equal and proportional to the level of the situation.

I've never said the Senate shouldn't investigate the Russian situation, that's fine. but what tells me this is politics and not a search for the truth is that we aren't investigating the FISA/unmasking thing, we aren't investigating Clinton (apparently losing an election is proper sentence for committing massive felonies with US intelligence), etc. I simply want the pursuit of truth, not the pursuit of political points.

And in the end that's all this investigation will be, whether the Senate or the FBI version. It's clear that the deep state is just as political as the Congress, and this will be nothing more than an effort to stop damage on one side and a witch hunt on the other, with neither terribly interested in an objective and reasonable determination of whether there was wrongdoing. That ship didn't sail, it never existed.

[suncat05]

The basic social war that launched in the 60s is reaching a critical juncture, and our politics reflects that fundamental schism.

Individual liberty cannot co-exist with social justice. One or the other must dominate, and we are in a pitched battle to see which one does. It has turned our politics into something akin to a third world nation. No one has come to blows yet, but it will happen.

The last such great test was the Civil War of course, when it did come to blows in the Senate.

I have always thought that at some point those blows will come. And then there will be shots fired. And it will quickly escalate from there.

[Doc]

He should have been fired by Obama when he overstepped his authority in the Hillary e mail investigation when he offered the opinion that prosecution was not warranted. That isn't the FBIs call

[jazyd]

He should have been fired by Obama when he overstepped his authority in the Hillary e mail investigation when he offered the opinion that prosecution was not warranted. That isn't the FBIs call

Should have been but at that point he was a hero. Then was a goat a week before the election. For those who pay attention the democrats have shown what they truly are. They are greedy, lying bunch of turds who care only about their power and money and realize how stupid so many in their party are and so easily lied to. Republicans are only slightly better

There has been no evidence so far that Trump colluded with Russia. Clapper has said the same. Liberals want it to be badly

Coney did not have the support from agents based on my neighbor has told me , she is an agent

[Doc]

Should have been but at that point he was a hero. Then was a goat a week before the election. For those who pay attention the democrats have shown what they truly are. They are greedy, lying bunch of turds who care only about their power and money and realize how stupid so many in their party are and so easily lied to. Republicans are only slightly better

There has been no evidence so far that Trump colluded with Russia. Clapper has said the same. Liberals want it to be badly

Coney did not have the support from agents based on my neighbor has told me , she is an agent

A hero to who? Originally the left LOVED him for exonerating Hillary (and the right hated him for letting her off), then the right LOVED him (and the left hated him) for the statements just prior to the election. That's what is so hilarious about this. 3 months ago the left wanted him strung up by his balls, and 3 months prior to that is was the right. Realistically that because the guy is TERRIBLE at his job. He doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He basically did Loretta Lynch's job, somebody who should have recused herself of the Clinton investigation the second Slick Willie stepped on her plane, and been fired when she didn't. He doles misinformation to congress under oath, and is constantly looking to be the power wielder. How democrats are now defending this guy is beyond ridiculous. Heck, lying Harry Reid once stated concerning a connnection between Trump and Russia that "Comey knew and deliberately kept this info a secret," and Reid publicly stated Comey should resign. In May, Maxine Waters PUBLICLY TWEETED that Trump should "Donald Trump should follow his FBI Director out the door". Of course we know its not them defending him (Comey) but rather it has nothing to do with Comey. It has to do with nothing more than it was a decision Trump made. If Trump decides to eat Oatmeal for breakfast the democrats will find a way to be outraged by it. They would probably boycott Quaker Oats.

[DanISSELisdaman]

I'm just glad he's finally gone. I think he was running interference for the libs more than he was investigating.

[suncat05]

My wife likes to watch CNN sometimes in the morning. It tickles the fire out of me to watch morons like Coumo & Camarata and the litany of ignorant leftist Communist guests wring their hands and knash their teeth and whine and cry like the world is ending.
Their little fantasy world that the head Communist Obama enabled is coming apart in front of their eyes and it is making them lose their minds. What little bit of minds these morons actually have.
I am kind of enjoying watching their pain & suffering.

[KeithKSR]

As much as I think you were right on some things about his behavior, I think the timing was just TOO convenient. He is getting closer to investigating Trumps and Sessions ties to Russia and boom, now he is fired. I think there is a lot more to Trump's Russia ties than many of his fans are willing to admit. I was quite skeptical at first thinking it was just the usual politics. Not anymore, there is just too much coincidence, circumstance and outright lies and things being hidden for it to be anything else. If not Trump himself, the ties to a huge portion of his administration are indefensible. Russia has their hands all over this, just as they had their hands all over Hillary, if not more so. It bothers me, a LOT, that people are willing to overlook Trump's Russia ties because "Hey, he's not Hillary". My biggest problem with Hillary was her corruption and likely nepotism. In those realms, Trump hasn't done much better.

Comey never investigated anything, career FBI agents investigate.

[KeithKSR]

There has been no evidence so far that Trump colluded with Russia. Clapper has said the same. Liberals want it to be badly

Coney did not have the support from agents based on my neighbor has told me , she is an agent

The Dems know there is no evidence, their cries for a special prosecutor are an effort to stretch this innuendo into the 2018 midterms.