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Thursday, July 7. 2016

Comey on Capitol Hill today

Full transcript of Gowdy's chat with Comey.


A clip of it:





Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 11:37 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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Argh! I'm at work. I got to see the first hour of this, but then had to hit 'record' for the rest. I wish they'd give you a day off when important hearings were going on.
#1 MissT on 2016-07-07 12:28 (Reply)
What difference at this point does it make?

Strikes me as political grandstanding. Nothing more.
#2 feeblemind on 2016-07-07 12:39 (Reply)
Exactly. It's not like these linguini spined republicans have ever done anything except stab their base in the back. Nothing will come of this.
#2.1 B Hammer on 2016-07-07 12:50 (Reply)
Indeed B Hammer.

Behold how angry they are while they do nothing to stop this sort of thing.
#2.1.1 feeblemind on 2016-07-07 13:48 (Reply)
Yep. I was not an early supporter of Trump (and his trade and tariff ideas scare me), but the fecklessness of the Republicans is a great reason to try somebody else.

Trump said he would prosecute Hillary if he is elected (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/23/donald-trump-pledges-to-prosecute-hillary-clinton-as-president/). That is a major reason for my supporting him.
#2.2 mudbug on 2016-07-07 12:53 (Reply)
While you're voting for Trump, be sure to clean house of any other politicians that continue to reap the benefits of "being special" while expecting their constituencies to follow the inane laws they pass or the regulations they allow NON-elected departments to implement.
#2.2.1 jma on 2016-07-07 14:05 (Reply)
I agree but that happens in the primaries where you try to get the best Republican in the race. After that, as bad as Republicans are, the Democrats - all of them - are worse.
#2.2.1.1 mudbug on 2016-07-07 14:28 (Reply)
I don't know.

Seems to me there could be some legal procedural doings here. Right now all there is, is Comey's public statement, which was not sworn. He is now answering the same questions under oath before the House, which does a couple things.

1. It moves the information out of the realm where a judge could suppress it.

2. It puts it in the official record of the United States Congress

3. Any effort by DemProgs to try and say Comey lied will now come with the burden that they have accused him of perjury. He an then either sue for defamation or the House can open a public investigation into the charges.

Look, this is clear corruption at the highest levels, but unprovable. Comey is making sure it doesn't disappear quietly into prosecutorial discretion. Yes, he didn't recommend charges, but that opened the way to laying out the findings. If charges had been recommended, we would not have what is essentially a charge sheet spelling out the findings of the investigation.
#2.3 JK Brown on 2016-07-07 13:54 (Reply)
My thoughts exactly. Posted at Power Line earlier:

This is how it is playing. Comey had two choices. Referral or no referral.

In the case of a referral the content would be confidential. Lynch sits on it for a week then says her prosecutors decided not to indict. Case closed and take the flak.

In the case of no referral then the same thing. Attorney work product. No disclosures.

In both cases there would be leaks but anonymous only. A known leaker is subject to criminal sanctions for a number of reasons.

Comey pulled a Captain Kirk a la the Kobayashi Maru. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru).

He stood up there, made sure everyone understood that he had a gun to his head, and told the whole story. Now he's telling it again in detail in a public Congressional hearing.

The smartest people in the room found out they weren't.
#2.3.1 Roy Lofquist on 2016-07-07 15:56 (Reply)
While I hope you two are right, how's this for an exchange:

Chaffetz: ´Did Hillary Clinton do anything wrong?´
Comey: ´What do you mean by wrong?´

Comey goes on to say that Hillary mishandled classified information. I guess to Comey, that might not be considered 'wrong.'

I hope this is a case where Comey is playing chess and everybody else is playing checkers - there is reason to think that - but I remember when John Roberts was playing chess and everybody else was playing checkers and it didn't turn out so well.
#2.3.1.1 mudbug on 2016-07-07 17:40 (Reply)
Some funny stuff was happening at the FBI. Hillary was not put under oath (yeah, I know that it's a crime to lie to the FBI, but...), and there was no recording or transcription of Hillary's 'testimony' at the FBI.

Considering my previous comment about playing chess, etc. I wonder how these facts fit vis a vis chess vs checkers? There is no way to verify that she lied to the FBI because it will be a case of she said, FBI said since there is no documentation that spells out exactly what she said. In fact, we don't even know if there was any serious questioning.
#2.3.1.2 mudbug on 2016-07-07 17:48 (Reply)
Some folks here may remember ethicist Sissela Bok, wife of former Harvard U. president Derek Bok. Her big deal was the primary requirement of honesty in government, and that both government and society would become corrupt and collapse if dishonesty and lying in government were tolerated.

Here's an interesting interview between her and Bill Moyers in 1988, which I think it totally relevant today:

http://billmoyers.com/content/sissela-bok/
#3 Jim on 2016-07-07 14:07 (Reply)
What I want to know is how Huma Abedin (Weiner), Hilalrity's body gal, got security clearance to handle these e-mails when her entire family is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, classified as a terrorist organization by dozens of nations (except the U.S. where TheBigO has invited it into every level of government). Perhaps I just answered my own question: the MB runs the Shadow Government this administration is trying to install.
#4 jma on 2016-07-07 14:16 (Reply)
How about the civilians who administered her server in Colorado? Where they vetted?
#4.1 NJSoldier on 2016-07-07 14:18 (Reply)
The defense for Comey's decision over at Volokh is that people are usually fired for things like this and not allowed to work with classified material again, but aren't prosecuted. I have seen that disputed by others, but it is at least a plausible explanation. Just because there's nothing we can fire her from doesn't mean we can try to remedy that by increasing our action on the criminal side.

I confess I am not convinced by this argument. But it's not insane.

There have also been attempts to spin this as a positive, because while it would be satisfying to her opponents for her to be indicted, it might not have much effect, as she could play victim easily. Having the info out there, with no place for her to spin to "presumption of innocence" migh actually move a few more independents. I'm not sure I buy that either - but it's not crazy.
#5 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-07-07 15:25 (Reply)
Ace in the hole is that Obama can always Pardon her if the need arises. HRC would not lose any Democrat votes, nor the support of the DNC, if that were to occur.
#5.1 ron snyder on 2016-07-07 17:47 (Reply)
Removing classified information from a secure computer/file/bldg is illegal unless authorized.

Duplicating/copying classified information is illegal.

disseminating classified information is illegal.

Allowing unauthorized people to view classified information that you control is illegal.

Leaving classified information in an insecure environment is illegal.

Destroying evidence of a crime is a crime.

Conspiring to commit any of these acts is a crime.

Not reporting any of these actions is in itself a crime.

None of this is subject to shades of grey it is black and white, pure and simple. None of it is dependent on the intent of the individual doing it the act itself is a crime. All of these things have serious punishments associated with them. Just what we know could put Hillary in jail for 1000 years, ditto for her aides and her lawyers.

Never mind the fact that under similar circumstances everything that resided on or transited her system would have to be treated as compromised intelligence by the owning organizations. In fact, although everyone dances around it, all of this information was captured by the Russians, the Chinese, NK, Israel and possibly even British intelligence.

The damage has been done. The CIA, FBI and the state department know all this. Sooner or later someone from each of these organizations will leak at least the acknowledgement of this fact. Basically everything she did during her tenure is known to everyone except the American public and a few illiterate natives in jungles around the world. Yet our MSM will prop her up, misreport the facts and conspire with the Democrats to save her from her crimes. Worse, the Republicans will let it all happen.
#6 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-07-07 17:47 (Reply)
If it is Comedy, it is Macabre Comedy.
#7 ron snyder on 2016-07-07 17:48 (Reply)
What price did sandy berger pay? Remember the outrage surrounding that? How far we have come. Now we are thinking of awarding the highest honor with the greatest power to a woman who, possibly either sold or allowed to be transferred, classified info.
#8 Judith on 2016-07-08 09:41 (Reply)

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