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Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey (washingtonpost.com)
The White House said today that President Trump has fired FBI director James Comey. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement: "President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office. President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. '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,' said President Trump. A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin immediately."
The Washington Post reports: Earlier in the day, the FBI notified Congress that Comey misstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton email investigation during testimony last week, saying that only a "small number" of emails had been forwarded to disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, not the "hundreds and thousands" he'd claimed in his testimony. The letter was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, more than a week after Comey testified for hours in defense of his handling of the Clinton probe. In defending the probe at last week's hearing, Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin's emails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner. "Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information," Comey said, adding later, "His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the secretary of state." At another point in the testimony, Comey said Abedin "forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information." Neither of those statements is accurate, said people close to the investigation. Tuesday's letter said "most of the emails found on Mr. Weiner's laptop computer related to the Clinton investigation occurred as a result of a backup of personal electronic devices, with a small number a result of manual forwarding by Ms. Abedin to Mr. Weiner." The letter also corrected the impression Mr. Comey's testimony had left with some listeners that 12 classified emails were among those forwarded by Abedin to Weiner.
So, how many in the White House were under indictment for Treason, then?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
After all it was Comey who got him elected.
Are you complaining because the President didn't keep him in office to return the favor? Or are you just complaining to complain?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Are you complaining because the President didn't keep him in office to return the favor? Or are you just complaining to complain?
I, for one, made the same observation immediately. That's pretty poor payback. I don't think Comey got him elected singlehandedly, the DNC did most of it, but still
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
FBI Directors are traditionally non-partisan, and serve a 10 year term that is not at the pleasure of the president, unlike political appointees. This isn't to say that the President doesn't have the power to fire the Director, but it hasn't been done before, and would be a very unusual step. The question then is what is the cited reason for it, because given the current situation and ongoing investigations, it's really really suspicious, on par with the Watergate "midnight massacre" where Nixon fired both the Attorney General and the Deputy AG before getting to someone that would agree to fire the Special Prosecutor that was investigating Watergate.
In other words, it had better be a really damn good reason.
The timing is ODD? The whole thing is ODD if you ask me, just not in the way you are implying.
Come on, the timing would have been "odd" regardless of when Trump did this. Of course the Democrats will decry how this is evidence of something "odd" going on that we need to investigate... Maxine Waters and Nancy will be spouting off about impeachment again because it doesn't matter what Trump does or when he does it, it's always suspicious to them..
I think this is all odd in that Comey lased this long after inserting himself into an election twice then tried to explain away his actions by claiming he had no choice. I think it's ODD that Comey decided that no charges where appropriate for Hillary and that E-mail thing, but then again he didn't want to impact the election, then turns around and sticks his foot in it again????
Comey did this to himself. I don't know if he was playing political games with the facts, playing one side or the other, nor do I care. What's really odd is that Trump let this circus go on as long as he did...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I think the issue here is more to do with the timing. With the Russia investigation heating up, or rather there isn't enough other news to bury it, all of sudden Comey's thrown out. Sure, maybe it's because Trump is convinced he's a fuck up, but if that were the case, then why wait until over four months into his presidency before he decides to give Comey the boot?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is what get you with this guy: used and thrown away. Sounds like Comey wasn't willing to help bury the investigation into the mango-in-chief's ties to Russia. With the way the swamp is being "drained" in DC, I expect the new head of the FBI to be someone from the mob. ;)
Didn't you read Trump's letter? He says that Comey told him three times that he (Trump) wasn't under investigation. Since Trump would never lie, and the FBI would never lie to a target of investigation, you can take it as gospel truth that that wasn't what happened.
</sarcasm>
Was I the only one that found it utterly bizarre that Trump chose to mention that in his letter firing Comey?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It's strong indication that Comey wasn't really on either side during the election, that instead his weird behavior was merely a manifestation of incompetence.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think the point is that the set of people investigating him are a subset of those he has fired. If you want it pedantically spelled out.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
It seems it really should not matter how the source code with the faulty algorithm got into the software build, either by a new development error or a build system regression.
Either way, the vulnerability should not have been there.
And your point is?
The DNC did screw up, however the Russians hacking the DNC and exposing there plan to stop Sanders really turned off a lot of people who may had sided with Clinton if she won in a fair fight.
The DNC thought they could have everything. They were wrong, because they aren't good enough at security. They're going to have to embrace some actual justice and fairness if they want to win elections, now. Not holding my breath here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually Comey is a long term member of the Republican party.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
No it was very much hillary who got him elected, Anyone who was not a completely worthless human or clump of grass would of won over him; and the grass would of been in the running
Trump went up against umpteen senior GOP candidates incl 1/2 a dozen former governors and beat them like rented mules, garnering the most votes ever in a Republican primary.
Seems there were a lot of completely worthless humans both running against him & voting for him.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
They were all just investigating people very close to Trump for committing crimes in support of Trump, so clearly there's no danger to Trump in these investigations and no possibility of him getting dragged into them.
Play Command HQ online
Posting as AC, 'cause I still have a job and a clearance and I don't need the hassle.
Fire_Wraith is right - this is what usually happens with inadvertent disclosure of classified info over an unclassified system. I too have seen this happen exactly as described.
However, once you get beyond "accidental disclosure" and go to deliberately sending this info knowingly over unclassified networks onto unsecured systems - and later destroying the materials yourself instead of reporting it promptly to the appropriate people to cover up the act - that gets into very dangerous territory, from lose your clearance and get fired to throw your ass in jail territory.
I cannot believe anyone who holds a clearance and saw what Clinton did would think for a moment that they could get off so easy too if they did the same thing.
I'm still not understanding the "Sanders would totally have won" mentality, even though I voted for him. He's a self-described socialist, and the bulk of the Republican party never even bothered to campaign against him, seeing him as an easily defeated candidate, much as there was little or no campaigning against Trump by Team Hillary until he actually got the nomination.
People who turn around and say "Ah, but anti-establishment!" forget that Trump did a pretty decent job of convincing people that he was anti-establishment, and the "establishment" they were referring to was more of a phantom "center left" group that supposedly was going to force everyone to gay marry Prius driving black Muslim transexuals, than the white, rich, male establishment that actually runs the country.
Sanders was never going to win because you don't actually win fights against that establishment, it's the establishment for a reason, it would not survive unless a majority of the population actually propped it up.
Trump won because he represented the fear by that establishment that it was losing power. Sanders would have lost even more easily than Clinton did. People had to hate Clinton for Clinton to lose. Sanders merely needed to say what he represented.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Trump is not going to leave without leaving metaphorical claw marks on the floor as he's dragged out, and there's no sign of anyone dragging him out any time soon. He started in disgrace and isn't going to resign to avoid it.
I don't think the point was that Trump is going to resign, but rather that's he's already digging his claws into the metaphorical floor by trying to make the Russian investigation disappear.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Comey was appointed and served as Deputy Attorney General under Bush, and was involved with several domestic and international intelligence operations. He primarily came to public notice when he refused to certify a domestic wiretapping program while Acting AG because AG Ashcroft was in the ICU being treated for pancreatitis, and rushed to the hospital to intercept Alberto Gonzalez and Andrew Card before they could convince Ashcroft, who was under the effect of painkillers and sedatives, to sign off on it. On the other hand, Comey signed off on torture techniques as being legal.
I don't agree with some of the things Comey has done or backed, but I think he's a man of principles who believes strongly in the law. Had Trump fired him within the first few weeks of taking office, it would have been unusual but part of the changeover. Doing so nearly four months into his term and after the effusive praise heaped upon him for an obviously questionable reason just adds to suspicions over the real reasons.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I love word games! Let's play some madlibs with your post!
>Kind of like not wanting to pay for a _ "qualifies as" denying her the right to _
I choose "Breast cancer" and "life". Sounds right.
>or how not wanting to pay for other people's _ education "qualifies as" denying access to education
"Public."
> or opposing the presence of illegal _ in the US "qualifies as" racism
"Immigrants". See, I just made it not racist! Why are you only after the Mexicans?
>opposing "gay marriage" qualifies as homophobia.
Uhhhh.. I got nothing. Turns out that opposing something that isn't your business and doesn't effect you just because it is icky is a phobia.