Unable to acknowledge that Donald Trump beat the candidate that Democrats, liberals, the MSM (yes I know that is redundant since the MSM is the media arm for Democrats) and the "Deep State" supported in the November 2016 presidential election, they have all run from one narrative and storyline to the next, from "we need a recount" to "lets send death threats to the electoral college" to "lets shut down the inauguration,"" to "Trump is under investigation for collusion with Russia.
All have failed.
Then they pinned their last great hope on former FBI director James Comey, only to have him confirm the President was never under investigation, and Comey admitted to violating federal law as well as the FBI employment agreement, according to Jonathan Turley, who is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and has served as defense counsel in national security cases involving classified information and alleged leaks to the media.
LIBERALS TRY TO MOVE THE GOAL POSTS
After Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton's attempt to nullify the election by insisting on recounts in states that Donald Trump won despite the MSM informing the general populace that Hillary Clinton couldn't lose those states, failed, and death threats against the electoral college members also failed, as did the massive protests meant to "shut down the inauguration, the next narrative became "Trump/Russia collusion" with multiple MSM outlets and liberal websites insisting that their "sources" told them President Trump was under investigation.
We now know none of those "Trump is under investigation" claims were true, although interestingly enough, the same outlets that reported that "fake news" haven't acknowledged to the same readers they misinformed, that Trump was never under investigation at all.
If they were hoping that their prior reports would simply fade into obscurity, National Review offers a variety of headlines and screen shots of articles written since Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Salon, on Inauguration day, headlined "The FBI is leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russia."
Center for American Progress, March 20: "The FBI is investigating a sitting President. Been a long time since that happened."
The New York Times March 20 headline: "F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump’s Russia Ties, Comey Confirms."
The Atlantic, March 20 headline: "It’s Official: The FBI Is Investigating Trump’s Links to Russia."
Huffington Post, March 20: "we have a president under FBI investigation. How do you like that?"
March 20 headline: "James Comey Confirms the FBI Is Investigating Trump’s Russian Connections."
Crooks & Liars, March 21 headline, quoting MSBNC’s Joe Scarborough: "On Election Day, Trump Was The ONLY ONE Under FBI Investigation, Not Hillary Clinton."
Slate, March 22 headline: "The President Is Under FBI Investigation. Is This Normal?"
The Guardian, March 22 headline: "Donald Trump is under investigation for ties to Russia. What happens now?"
The day former FBI director James Comey released his prepared statement prior to his long-awaited testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, even CNN blared the headline "Comey expected to refute Trump," where they opine that according to their "sources" Comey would contradict Trump's assertion that he was informed by Comey, on three occasions, that he was not personally under FBI investigation."
Comey is going to dispute the president on this point if he’s asked about it by senators, and we have to assume that he will be," said Borger, the network's chief political analyst. "He will say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so."
In fact, here are precisely three instances (ironic, right?), directly from Comey's testimony, in which he personally told President Trump he was not under investigation:
1. January 6th Meeting at Trump Tower: "In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance."
2. January 27th Dinner at White House: "During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it."
3. March 30 Phone Call: "I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that."
The media had hyped their audience into such a frenzy over "Trump being under investigation" for almost five full months, that being informed Trump was never under investigation, and they had been lied to all this time, was difficult to accept, devastating, and MSNBC's Chris 'Thrill up my leg" Matthews, painfully admitted that whole Russia/Trump collusion and under FBI theory "came apart."
"The assumption of the critics of the president, of his pursuers, you might say, is that somewhere along the line in the last year is the president had something to do with colluding with the Russians … to affect the election in some way," Matthews said on MSNBC, following the testimony.
"And yet what came apart this morning was that theory," Matthews said, listing two reasons why. First, he said Comey revealed that "Flynn wasn't central to the Russian investigation," and secondly, he said that kills the idea that Flynn might have been in a position to testify against Trump.
"And if that's not the case, where's the there-there?" Matthews said.
Well, another attempt to destroy the President just bit the dust, so now the media, Democrats and the Deep State are attempting to move the goal posts, claiming Trump obstructed justice!
DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS, LAW PROFESSORS SPEAK OUT IN TRUMP'S FAVOR AND AGAINST COMEY
We will start with Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School, legal scholar and lawyer in many high profile cases, who has been consistent in his assertion that as the President of the United States, Donald Trump has always had the constitutional authority to end the FBI investigation into Michael Flynn, and could even have pardoned Flynn preemptively had he chosen to do so which would have automatically ended the investigation.
Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.
As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct. As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.
Yet virtually every Democratic pundit, in their haste to "get" President Trump, has willfully ignored these realities. In doing so they have endangered our civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Comey also admitted under oath, to the Senate, that he orchestrated a "leak" to the MSM regarding memos he took after meeting and/or speaking with President Trump, stating he did so in order to manipulate the DOJ into naming a special counsel regarding Russia election interference.
Former FBI director Robert Mueller was named as special counsel to investigate a case that we now know from Comey's own testimony, didn't include any investigation into President Trump. While Comey's intent, by his own testimony was to set the scene or "Trump obstruction," which Dershowitz above explains has no legal basis, what Comey also did was destroy the credibility of the only witness Mueller had in regards to that type of charge.
That one witness was James Comey, and as Jonathan Turley, who is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and has served as defense counsel in national security cases involving classified information and alleged leaks to the media, details in-depth, Comey has now admitted to violating FBI employment regulations, and federal law.
Once again it bears noting that Turley is not a conservative nor a Republican, nor a Trump supporter and his stated positions in many cases and his self-proclaimed "socially liberal agenda" have led liberal and progressive thinkers to consider him a champion for their causes. (Source)
Turley headlines his analysis with "The damaging case against James Comey," where he asserts Comey committed "unethical and unprofessional act in leaking damaging memos against Trump," and calls Comey out for admitting he deliberately misled the American public on the orders from Obama's U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Turley's op-ed over at The Hill, is a definite must-read, but some key quotes show his focus is on what he calls the "clearest violation," of ethics and U.S. law, where he quotes U.S. code, as well as FBI regulations, which pretty much sums up exactly why the only witness Mueller could have possible used in any obstruction case against president Trump, has already impeached himself.
Turley highlights that the "memos" Comey orchestrated to have leaked to the NYT, "prepared on an FBI computer addressing a highly sensitive investigation on facts that he considered material to that investigation," which he stupidly admitted under oath by asserting "he wanted the information to be given to the special counsel because it was important to the investigation."
Turley then explains why the media spin claiming the information wasn't really a "leak" doesn't fly:
Many in the media have tried to spin this as not a “leak” because leaks by definition only involve classified information. That is entirely untrue as shown by history. Leaks involve the release of unauthorized information — not only classified information. Many of the most important leaks historically have involved pictures and facts not classified but embarrassing to a government. More importantly, federal regulations refer to unauthorized disclosures not just classified information.
Comey’s position would effectively gut a host of federal rules and regulations. He is suggesting that any federal employee effectively owns documents created during federal employment in relation to an ongoing investigation so long as they address the information to themselves. FBI agents routinely write such memos in investigations. They are called 302s to memorialize field interviews or fact acquisitions. They are treated as FBI information.
He goes on to explain "The Justice Department routinely claims such memos as privileged and covered by the deliberative process privilege and other privileges. Indeed, if this information were sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) it would likely have been denied. "
Then he gets into specific violations:
Besides being subject to nondisclosure agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and unclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641, which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey "any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof."
There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation. The FBI website warns employees that "dissemination of FBI information is made strictly in accordance with provisions of the Privacy Act; Title 5, United States Code, Section 552a; FBI policy and procedures regarding discretionary release of information in accordance with the Privacy Act; and other applicable federal orders and directives."
One such regulation is § 2635.703, on the use of nonpublic information, which states, "An employee shall not engage in a financial transaction using nonpublic information, nor allow the improper use of nonpublic information to further his own private interest or that of another, whether through advice or recommendation, or by knowing unauthorized disclosure.”
The standard FBI employment agreement bars the unauthorized disclosure of information "contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI” that impact the bureau and specifically pledges that "I will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI."
Had Comey taken the minimal step of seeking clearance, the department would likely have said that this was FBI information and not personal information. Comey instead decided to ask forgiveness rather than permission.
Comey is also subject to bar rules on releasing information inimical to the interests of his former employer. For example, under professional rule 1.6, lawyers need to secure authority to release information that "(1) reveal a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client; (2) use a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client to the disadvantage of the client; [or] (3) use a confidence or secret of the lawyer’s client for the advantage of the lawyer or of a third person."
It gets worse for Comey, as attorney Robert Barnes over at Law Newz points out, he has also been caught lying to congress when he claimed he "was not aware" of any kind of memorandum issued from the attorney general or the Department of Justice to the FBI, outlining the parameters of Jeff Sessions' recusal from Russia related investigation, which prompted the DOJ to issue a statement that said "In his testimony, Mr. Comey states that he was not aware of any kind of memorandum issued from the Attorney General or the Department of Justice to the FBI outlining the parameters of the Attorney General’s recusal. However, on March 2, 2017, the Attorney General’s Chief of Staff sent the attached email specifically informing Mr. Comey and other relevant Department officials of the recusal and its parameters, and advising that each of them instruct their staff not to brief the Attorney General about or otherwise involve the Attorney General in any such matters described."
Barnes explains "Congress criminalizes lying to Congress under oath. The relevant statutes are 18 USC 1621 and 18 USC 1001. Section 1621 requires a person first, be making a statement under a sworn oath; second, that statement be “material” to the proceeding; third, the statement be false; and fourth, the statement be knowingly and willfully false....."
While we gave top billing to the liberal legal scholars, professors and lawyers, and their analysis of Comey, his credibility, ethics and actions has been brutal, that is nothing to Judge Jeanine Pirro's opening statement on Saturday, where she absolutely shreds Comey for his testimony, his weakness in allowing himself to be used by Obama's AG to mislead the American public and a whole host of other issues.
BOTTOM LINE
Since the November presidential election the MSM, Democrats and the Deep State has done everything in their power to either nagate the election results, or to obstruct the Trump presidency, and in each case, failed, which only incited their rage and now, their last great hope, James Comey, just destroyed the credibility of the only witness the special counsel has in any case of obstruction....being James Comey himself.
One last point: Turley highlighted the following in his op-ed which I quoted extensively above, "The greatest irony is that Trump succeeded in baiting Comey to a degree that even Trump could not have imagined. After calling Comey a “showboat” and poor director, Comey proceeded to commit an unethical and unprofessional act in leaking damaging memos against Trump."
For those that cringe when President Trump bypasses the media and starts tweeting, we will remind people that throughout his whole campaign, as well as the general campaign, Trump has "baited" the media into a frenzy, Hillary Clinton into fighting on his playing field, the deep state into leaking "fake news" to the MSM and discrediting them further, and baited 16 other GOP primary opponents until they all dropped out.
One tweet just brought down a deep state operative James Comey, who has now admitted to lying to the public about the Hillary Clinton investigation on behalf of former AG Lynch, admitted that the entire time the media was reporting Trump was under investigation, he wasn't, admitted Trump never interfered in any FBI probes, admitted Trump did not collude with Russia, admitted he leaked government information to the press.
There is always a method to his madness, whether we agree with particular statements or not, to underestimate President Trump's ability to "bait" the enemy into destroying themselves, is a huge mistake.
