Yesterday, I asked “how pumped should we be for James Comey’s 20/20 interview and book tour?” Comey was the FBI Director until Trump fired him a year ago, a firing which got the ball rolling on the special prosecutor. Comey was also the guy who publicly torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the last weeks of the 2016 election by dramatically announcing that the investigation into those fakakta emails was reopening because of new evidence. My point? James Comey is a mixed bag, to say the least. He wants to think that he’s standing up for truth, justice and the American way, while at the same time abdicating his share of the responsibility for the fat fascist sitting in the White House right now because of his (Comey’s) actions.
In any case, advanced copies of Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty went out to media outlets on Thursday. Almost every major outlet is now covering excerpts – you can read WaPo’s coverage here. So… we know a lot about how Comey is framing everything. One of the biggest headlines is all of the stuff about the Pee Tape, obviously. But here’s my list of stuff that stuck out:
The first time Trump brought up the Steele Dossier & the Pee Tape: The first time Trump brought up the Pee Tape was before he was sworn in, right after his first big security briefing. According to Comey’s account in a new memoir, Trump “strongly denied the allegations, asking — rhetorically, I assumed — whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes. He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised. He mentioned a number of women, and seemed to have memorized their allegations.”
Trump brought up hookers & pee tapes FOUR TIMES: Comey describes Trump as having been obsessed with the prostitutes portion of the infamous dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, raising it at least four times with the FBI head. The document claimed that Trump had watched the prostitutes urinate on themselves in the same Moscow suite that President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stayed in previously “as a way of soiling the bed,” Comey writes.
Trump acted like a mobster: Interacting with Trump, Comey writes, gave him “flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.” The result, in Comey’s telling, is “the forest fire that is the Trump presidency.”
His message to Hillary Clinton: “I have read she has felt anger toward me personally, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do a better job explaining to her and her supporters why I made the decisions I made.”
Trump’s explanation for why the pee tape isn’t real: A week after the Trump Tower meeting, on Jan. 11, Comey writes that Trump called him and said he was concerned about the dossier being made public and was fixated on the prostitutes allegation. The president-elect argued that it could not be true because he had not stayed overnight in Moscow but had only used the hotel room to change his clothes. And after Trump explained that he would never allow people to urinate near him, Comey recalls laughing. “I decided not to tell him that the activity alleged did not seem to require either an overnight stay or even being in proximity to the participants,” Comey writes. “In fact, though I didn’t know for sure, I imagined the presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow was large enough for a germaphobe to be at a safe distance from the activity.”
The “loyalty oath” dinner for two: Trump broke the [loyalty] standoff by turning to other topics, Comey writes, speaking in torrents, “like an oral jigsaw puzzle,” about the size of his inauguration crowd, his free media coverage and the viciousness of the campaign. He talked about the Clinton email investigation as in three phases, as if it were a television series: “Comey One,” “Comey Two” and “Comey Three.” Trump also tried to convince Comey that he had not mocked disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski at a campaign rally, and then turned to the detailed allegations of sexual assault against him. “There was no way he groped that lady sitting next to him on the airplane, he insisted,” Comey writes. “And the idea that he grabbed a porn star and offered her money to come to his room was preposterous.”
And then he brought up the Pee Tape again: And then Trump brought up “the golden showers thing,” Comey writes. The president told him that “it bothered him if there was ‘even a one percent chance’ his wife, Melania, thought it was true.” Comey writes that Trump told him to consider having the FBI investigate the prostitutes allegation to “prove it was a lie.”
Trump called Comey a month later and brought up the Pee Tape again: “For about the fourth time, he argued that the golden showers thing wasn’t true, asking yet again, ‘Can you imagine me, hookers?’” Comey writes of their March 30, 2017, call. “In an apparent play for my sympathy, he added that he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her. He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud.’” Comey recalls telling the president the FBI was investigating it as quickly as possible, and that he had told Congress Trump was not personally under investigation, to which the president repeatedly told him, “We need to get that fact out.”
LOL at even Melania believing that the Pee Tape is out there. What Melania has seen and done and turned away from, my God. So, what do we know now about the Pee Tape? We know for sure that there IS a Pee Tape because of course there is. If there wasn’t a tape and Trump had never done any of that, he wouldn’t be so obsessed with the details of it and the minutiae of denying it. “He added that he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her…” Trump was literally banging Playmates and porn stars throughout his relationship with Melania, that’s how much he cared about causing Melania any pain. Both Karen McDougal AND Stormy Daniels said that he offered to pay them, so clearly, Trump was USED TO PAYING FOR IT. (Also: whatever happened to those rumors that Melania was an escort in her early days, hmm?)
So he treated women like hookers even when they weren’t. He also sexually assaulted women on a regular basis. Is it really so difficult to believe that the Pee Tape is really sitting in someone’s desk? Is it really so difficult to believe that Donald Trump really is a degenerate pervert, a sexual assailant, a wannabe mobster, a fascist, and a violent white supremacist?
The new cover of @TIME. pic.twitter.com/0S92bK5P9u
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 12, 2018
Photos courtesy of Getty.
This is all so wonderful. Couldn’t have happened to a better fellow.
I do love that time cover. Do you think he’ll frame it and put it up in one of his hotels?
That cover is awesome. His too long red tie and ratty hair blowing in the “stormy” weather is hilarious.
It’s a very powerful image. I also love the fact that he’s being engulfed in a #bluewave. Eat it, asshole.
🙂
Oooooh, I didn’t catch that! I love it even more now!
Nice catch, Kitten! Fantastic cover!
It’s the update from last year’s cover. Same images – the wave has been added.
I just saw a version of that cover but the water is pee yellow. Twitter is going nuts with yellow this morning, I’ve been laughing for an hour.
I find it disturbing that his alleged motivation for the prostitution urine was to foul the bed of the previous First Couple. I find his whole era surreal – an absolute attempt at demoralizing via putin! Let the Blue wave wash it clean!!!!
They should have had the tie going down like the stock market drops every time he gets a wild idea about announcing ill-thought tariffs he won’t actually follow through with.
Comey can come across as self-righteous and I’m not surprised he’s now selling a book, but if his participation can help route out this corruption and everything else, fine.
Anyone else see the animated version of the Time cover? Pretty funny.
Reprortedly Comey isn’t very complimentary towards Loretta Lynch. Two isn’t a pattern, but I wonder how comfortable Comey is being a subordinate to a woman. Like maybe the emails press conference wasn’t meant to influence the election (*everyone* thought Clinton would win), he was just posturing that he wouldn’t be taking orders from a woman. Comey seems like that kind of a-hole.
Comey’s firing led the way for Mueller’s appointment, which was much better for the country. Mueller is able to do a thorough investigation without babysitting baby fists and Mueller seems more competent for this role.
When news of drump firing Comey’s surfaced I instantly thought that it was the beginning of the end for baby fists. I hope we’ll be talking about his impeachment proceedings this time next year.
The silver lining in the JC’ mess was getting RM involved. One is said to be a showboater, and maybe this book tour is evidence of that. The other is a lower key, methodical, effective professional (we hope).
I love the animated version. His hair reminds me of Christian Bale’s character’s elaborate comb over in American Hustle.
Comey strikes me as a man who aspired to be Elliot Ness as a teenager and sees himself as an American hero. He probably thinks he always does the right thing because of his massive ego and lifelong belief in his goodness and decency. It is also a shield, so when he effs up, he tells himself it was for all the right reasons since he is a good honest salt of the earth honorable man. I think he prides himself on this self image.
But I also think he is one of those people that I take an instant dislike to because I think the self righteousness hides a vindictive streak. I have been around men like him before, and I never like them. Most everyone else does, but to me, he seems vain and golly gee whiz like Mr. Apple Pie All American. And they are perceptive and always dislike me back or women like me who don’t buy their whole schtick.
His excuse about the memo still doesn’t jibe with me, and I don’t believe his reasons for one freaking second. I believe he did it because of his feelings toward HRC and maybe Bill. Some people resented what she did with the emails when others in similar circumstances often lost their clearances and jobs. It became overblown as we all know in comparison, but I remember when she said Colin Powell had done the same thing and he debunked it. Powell was very annoyed as were others familiar with clearances. I had to hear it from a family member, but even they thought Comey was grandstanding and wrong. He way overstepped his role.
So there were some hard feelings, and I think Comey held onto that. I think it irritated him and he couldn’t let go of it so took matters into his own hands because you know HE IS A GOOD MAN so therefore it was up to him to censure her in some way.
The outcome didn’t matter as long as he punished her for the emails and I think he still feels smug about it. It backfired, but I have no doubt he will find a way to stick it to 45, and I wouldn’t put it past him to feel it will be his heroic Elliot Ness moment. He is not done, and he won’t be until he prevails.
Yeah, I know some Comey types, and I steer clear of them on purpose.
There is something about him that makes me feel I could trust him as far as I could throw him. He tries to tell us how decent and upstanding he is, versus letting actions speak for him. At least he’s speaking up while others in the party are in hiding, so there’s that. Maybe time will show he helped more than we realize.
Let him slam away at his Orange nemesis, though. I imagine there is so much to keep Tweetolini occupied (or scared witless) right now, and there is satisfaction in that.
@Christin
I am with you. I am all for him going after 45. He is the perfect foil, and I am sure he kept very detailed records. I don’t like him or think he is as he seems, but I am grateful for his role in this final takedown. He’s the right kind of person to go up against scum like 45. An effective prosecutor of people like 45 must be able on some level to understand them and not allow emotion to get in the way of what needs to happen. A healthy ego is definitely a plus for him.
Comey said in his public testimony to Congress that he still wasn’t sure he made the right decisions. So he definitely feels conflicted himself. I think he was between a rock and a hard place in October, thanks to Giuliani and the corrupt FBI agents working with Giuliani.
Great assessment, Magnoliarose. I don’t believe Comey’s excuse, either. I hold him responsible for the jackass in the White House — Trump would never have won the election if it weren’t for Comey’s actions, and no number of catty observations like the one about Trump’s tanning goggles can redeem him in my eyes. In fact, the cattiness in the excerpts I’ve read really tends to compromise the seriousness of the book, making it read more as a potboiler than as the serious indictment of Trump that Comey obviously intended it to be. Comey was foolish to go low rather than high, which has compromised his book and lessened his own gravitas.
@Lahdidahbaby
I think he is catty in his book on purpose too. I believe he wants him to unravel.
Like you I just don’t buy a man like him not knowing what he was doing. The excuses don’t wash for me and never will.
So it bothered 45 that there could be a “one percent chance” that Melania thought the pee tapes and hiring hookers was true. Yet, sleeping with adult film actresses ,playboy playmates and who knows how many other women during their marriage, plus when she was pregnant/Just given birth would be okay by her? I guess she would also not be bothered by the fact he never used protection when he was having sex with all these women?
Gross
Right? Clearly, he was trying to manipulate Comey into subscribing to a pure and sanitized version of himself that is completely divorced from reality. Because the truth is far less likely to appeal to Comey’s anecdotally moral nature: Trump was worried about the pee tape because he’s worried about his own fragile ego–he doesn’t GAF about Melania’s feelings.
Comey really seems to want it both ways.
While these excerpts are amusing, I can’t help but feel like he is part of the faction that helped usher this monster in and is now alarmed that it can’t be contained.
And honestly, this isn’t going to sway anyone. People on one side already believed it and his ride or die followers are just going to brush it off as the bitter lies of someone who got canned and the GOP is doing everything to encourage this version.
The GOP is putting a full effort into discrediting Comey but the blowback on Twitter is hilarious. People aren’t buying it and are coming after the party.
The GOP is desperate to keep the deplorables engaged ahead of the mid-terms. They have to remind white people that they, and a so-called billionaire in the White House, are being oppressed by the establishment and its lies.
You said it all @grabbyhands. I saw a headline this morning that said the percentage of Republican voters who believe the Mueller investigation is unfair has risen 10%. People believe (or don’t believe) what they want, regardless of the facts & evidence staring them in the face.
Actually, people seem to be mad at Comey because he was trying to be non-partisan. If both Republicans and Democrats think he was working for the other side, he must have done something right.
It is not partisan to investigate someone at the request of Congress, even one dominated by vengeful idiots. Remember that Comey cleared Hillary, which drove the Trumpies to distraction. I would have advised different wording in his public announcement, but he was just being his stickler-for-the-rules self. And Hillary did break the rules. I don’t think it was anything important and she obviously followed the spirit of the rules (archiving work material, handling classified info on the State Department server), but she did persist in using a private server when the rules changed to forbid that. He didn’t say anything that was untrue in summer 2016, just uncomfortable for Hillary.
In October, his confidential letter to Congress fulfilled a commitment he had made to keep them informed if new possibly relevant evidence surfaced. The letter was reasonably crafted to be as non-partisan and non-dramatic as possible and just told them that the FBI still needed to check the emails for any relevant new information. After McCabe was fired more recently, I realized that the FBI had put examination of those emails on the back burner until after the election. The impending leak and Republican circus forced Comey to deal with it sooner. FBI policy is to tread carefully in the two months before an election. This explains why Comey had not already done the comparison of the emails long before – he thought it could wait until after the election. This was unfortunate, because if his letter had been able to say they were already examined and were nothing new then the Trumpy circus would have struggled to maintain the hysteria. That wasn’t a partisan move, either. Blame Giuliani and Trump and the rogue FBI agents who were violating FBI protocol and acting in a very partisan manner.
Even so, anybody who hadn’t decided whether to vote for Hillary or the orange clown by late October simply was never an informed and thinking voter. Hillary’s response was just to ask the FBI to speed up their examination. She did not act guilty, and any sensible person would not decide to vote for Trump based on that.
I don’t remember any big surge for Trump in reliable polls that could seriously be attributed to the Weiner emails. Polls are notoriously volatile right before an election because we do have a significant fraction of uninformed voters who literally make up their minds in the voting booth. I am very skeptical of the vote tallies, because I have seen signs of vote count tampering ever since the machines were installed so widely after the Republicans shut down recounts in Florida in 2000. I looked at those machines and realized recounts would now be impossible – no paper backup to recount. When Republicans scooted into court right away to block recounts in 2016, I knew the counts were suspect. No winner blocks a recount if they know their win was fair. About 75,000 votes counted over a few states gave Trump the required electoral votes to win. This is within machine error and screams for recounts, especially since he lost the popular vote by three million.
Sounding like a broken record here— but it is beyond belief that Comey wanted Trump to be President. Comey values the truth and Trump is an obvious Liar Liar Pants on Fire. I am sure Comey was aware of Trump’s shady dealings over the past few decades as well, New York authorities have been after him for quite a while. But as FBI Director, he could not blast Trump the way he can now as a private citizen. He had to follow FBI protocol, which prohibited even saying that the Trumpsters were under investigation. Hillary’s case was different because it was always public, and fairness to her required public announcements of investigation results (which cleared her, both times).
Exactly why I haven’t been giving this book attention. Comey was a partisan hack and I feel no sympathy that he was humiliated by trump. You helped create the monster and now you can live with it.
It’s funny how all the interviews and such seem to skim right over that fact.
Comey’s facade hides his expansive sense of self and ego. It works for his line of work, and I am sure he was underestimated all the time. I am sure he knows this and crafts this non-threatening persona that fools a lot of people. He probably does a lot of things right and was effective at his job, but I side eye him and always will.
There was too much swirling at that time, and he put himself in the middle twice.
This book has some revenge in it, and I do like that part because I hate 45 with every cell in my body. But Comey getting humiliated and fired left me unmoved.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Comey’s people aren’t allowing reporters to ask him about it.
Nicole, last night Rachel Maddow mentioned that Comey would be an hour-long guest on her show sometime next week. Here’s hoping she asks him some tough questions. His holier-than- thou self image caused real damage to America because it ushered in the Orange Menace and he needs to answer for it IMO.
If Comey could manage to dump that holier-than-thou view of himself and own his actions around sabotaging HRC and helping Trump get elected, I could respect that kind of truthfulness and might even buy his book. But I won’t put a cent in the pocket of any person who helped usher in the Trump era but then refuses to take responsibility for it. I bet Kitten’s comment about Comey not allowing such questions from the media is right on the money.
I really hope that Comey’s timing — striking at a time when sales will be hot, rather than after completion of Mueller’s investigation — doesn’t in any way undermine or interfere with Mueller’s work. I wonder what Mueller thinks of Comey and his self-promotion. Here’s yet another privileged white male basking in his own humble-brag self-aggrandizement.
‘Part of the faction”?
He practically handed Trump the election. I personally know 2 people who changed their vote at the last minute. No story about Trump could surprise me at this point , just like nothing he says or does will change the minds of the Deplorables who voted for him.
Re the last-minute vote decision: I, too, know someone who was sitting on the fence about who to vote for or whether to vote at all, since he was sure HRC had it in the bag. Right after Comey’s announcement, he decided he was voting for Trump. He now sort of regrets his vote, but oh well.
How I wish there were a way to hold Comey legally accountable for the tremendous damage he inflicted on our election outcome. I still wonder about his motivation and exactly why the hell he pulled that crap. And now he’s out there grabbing attention, burnishing his reputation, and pulling in the big bucks — while the MSM can’t get enough of helping him do so. Ugh.
Anybody who changes their vote to a clown like Trump at the last minute when obviously the FBI cleared Hillary yet again of any criminal activity in October simply is not even thinking of the issues or the competence of the candidates. They are not thinking, responsible voters. And we have a lot of them. They either stay home or decide in the voting booth. Two minutes later and their vote would have been different.
Think about the huge differences between Hillary and Trump, and then tell me that someone expecting to vote for her could switch to Trump at the last minute with brain engaged. Just not possible. These kinds of voters are why disinformation campaigns work so well, they just don’t use their brains.
You can’t blame Comey for this. He checked the emails and found them to be copies of old ones already examined. Hillary did not act guilty but asked the FBI to hurry up. Comey once again CLEARED HILLARY. It’s not his fault that your friends who shifted their votes don’t think past their own noses. Just hope they never end up on a jury.
@jwoolman
I agree with everything you posted. From what I read, trumps people heard about the reopen of Hillary’s email investigation. So Coney had to publicly announce it before they did. It is not his fault, he was just doing his job. I do not believe he was for trump. As an FBI agent, he is logical and methodical. In his actions and his words. Imo, he would not want an emotional loose cannon with no experience for President. He might not even be for Hillary but she has the qualifications he would believe necessary for President. I think comey is honest, whether it benefits him or not. It’s a shame hee getting blamed for trump’s election, when he was doing his job.
Whatever you may think about Comey, obviously truth is very important to him. He meticulously took notes about every encounter with the Orange Maroon and discussed the disturbing experiences with others at the time. He is not a liar and certainly knew that Trump was a pathological liar and conman early on.
It is unreasonable to think he wanted the Orange Maroon to be President. His letter in October was not an attempt to sabotage Hillary Clinton. Read it again. It was an attempt to counter the Republican hysterics, not help them.
I agree with you 100% jwoolman. Your comments here sum up exactly how I feel about him and what he did.
Has everyone noticed the snowballing of news surrounding and engulfing Emperor Zero?
Comey: Lordy I hope there are tapes.
Michael Cohen: I made tapes of all my criminal conversations with Trump, aides to the WH, and other dubious characters.
Emperor Zero: I’m floating a trial balloon by pardoning Scooter Libby so that witnesses to my crimes know I have their backs.
Michael Avenatti: Stormy weather🎧
By the way, the “Pee Tape?” It’s much much worse than that. Bigly.
I did notice that. I also think the pardon is his way of hoping that if he goes down that he will receive a similar pardon. Who cares about Scooter Libby anymore?
Plus distraction.
Dick Cheney does. It left bad blood between him and Dubya, who grew a spine and defied Cheney’s command to pardon his fall guy.
The pee tape seems quaint, compared to things his fixer probably paid to hide.
It’s been a long time coming, but when it rains it pours!
Okay, are you Eric Garland?
Sorry
No
The stragety re Scooter Libby has a bit of sophistication to it — methinks Alan Dershowitz is onboard the Mussolini Express.
Another thought — as Scooter Libby was Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney, and W and Cheney have been at odds since W’s refusal to pardon Libby, what are the odds Libby comes in as a replacement for John Kelly? W and the Bush family (sans Jeb) have not hidden their disapproval of Cheeto. It would be another F U to the remaining establishment Republicans, whichever rock they are hiding under.
(The logic isn’t flowing quite right this morning, but when is Mussolini ever logical?)
You may be on to something. Scooter (what an embarrassing name!) has Chief of Staff experience and, because he would beholden to 45, he wouldn’t be as strict as Kelly is.
Yes! It feels like an escalation of news. See also, “trump is mad”, “trump just eats and watches tv all day” “trump is untethered”. Everything feels like it is getting more intense
F Comey.
F Trump.
And F all of these messy fools with their constant corruption and drama. Look where all these men have put us.
I go back and forth on Comey. I think he is mostly a good white guy who really fucked up. He did not torpedo Hilary’s campaign though. I still stand by the fact that it was a whole host of things and not just bigfoot jumping the gun on this one.
The Republicans 25 year campaign against her, Bernie’s attacks against her, her own campaign manager not fighting hard enough, journalists only vetting her and not thoroughly questioning Dump, Bernie or that AntiVaxer Stein, voter suppression, misogyny, and racism sunk her ship. Bigfoot alone did not do it and people need to stop saying he did. Her ship was sunk long before that press conference. Dump was right (yuck) the race was rigged from the beginning but it was rigged against her and not him. He has been telegraphing this whole thing from damn day one.
That excerpt with Obama consoling him both made me mad and sad at the same time. I felt a little bad for Comey but mostly for Obama.
I totally agree with you, AT. There were so many bricks stacked against Hillary I don’t see how she could have won. I also will never look at the dotard as a legitimate President.
And Jason Chaffetz played a huge role in what happened with Comey and that investigation.
Yes and he bailed early. I have been suspicious about that all along.
You left out Russian influence in social media
I totally agree with you AT. And after all of these roadblocks were set in front of her, she STILL won the popular vote. The antiquated electoral college needs to go, or at least be updated. If the Republicans had lost two of the past 4 elections after winning the popular vote, we would never hear the end of it. Winner take all in most states is bullspit. At the very least, the electoral votes should be split based on percentage of votes.
What shall it be?
PeeGate.
HookerGate.
BurgerGate.
WTFGate
ComeyGate
MuellerGate
The list is endless.
WTFGate. Everytime I read or watch the news,I wonder WTF is going on, WTF is Trump doing, and WTF are his supporters thinking
“BabyGate”.
Because Trump is a giant drooling, orange, diaper-soiling man-baby who needs trapping behind bars so he can’t get into any more trouble.
How about just the GOP Treason Scandal?
Embarassing. And someone is probably gonna be fired today right ? I’m seriousy afraid to wake up saturday morning to see what happend friday evening in the US.
Yeah today is the day. People have been making a LOT of predictions for this week, many of which have not come to fruition so we’ll see…
But Fridays in TrumpAmerica always give me anxiety.
Anyone who initiates and engages in an uncomfortably long handshake is not a “germaphobe.”
Sooo much THIS
Or has unprotected sex.
I think Trump is a germaphobe, but he’s too stupid to process that certain activities expose him to said germs. e.g. pee is actually relatively sterile/germ-free.
Comey didn’t make the October announcement; that was Chaffetz who leaked it.
Comey did have that very odd, very showboating announcement of hillary’semails in…. July?…. in which he denigrated her decision making, etc. I think so, so many of these men have a real blind spot when it comes to anything Hillary. The woman is amazing and strong and things in her orbit get warped and amplified out of proportion and I think that those who have spent any time indulging in Foxist Fantasies – as I imagine former Republican Jim Comey has – don’t really think she’s capable of being wounded.
And more than ever I am convinced that Russia literally altered votes. It wasn’t just the emails “news” are in October that made Donald’s “win” even slightly believeable, it was how women are treated, how Hillary has been vilified by right wing media for decades, how the corporate owned media gleefully took up the call i vilifying her, and how they CONSISTENTLY miss the point in covering stuff. Oh, and the GOP doesn’t have a problem with cheating and did so every way possible, including treason.
I think the role of the media is being ignored here too. The Hillary email story was carried by major media non stop and yet no one went after Dump when so many of the issues we are now hearing about were out there to be published. The russian oligarchs, the NDAs were all knowledge that was available, but instead we had the NYT focusing on the emails non stop. Comey didn’t turn this election. If the Access Hollywood tape didn’t turn people to vote for Hillary, then nothing was going to turn them. Dump got all the breaks on cable news, even CNN, because he was entertaining and so no one really went after him. Zucker ran CNN like the Apprentice and is far more responsible for creating the false dichotomy that somehow Hillary and Dump were both “just as bad”.
Comey is not a perfect man, but he shouldn’t be a scapegoat for this either.
Yes and yes.
I was initially mad at Comey for his summer 2016 remarks because the Trumpies weaponized them, but he had a valid point. Hillary did make a mistake in judgment when she didn’t immediately stop using her private server when the rules changed. She did break the rules, and rules are important to Comey. I think she handled classified material properly and her private server was actually more secure than the government servers at the time. And she archived all work-related material and only deleted personal material. I’m sure the FBI knows that’s true because they have much better file recovery software than I do and you have to write over the file 20-30 times with random 0’s and 1’s to keep such commercially available software from working nowadays. No indication that Hillary did that, so those 33,000 emails weren’t missing for long. The FBI doesn’t want to emphasize how good they are at file recovery for obvious reasons, but they are. Deleting a file only tells the computer the space can be re-used. If you really don’t want anybody to see something deleted on your computer, destroy your hard disk and scatter its ashes.
The issuing agencies disagreed with Comey about a few emails that were not marked classified but he felt they should have been. That’s a dispute between agencies and not a partisan disagreement.
Comey wasn’t being partisan in his remarks but actually trying to be non-partisan. He would have said the same about any Republican in the same situation. And he certainly wasn’t singling her out because she was a woman. He couldn’t talk about the Trump campaign investigation because it was ongoing. That’s standard protocol. Hillary’s investigation was already public so he needed to announce that she had been cleared in public. Comey said that when Trump wanted to him announce in public that Trump wasn’t under investigation, he wouldn’t do it because then if Trump’s category changed to subject or target, he would be obliged to announce that also and he didn’t want to do that.
Nope. I don’t fault him for Chaffetz leaking in October, but I do fault him for that ridiculous showboating in July that *he* has said in an interview was partially politically motivated. He broke the FBI rules. It was ridiculous, it was partisan, it gave oxygen to the moronic right wing theories.
Just FYI, Comey is a white hat. There are things that he cannot talk about currently as they are part of an ongoing investigation re the NYC field office of the FBI. It involves DiGenova and Ghouliani and how they conspired with FBI officials loyal to the GOP to try and blackmail Comey into reopening the case on HRC. Comey was trapped by these clowns who told him they had new emails via Anthony Weiner’s laptop (they didn’t; it was the same material Comey had already looked into). So he was forced to reopen and then shut down again the email server issue re HRC right before the election (around Oct 15).
For those who are skeptical, there exists ample stories retelling it in full ( and more complete/accurately ); look up Trumplandia and the NYC field office of the FBI.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump
Fascinating.
That still doesn’t change what he did to her in the summer. Even white hats bluck it up sometimes.
Let’s name the clown, shall we? Jason Chaffetz.
So my guess is that he will write yet another book once all is said and done and he doesn’t have to keep certain things confidential anymore? Sigh.
Also: this makes me wonder about Giuliani’s impending divorce. I wonder if it is for the same reasons as Don Jr.’s — he knows something is coming so they’re putting as much money as possible in his wife’s name to protect it?
These people are all so despicable in every way. And I still cringe when I see “President Donald Trump” written out like that…he is not a legitimate president and it sickens me that he will be in history books forever going forward.
Somewhat related to the article: I know lots of people think he’s too proud to resign, and I can definitely see that POV, but don’t you think it’s possible that he would rather resign than subject himself to the humiliation of impeachment proceedings? His supporters are dumb and delusional as dirt and will buy any spin he puts on it “My work here is done/I want to get back to running my businesses/etc.” and I don’t know how much longer he can take the heat and pressure that is on him and is only going to continue to build.
At this point all I want is to see him (and his cronies/family members) hauled out of the WH in handcuffs sooner rather than later, and for 45 to die in jail.
Mmm. This is messy. Not sure this is the level of discourse I would expect from an FBI director before the investigation wraps up. But, strategically provoking Trump at this point in the investigation will sadly, be quite satisfying to me.
Comey’s a messy bitch who lives for drama!
(I would still be bitter, too, if I were fired in the way he was.)
Yep. Comey has nearly the ego of Trump and despite his white hat, can’t help getting himself caught up in petty image control on the world stage.
I think we should consider the possibility that Comey is legitimately very worried about the damage the Orange Maroon is doing and is trying to help stop him from doing more. Other people formerly in high positions have been doing the same more and more. I think they aren’t looking for another 15 minutes but are really horrified at the possible consequences. This is so not normal.
I am sure that Comey talked with Mueller and others at the FBI before publishing his book. I would assume that he asked specifically if anything in an advance manuscript would be a problem for ongoing investigations. He’s not going to compromise the hunt.
I would imagine in any other case being fired from a high possition as FBI director would be so dissapointing, but in this case, I am sure there also is a moment of relief, as you do not have to pretend like this kind of thing Trump does is nothing out of the ordinary. If the orange one would try talking about sex or pee in my presence, I imagine would get sick, let alone would hold down the dinner for two. Ugh. And of course he would try paying off any woman he encounters because who would ever touch that for free? His marriage is just another transaction, too bad Trump broke his end by dragging Melania into the White House when all she needed was a suggar daddy. At this point there is collusion, obstruction of justice, sexual harrasment and the buying off which begs the question – what will be the best scenario to take him down?
I’m a little nervous at some petty stuff Comey put in the book. A reporter had an advanced copy last night and some of the tidbits:
Comey was surprised how much smaller Trump looked in person.
Comey notes his own hands are bigger than Trump’s,
Comey speaks of Trump’s orange face and staring at the white goggle marks around his eyes.
Comey mentions that the Russian hotel room is big enough for a man with OCD to stay clear of the reported shenanigans.
While I love how angry this will make Trump, I fear that it will look like Comey had a personal issue with Trump, which feeds into the base’s deep state paranoia.
@Kelly, ITA with your assessment. Clearly Comey wants to strike while the iron is hot and cash in, but this doesn’t reflect well on him or his level of professionalism.
Your comment made me wonder if Mueller would ever write such a book…I think if he does, it wouldn’t be so much venting & petty anecdotes like Comey’s, but more a written record for history’s sake (it’s early and I haven’t had any coffee yet so I might not be explaining myself very well but hopefully you know what I mean!).
For some reason I don’t see Mueller writing a book, but he’s up on a pedestal right now with me.
Mueller’s book would not have such details because he didn’t have to sit and stare directly at Trump and listen to Trump drone on about the hookers or impossibility thereof. Comey is right to point out that being a germophobe is no impediment to the Moscow hookers story being true. He’s just being logical.
When people with such personal experience write books, they typically do include personal details about the appearance of the subject. None of the quotes seem unusual to me.
I’m pretty sure Comey’s hands are bigger than everybody’s … Isn’t he something like 6’8”?
Nah, I don’t think so. It’s just his personal observations of trump.
Kobe has Trump scared.
He’s whining about him on Twitter saying
“James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and
….untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”
JFC, he’s nuts.
From the guy who blabbed code-word intel to the Russians in the freaking Oval Office, unreal.
If this is downfall of US it looks very non-stylish.
Comey is a mixed bag, but so is life. I don’t 100% love him, but I am here for this. RE: pee tape – of course there’s one. That’s not my scene, so if someone said they had video of me in a golden shower scenario with prostitutes, it’d be an easy denial and LOL for me. I’ve never peed on anyone nor let anyone pee on me (unless you include newborn boys with no control yet) and I’ve never been with a prostitute. So if that were my situation, a pee tape accusation wouldn’t even make my radar of things to worry about. He’s obsessed with it, so either there IS one or he knows there COULD be one, which means he did it. Either that, or he’s just so senile he can’t even remember if he did it but thinks it sounds like something he might have done.
The very careful wording about how Trump seemed familiar with all the sexual assault allegations is funny and shady. What a hilarious metaphor for “he has an excellent memory of all the crimes he has committed”.
The most ridiculous thing that happened yesterday was how reporters and republicans(the ones that criticize the Dotard on a daily basis) were whining that Comey was being petty because he wrote about the Dotard’s small hand size, orange color, and his excuse about being a germaphobe. The Dotard has verbally attacked everyone and made horrible remarks about women and yet these people think that Comey is the petty one? The Dotard said that Mika was bleeding from everywhere because she called him out on his bad behavior. The Dotard said that Maxine W had a low IQ because she called for him to be impeached. The Dotard said that there is no way that he would have harassed his accusers because they weren’t attractive enough. The Dotard said horrible things about Ted’s wife’s appearance.
I agree about Comey not being tough enough against the Dotard. He wrote this book telling us just how dangerous the Dotard is, yet he won’t take commit to calling him out for obstructing justice. Why do these people fall short when it comes to calling the Dotard out on the crimes he has committed? I am worried that Mueller has fallen into the complicity trap when it comes to the Dotard and will absolve him when it comes to obstruction of justice.
The Dotard wasn’t concerned about Melanie when he asked Comey into investigate the tape. If he cared about Melanie, he wouldn’t have cheated on her.
Mueller has kept his mouth shut and there have been no leaks from his team. There is no evidence that he is “complicit” with the Orange Maroon. We will know what he has on the Maroon only when Mueller issues reports and indictments.
He may not feel able to indict Trump because the DoJ says a sitting President cannot be indicted. That has not been tested in court. So he will likely issue a report of his findings for Congress and let them decide on impeachment.
He may not push for an interview with Trump if he has everything he needs from other sources. Whether or not Trump will be subpoenaed for testimony is still an open question, that has been done with a sitting President before. Likewise for deposition.
Remember that his job is not to “get rid of Trump” but rather to carry out a thorough investigation of any possible obstruction of justice and conspiracy with the Russians to interfere with the elections and violations of campaign financing laws. He can follow leads on other criminal activity, so my bet is that Trump is toast at least on money-laundering (which is also relevant to the Russia investigation, as a conduit for illegal campaign financing).
Although I believed the ass-clown grifter capable of anything, I was 50-50 on the pee tape until I saw the segments of the Stephen Colbert show were he went to Moscow and Colbert’s interviews about that trip afterward. I cannot put my finger on what it was exactly but I became convinced the pee tape exists. It explains allot.
After watching him testify I found him
to be an honest man of integrity, and kinda sexy.
I’m sure Trump is glued to the TV’s these days.
This is all sublimely messy, but the deplorables simply believe he’s draining the swamp. Even his disgusting character is explainable. And he’s nowhere close to being a germaphobe. The fact he eats fast food alone is enough to debunk that theory. I’m not a germaphobe but my mind goes to crazy places if teens are preparing a ten-second cheeseburger for me. Comey’s capitalization is expected… I’d be surprised if he didn’t try to use information amassed on this administration. We should all be thinking about how we can make a fast buck off this sinking ship as that’s all it’s good for. Pee perfume anyone? Aurulent Mist. No. Amber Mist. Apply in the shower.
Comey remarked about the appearance of Trumps eyes? Really? Look at the bags under Comeys eyes! How can the ape even stand up straight??
Yeah, Comey has bags, but are the bright white while the rest of his face is orange? I don’t like or dislike Comey, but he’s a lot more attractive than Trump. I have no problem with people making mean comments about Trumps looks, because he is always making nasty comments about other people’s looks
I didn’t see those comments as mean but rather just objective reporting. Have you ever read a book detailing personal interactions without some description of the subject?
Trump really does turn orange either due to how his makeup reacts on his skin or how his tanning bed affects his skin. The white skin under the eyes could still be makeup if he shields his eyes (e.g. if he’s spraying something on). I think it’s mainly the makeup because he shows up orange for interviews and rallies and public speeches and then is back to his normal pallor soon after. Same with his hair – orangey for rallies and interviews, normally white. He looks like a whole different person. I hadn’t even seen him in his normal non-orangey state until after the election, when we were seeing a lot of photos of him without makeup.
About bags under the eyes — I don’t think Comey is into makeup like Trump. His bags match his skin. And he doesn’t try to hide them, so what exactly is the point?
And yes, he’s very tall. Not his choice. That’s why it was so funny when a while ago he admitted that he tried to blend in with the drapes at a group gathering to avoid being noticed by Trump. A guy his size really can’t blend in too well!
While Comey’s arguably cashing in and clearing the air, what he’s reporting seems to corroborate everyone else’s evidence of Trump’s incessant lying and unhinged, obsessive attempts to corrupt justice.
He sure can memorize allegations but can’t keep anything else straight because of lies. I hate him.
Did you see Sarah Sanders’ attack on Comey? Wow-we. She hammered him. Ouch.
I ordered the audio book. I appreciate someone actually telling the truth about Trump for once. Seems everyone is afraid to call it like it is, even those Trump’s shit all over.
Thank you for this: “fakakta emails”.
And pee tape/Comey details. I’d rather read these details than about the Syrian air strikes at this moment…
The Dotard tweeted mission accomplished and he is right. He bombed Syria and the press stopped talking about Comey, Cohen, Stormy Daniels, his attempts to fire Rosenstein and Mueller, Devin Nunes, and the Russian investigation. The bombing last night was a true “wag the dog” moment. I don’t know why the press continues to fall for the Dotard’s cons. I don’t even understand why France and the UK went along with the Dotard after the Dotard gave Russia and A a heads up 3 days before the attack, Fox N instructed the Dotard to bomb Syria to knock Comey’s book off the top of the headlines, and the Dotard cares so much about Syrians that he banned refugees from coming into the US. The press has one job to do and they keep failing.
Some people were faulting Comey for talking about the possible pee tape just to sell books, but I don’t see how he could have avoided it while giving a complete report about his interactions with the guy. And certainly he was asked about it in the interview.
Trump kept coming back to the tape again and again, and even wanted Comey to investigate to prove it doesn’t exist. Comey had to point out to the Orange Maroon that this would not only make him a subject of investigation (not good for Trump), but it also is nearly impossible to definitively prove that such a tape does not exist. Not finding it proves nothing.
I think Trump assumes the FBI is just another personal Fixer and like others in his life, would do a sham investigation and “prove” anything he asked them to prove. Trump is not used to dealing with honest people. And he is not used to thinking ahead, so it would not occur to him that the FBI (being an independent agency and not his personal Fixer) would likely come up with other uncomfortable evidence about Trump’s activities in such an investigation.
I don’t know why he’s so worried about the tape, though — even if it exists, he could just say it’s doctored and they hired an imposter. The Russians have been known to do just that and so even I would give him the benefit of the doubt. A tiny itsy bitsy doubt at this point only because now I know how obsessed he has been about it, and the Orange One really doth protest too much. A normal reaction of an innocent person (or a smart guilty person) to being briefed on the dossier would be to say that the hooker event never happened and then just move on. Maybe Trump never got the point that he was being told about the dossier not as a threatening move, but to just alert him so he wouldn’t be blindsided if the details came up later. That’s not how Trump operates, he threatens and bribes to get his way — so he assumes everybody else does, too.
I believe he is worried about the tape because it reveals things beyond the P and that is the part he doesn’t want out there. Aside from my thoughts about Comey, I believe everything he says that happened. He is right to sound the alarm and keep the tape in the headlines.