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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.
After all it was Comey who got him elected.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
next a russian mole as head of the FBI.
Next up: NSA.
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. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
I know, a lot of you disagree and think that it's cliche and not authentic, but I do enjoy that new sitcom about a TV buffoon getting elected as the US president. Every week a new episode full of laughter and surprises.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the Senate is wearing the same team jersey as Trump
No, Trump grabbed a T-shirt the same color as the GOP's jersey, spray painted '00' on the back, then snuck into the Team party, and when asked who invited him, pointed to the guy that just left the room to use the can, then scurried away to talk to someone else before anyone could question him. By the end of the night everyone thought everyone else invited him. By the next morning he was already POTUS and everyone wondered what the hell happened.
"Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey"
L-O-fucking-L!
I swear, if this so-called president wasn't busy destroying the country through his greed, ignorance, and epic incompetence, I'd be laughing my ass off at the antics of this draft-dodging clown.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Republicans have spent a billion tax payer dollars trying to find one thing Hillary is guilty of other than being a power hungry bitch.
No one. Not even Donald Trump can stay free under that kind of scrutiny unless they are not guilty of legal wrong doing. No one can hide with that many private and public investigations going againist them.
Morally she might be bankrupt, but we don't try people for being morally bankrupt or trump would have been executed for his crimes decades ago. Crimes like never paying back contractors what they are owed. Like hiding money from legally owed taxes. Oh and running more companies into the ground than airlines have crashed planes.
So name one legal thing she has been found guilty of in a court of law?you can't all you know is propaganda heresey and lies told by Fox news and other conservatives. The fact you use liberal monkeys shows you are too stupid to use reason and logic.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
Actually, I've seen at least two people do it in the time I was in the government, holding a clearance. I'm not talking about hearing a rumor second or third hand, I'm talking about a guy who sat two desks over, that I knew on a first name basis, and worked with daily. Neither were anyone of remote importance, just average joes, and these were in two separate offices/commands, separated both by hundreds of miles and several years.
Both of them did exactly that - they sent classified information via an unclassified email system. In one case, I was one of the recipients. Want to know what happened? There was an investigation to determine just what happened, and when. The investigators then wiped all the unclassified systems that touched those emails, including the servers they passed through. The guys who sent the email? They received a reprimand (I'm not sure if it was verbal or something more formal), and had to retake the security training on handling classified material.
That was it.
Neither was fired. If they did it again, they might have been, or if they violated security procedures some other way (bringing a cellphone into the secure area, or leaving a vault door unlocked or something). They sure as sh*t weren't sent to court, let alone jail over it.
Now, if the unclassified email was their own system? They might have gotten fired/lost their clearances, sure, but unless the investigators determined that there was intent to leak classified information, a la Manning/Snowden/etc, or worse, sell it to someone a la Ames/Hansen/etc, that's almost certainly all that would happen to them.
This quote is interesting:
"While I greatly appreciate your informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are unable to effectively lead the Bureau."
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Donald Trump publicly complemented Comey's press conferences and other actions related to Hillary's email during his campaign events.
How stupid would you have to be to believe that Donald Trump fired Comey for the actions which he publicly commended him for?
Donald Trump is preparing for his criminal prosecution and impeachment just like Richard Nixon did in the leadup to his resignation in disgrace.
Stop being misleading. He's fired a lot more than those three.
Comey has found NOTHING after over a year of trying to prove a link between Trump and the Russians.
It hasn't been a year yet (July or August of 2016 is when the investigation started) so it hasn't been over a year.
There are plenty of links between Trump and Russia when you look at the folks on his campaign and their own connections. Roger Stone bragged on several occasions he was in communication with Guccifer 2.0 and knew when the next batch of emails was going to be released. Guccifer 2.0 is part of the Russian intelligence services.
Flynn, well, we know about his numerous ties to Russia and that he lied about not having any.
Carter Page, who at first said he never helped the Russians with classified or other such materials, then changed his tune to "no comment" when asked about the investigation into his dealings with Russia, and now is saying, "No I'm not going to hand over evidence of my dealings with the Russians so you can hang me with it."
As we saw a day or so ago, Eric Trump bragged that it was Russians who were financing his father's golf courses during the Bush recession. This on top of other financial dealings Trump has with Russia.
Then today, the Senate committee investigating collusion between Trump and Russia during the campaign has asked the Treasury Department's criminal division to hand over any and all documents related to Trump, his campaign and campaign aides.
That doesn't sound like "nothing important".
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.
Well, the next director cannot do any worse for you... Comey has found NOTHING after over a year of trying to prove a link between Trump and the Russians.
The Watergate scandal took 26 months from the day the burglars were arrested to the President's resignation. Just because you watched it all in 140 minutes doesn't mean that's how it actually played out.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
If Barack Obama had fired an FBI director who was investigating him for treason, Fox News would be arming themselves on national television.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes but Them started it.
The fact is that 99% of the people in the media now "defending" Comey would want his head if he were behaving as a good FBI director under Trump after what they blame him for with Clinton.
It can be perfectly consistent to say that someone should resign and then to object when someone fires them. If you can't imagine a scenario in which that makes sense, then we're not having a conversation; we're just talking at each other.
Look, just because someone is an asshole who doesn't play by the rules doesn't mean that the rules don't apply equally to them. That includes the protections they offer as well as the penalties they impose. James Comey broke the rules by circulating what turned out to be false news about a candidate during an election cycle. He shouldn't have done that. But the President was wrong to fire him, too, because Comey was actively investigating him for alleged corrupt ties to Russia.
So people in the media called foul in the first instance and called foul in the second. They're not defending the man; they're defending the notion that the FBI should be apolitical and independent. It would be inconsistent not to decry both abuses.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Nobody is defending Comey. They just don't believe that Trump cares about any of the bad things Comey did. They have good reason to believe this since Trump praised Comey for the same actions.
Play Command HQ online
Sally Yates was not investigating Trump. She also refused to follow the orders of her boss, so of course she was fired.
Preet Bharara was not investigating Trump. He was one of the politically appointed DoJ attorneys that EVERY president replaces. He refused to resign when asked like every other attorney, and so was fired.
James Comey was not investigating Trump. He's the Directory of the FBI, not an agent, detective, or attorney.
Last week, Democrats wanted his head, too. After his bizarre performance before Congress, he seems to have run out of support, and Trump fired him. Then, suddenly! Democrats love him again. Even though 4 of the last 5 Attorney Generals of the US agreed that Comey should have been fired after last June and October, as soon as he is fired, it's an 'evil Republican' thing.
A testable claim! Oh God, I love testable claims about the law. No "could be this" or "could be that," just it's there or it's not.
18 U.S. Code sec. 798 - Disclosure of classified information
My criminal law class taught that "knowingly and willfully" are intent elements. If you didn't know it or didn't will the act to happen (e.g., the information that you were given was unmarked and only later retroactively classified), then it's not a crime.
Your claim that there's no "intent" test in the statute is false. Yes, the law matters, but your flawed understandling of the law does not.
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 darn good reason.
[...] but it hasn't been done before, and would be a very unusual step.
Bill Clinton fired an Attorney General William Sessions but that guy was under investigation for ethical issues that made his firing a foregone conclusion. The attorney general that came after him was the one who appointed the Whitewater special prosecutor that caused Clinton all kinds of trouble.
This is the horrible result of extreme partisanship. When it becomes more about your team winning than what's best for the country, morals and class become irrelevant. It's like Pittsburgh Steelers fans—they know their quarterback is a rapist but they defend him anyway because he's their quarterback and he wins.
Your post also makes me think of how terrible our education system is. We think of education purely as job training. That's why being a "geek" doesn't mean you're smart or read awesome Douglas Adams books. There are people who learn to code, or learn to monkey around in IT, or do whatever type of thing that's stereotypically nerdy but they never took an ethics class or studied foreign cultures or immersed themselves for just a small time in any form of liberal arts.
In college I would always hear people complain if they had to take anything outside the purview of their specific major. "Why do I have to learn this? When am I ever going to use this?" they would say. I guess my answer is: because you have the power to vote and you'll use this knowledge when you cast your ballot. Now we've elected President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
You are correct
http://nypost.com/2017/03/17/b...
Fired US Attorney Preet Bharara was investigating a key member of President Trumpâ(TM)s cabinet, a new report Friday revealed.
Bharara was looking into allegations that Tom Price, the health and human services secretary and the administrationâ(TM)s point man on efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, improperly traded health care stocks while he was a member of the House of Representatives, ProPublica reported.
Price maintained that he broke no laws when he traded health care stocks even as he was involved in legislation relevant to the health care sector. He traded over $300,000 worth of shares of relevant companies during a four-year period in the House.
The issue played a significant role in Priceâ(TM)s confirmation process, and he was asked about it numerous times during his Senate hearing.
The revelation that Bharara was investigating Price comes as many were surprised the US attorney from the Southern District of New York was not retained by the Trump administration.
---
Preet was investigating cabinet members of Mr. Trump's administration. And it was in his jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Trump in new york and there were rumors that he might do so about the time he was fired after Mr. Trump had said personally given Preet assurances that would preet be retained.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
What a stupid comparison. Both Assange and Snowden are more credible than anybody holding office in Washington DC.
Why counterpoise the two of them in anyway or fashion?
Uh no. There never was any evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton or anyone close to her on Benghazi. The same cannot be said with Trump and Russian interference.
BTW, Trump advisers say Comey was fired because of Russia investigation.
Play Command HQ online
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.
The official excuse is that Comey fucked up multiple times when investigating Clinton, by smearing her at the conclusion of the first investigation (and making the decision not to prosecute, which isn't a power he has - this shouldn't be interpreted as a belief his conclusion Clinton shouldn't be prosecuted was wrong, merely that he should have left the decision to the DoJ), and by his intervention during the election.
The real reason is almost certainly given by Trump's letter's second paragraph, where Trump brings up, for no apparent reason, Comey's assurances Trump isn't being directly investigated over Russia's intervention in the election. As everyone is aware, there is an investigation, it's just not targeting Trump specifically. Yet. And Comey is nominally overseeing that investigation.
If the Trump-Russia investigation is not the reason, it's a pretty weird statement to make in the middle of your letter firing someone, especially when no other reasons are stated directly (the reader has to, instead, refer to a referenced letter from the Deputy USAG to actually find the official reason.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's not what's going on - maybe you know that and try to make a partisan statement. It's indeed unlikely that any substantial evidence against him could arise from the Russia link issue, but that's not the reason why Trump worries about it. He's a pathological narcissist who truly wants to be loved by everyone, and this probe continues to cast a bad light on him. He absolutely cannot stand this, he's the most thinly skinned person I've ever seen in public life and, judging from his performance so far, only knows two reactions to critique: Either he tries to make friends with his critique on a personal basis to make the critique go away, or he responds with extreme, often irrational and out of proportion aggression.
That's the reason why he fired Comey, he wants this probe to stop because it bothers him personally. Trump's hidden weakness and insecurity is also the reason why he likes strong, authoritarian personalities and the military so much and attempts to portray himself as a 'strong man' at every possible occasion.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that Trump is after all a nice guy with overall good intentions. But his ego gets way to much in his own way. That's no problem when you're a billionaire and run your own company, but in politics both conflicts and compromises are unavoidable.
He called out the Espionage Act. That's the classified information section of the Espionage Act. Is there another Espionage Act?
It's called "moving the goalposts." You've just done it.
That IS the Espionage Act. Tell you what, why don't you specify the section of the U.S. code that you're referring to and we'll test that claim as well.
The FBI director isn't supposed to play kingmaker in DC.
Seems like Trump is firing the FBI director not for playing kingmaker but not for backing up Trump's false accusation that Obama wiretapping him.
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
Because so many put the blame on Comey, it's harder to say that Comey's actions are not worth firing him over.
His actions were worth firing him over, but the time for that firing was January, not May, and the justification for that firing runs counter to what Trump has repeatedly said previously. Anyone with an ounce of critical thinking skills knows that the justification for firing Comey is a lie. So the question is why is he really being fired, right now?
Trump is able to exploit the mixed messaging because the Dems can't admit that Clinton lost because she ran a horrible campaign and nobody wants establishment GOP-lite.
You conveniently forget that she actually won the popular vote, so considerably more people wanted her than wanted Trump. She may have run a horrible campaign, but I couldn't really tell you because I can't actually recall any coverage during the election of Hillary Clinton's actual campaign. Furthermore, even if she had run a horrible campaign, it doesn't change the fact the margin of victory for Trump was so small that both Comey's actions and interference from Russian operatives were, each and independently, enough to change the result of the election. There are a lot of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did, focusing on one reason to the exclusion of all others is myopic no matter who does it.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I don't know about Yates, but in the cases of Bharara and Comey, he pretty much implied that he was going to keep them on. In any case, all three were fired very abruptly very soon after new information about the investigation of Trump Administration ties to Russia came to light.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...