I saw an interesting right wing talking point today that I wonder if the leftist hacks have considered...

Fake news said that Kushner tried to set up back channels with Russia after the election. But if Trump and Russia were colluding, wouldn't they already have a back channel established?

6/7/2017 2:00:00 PM

Another interesting read is that Trump basically said in private that "satellite"'campaign officials may have colluded but not him. I'm sure there are those out there on the left who claim Trump himself did but they are a minority and to my recollection, no one on TWW has claimed that.

Anyway, Trumpists will cling to that one line and anti-Trumpists to pretty much the rest of the document.

(Pee tape reference!)

6/7/2017 2:14:27 PM

I can't believe he actually brought up Russian hookers in a conversation with Comey. That's about as close to a tacit admission as you can get.



[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 2:25 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2017 2:25:18 PM

^source?

6/7/2017 2:42:32 PM

Comey mentioned it in his opening statement for tomorrows testimony.

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf

Quote :

"On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him. "

6/7/2017 2:51:40 PM

.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 2:51 PM. Reason : beaten]

6/7/2017 2:51:45 PM

Quote :

"Fake news said that Kushner tried to set up back channels with Russia after the election. But if Trump and Russia were colluding, wouldn't they already have a back channel established?"

I don't think they actually did have a back channel established. That's how so much stuff got caught up in SIGINT. The Kushner thing, presuming it happened, would have been to establish a method of communicating that would have avoided intelligence collection.

But if they did already happen to have one established, then yea this could imply they weren't colluding. Or it could imply that Trump had no clue any of this was happening (unlikely but possible) in which case we really could end up finding out it was all of Trump's friends and not he himself that were doing all of this.

^https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf

Quote :

"On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him. "

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 2:54 PM. Reason : a]

6/7/2017 2:53:22 PM

I guess this on aggregate is decent testimony for Trump as is. Again, there is a distinction between him personally being investigated and his campaign. It seems obvious his campaign is but not him at this point and it turns out he was correct that Comey did say that so they can really push that narrative.

But that is sort of a straw-man at this point given it was never going to proven he personally was guilty of collusion as I've repeated at least a half dozen times.

The downside is that while he may not have been under investigation with the FBI his shenanigans resulted in Mueller being named special counsel and the scope of that is much larger and means he COULD be under investigation for other things including obstruction.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 3:01 PM. Reason : X]

6/7/2017 3:00:11 PM

It's splitting hairs. If you're investigating the Trump campaign, by default he falls under that. Trump is trying to portray himself as innocent. Comey is simply saying "we are not investigating Donald Trump specifically, we're investigating the Trump campaign. And since Donald Trump is kind of the central figure in the Trump campaign, he falls under that scope."

Trump's behavior (along with the behavior of all of his advisers and some of his appointees) indicates guilt. Maybe there is none. But the behavior was enough to imply it and warrant an investigation.

He's a moron.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 3:12 PM. Reason : a]

6/7/2017 3:11:34 PM

I'm an idiot and not a lawyer so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this obstruction of justice? Apologies in advance for the wall of text. Quotes are taken from Comey's testimony.

- Trump asks Comey if he wants to stay on in his job, which is strange because he'd already told Trump he planned to finish his term.

Quote :

"The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversationsthat he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away. "

- Trump asks Comey for loyalty.

Quote :

" A few moments later, the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. ”I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner. "

Quote :

" Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, “I need loyalty.” I replied, “You will always get honesty from me.” He paused and then said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” I need, and then said, “You will get that from me.” As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase “honest loyalty” differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect. "

- Trump asks Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

Quote :

"The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” "

- Trump asks Comey to publicly clear Trump's name.

Quote :

"On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.” I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. "

Quote :

"On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I “get out” that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that “the cloud” was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel. He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended."

- When Comey does none of this, Trump fires him.

6/7/2017 3:21:29 PM

the GOP is already selecting quotes from this and using it as a defense for why there is no scandal

which in turn means they're behind whatever he says during his testimony

way to paint yourselves into a corner, guys

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 3:22 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2017 3:22:30 PM

and that post was before the tweet from the GOP

jesus christ

6/7/2017 3:56:57 PM

Comey is a prosecutor by training and he's choosing his words very carefully here, just like he did when he called Hillary "extremely careless" but stopped short of declaring her actions criminal.

Quote :

"That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him."

That's an intentionally narrow characterization by Comey and doesn't mean that Trump wasn't under investigation at all.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 4:01 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2017 4:00:17 PM

Quote :

"I'm an idiot and not a lawyer so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this obstruction of justice? Apologies in advance for the wall of text. Quotes are taken from Comey's testimony."

So, the way I view it (and this explains Comey's actions) is this:

Trump's contacts with him were not obstruction of justice. He didn't say to Comey "you're fired if you don't drop the investigation."

However, the contacts combined with a lot of his other behavior indicate a pattern and could be used to prove intent. The firing of Comey combined with all of that information would indicate consummation of the act of obstruction. But pre-firing, there was nothing to really show outright pressure or obstruction.

At that point, it's up to the legal system.

Quote :

"That's an intentionally narrow characterization by Comey and doesn't mean that Trump wasn't under investigation at all."

Very true, but bear in mind Comey has been very specific when testifying previously by saying "do not read anything into what I say other than what I say." I don't think he's being lawyerly here. I think he's telling strictly the facts. Was there an open investigation into Trump at the time? Nope. Does that imply that later one was opened? Comey would say no to that as well.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 4:19 PM. Reason : a]

6/7/2017 4:18:05 PM

Quote :

"All of this squares with the theory I have been proposing for weeks: namely, that Trump knows he is innocent of collusion with Russia, was angry and puzzled that Comey wouldn’t say so, and fired him out of pique. That isn’t illegal, and it isn’t obstruction, and it isn’t even pressure. But that’s not how the press will play it. -Jew God-King Ben Shapiro"

6/7/2017 5:15:34 PM

to be honest. any rational person who didn't think that he was guilty would've cooperated and allowed the investigation to be completed.

GOP controls both the house and the senate, therefore it would have and will have to be substantial for charges to be brought about.

he may very well not have done anything knowingly, but the constant complaining, trying to get comey to back off, trying to get coates to intervene, all of the "forgotten" meetings left off of top administration official's SF-86 paints a much bigger picture of a deliberate effort to at least hide what happened.

isn't it always said by those who want more surveillance to try to combat terrorism that if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about?

6/7/2017 7:45:08 PM

Comey's statement wasn't narrow, the 7 pages make it very clear Trump wasn't under any investigation

6/7/2017 8:18:38 PM

Boo, I have a meeting/presentation right in the middle of Comey :-(

6/8/2017 9:12:07 AM

Holy shit I think John McCain is having a stroke on camera (again).

6/8/2017 12:35:25 PM

lol, he's trying to make this about clinton's emails

6/8/2017 12:36:58 PM

this is hard to watch in a "we need to talk about grandpa" kind of way

6/8/2017 12:38:49 PM

Anything noteworthy I missed?

[Edited on June 8, 2017 at 12:47 PM. Reason : By noteworthy I mean pee tale]

6/8/2017 12:43:38 PM

So Comey suggested

-parts of the Steele Dossier were/are pertinent to the investigation.
-The FBI knew Sessions was in deep shit before he even recused himself

What else? I missed about half this. Most of it was just retreads from stuff that was in the news already?

6/8/2017 12:47:25 PM

Comey told the American people that Trump was not under investigation. If he had done that months ago, he'd still have his job.

6/8/2017 12:50:19 PM

https://www.c-span.org/video/?429381-1/former-fbi-director-comey-say-president-obstructed-justice&vod

Quote :

"i was fired in some way to change or the endeavor was to change the way the russia investigation was being conducted. that is a very big deal. not just because it involves me. the nature of the fbi and the nature of its work requires that it not be the subject of political consideration. and on top of that, you have the russia investigation itself is vital because of the threat and i know i should have said this earlier. it's obvious. if any americans were part of helping the russians do that to us, that is a VERY big deal."

6/8/2017 12:52:30 PM

- Trump himself is not under investigation, but did not confirm or deny if Sessions/Flynn is under investigation
- Did not confirm/deny if parts of steele dossier are true
- Did not confirm/deny if collusion with Russia happened
- Said he thought the "i hope you can find a way to let Flynn off" comment was a command, not a suggestion
- Said the president lied several times regarding discussions they had/existence of recordings of their conversations
- Had full confidence in Mueller's independent investigation

6/8/2017 12:57:44 PM

- Confirmed that former AG Lynch influenced the investigation into Clinton's email server.

6/8/2017 1:00:34 PM

I suspect that Trump is certainly under investigation now for obstruction of justice from Mueller.

But, Comey's letter yesterday was already crystal clear he wasn't for collusion. But again that was pretty understood already from all sides save a few outliers.

[Edited on June 8, 2017 at 1:02 PM. Reason : Obstruction is hard to prove though ]

6/8/2017 1:01:16 PM

-had a friend leak his own memos to the NYT

6/8/2017 1:03:16 PM

Quote :

"Comey told the American people that Trump was not under investigation. If he had done that months ago, he'd still have his job."

what's wrong with you?

6/8/2017 1:05:37 PM

I mean he's made it clear he admires strongmen and authoritarians. It's consistent he would like the fact Trump fired him as a power play.

6/8/2017 1:07:12 PM

Comey concluded one presidential candidate would not be tried for mishandling of classified information despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, yet he let another candidate get surrounded in a media whirlwind of collusion allegations despite knowing them to be false. Was he dragging out the investigation as a way of guaranteeing one political party or the other would approve whatever budget he put in front of them? If so, that seems worthy of termination.

6/8/2017 1:16:47 PM

dude loves that salty load

6/8/2017 1:28:03 PM

What? I could be wrong but I think he was avoiding talking about Trump because he didn't know where the investigations with Flynn/Sessions/Kushner/insert Trump associate here would lead and didn't want to portray false information.

For example, in July, he recommended to not prosecute Clinton. Then, new emails turned up in October relating to Clinton. He didn't want it to leak that the FBI is sitting on Clinton emails so he told senators (who leaked it to the press) that they were opening the investigation to see if there was any new emails.

Comey didn't want to make a similar announcement again, so he avoided saying if Trump was under investigation.

That being said, all of this Russia collusion shit obviously did not effect him until after the election, so I don't know why you're referring to Trump as a candidate. His first meeting with Comey was in January.

6/8/2017 1:29:22 PM

It's just unthinkable that Comey protected Clinton from the media whirlwind while hanging Trump out to dry.

6/8/2017 1:30:47 PM

^^^^ Haha. The one person who heard Senator McCain's questioning and thought, "It all makes sense now!"

6/8/2017 1:32:14 PM

Quote :

"What? I could be wrong but I think he was avoiding talking about Trump because he didn't know where the investigations with Flynn/Sessions/Kushner/insert Trump associate here would lead and didn't want to portray false information."

yes, "duty to correct". eleusis is just a cuck.

6/8/2017 1:35:18 PM

Also McCain sounded confused as shit, like maybe he is getting too senile to serve confused

6/8/2017 1:35:58 PM

Quote :

"Comey concluded one presidential candidate would not be tried for mishandling of classified information despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, yet he let another candidate get surrounded in a media whirlwind of collusion allegations despite knowing them to be false. Was he dragging out the investigation as a way of guaranteeing one political party or the other would approve whatever budget he put in front of them? If so, that seems worthy of termination."

Comey breaking with long-standing FBI practice by doing a media circus around Hillary... twice... costed her this election.

Trump said he loved COmey, gave him a big unsolicited hug.

Now Trump hates Comey... just curious, when did you change your mind about Comey?

6/8/2017 1:57:59 PM

[Edited on June 8, 2017 at 2:16 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2017 2:14:49 PM

"duty to correct" must not have applied in July when he felt that Loretta Lynch was compromised in the Clinton investigation, so he took it upon himself to conclude the investigation. Unfortunately for him he had to reopen the investigation in October.

Despite McCain having half a stroke while bumbling through that discourse, it's a very valid argument.

6/8/2017 2:21:47 PM

and he validly explained that its exactly why he didn't want to do that again

6/8/2017 2:27:19 PM

just saw on wral comments there are people saying "mccain made comey look like the fool he is", and "Comey got what he deserved and now needs to let the president do his job".

6/8/2017 2:37:58 PM

all cucks

6/8/2017 2:40:51 PM

Quote :

"mccain made comey look like the fool he is"

to be fair, McCain did refer to Trump as Comey for a good 5 minutes before Comey corrected him. If that was intentional, then well played, sir.

97% sure it was dementia though.

6/8/2017 3:09:47 PM

Quote :

"... it's a very valid argument."

Except, it's not.

It's mind-numbing to me how Trump supporters can conflate later events in the investigation with events that occurred months prior.

6/8/2017 3:10:16 PM

Quote :

"Comey concluded one presidential candidate would not be tried for mishandling of classified information despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, yet he let another candidate get surrounded in a media whirlwind of collusion allegations despite knowing them to be false. Was he dragging out the investigation as a way of guaranteeing one political party or the other would approve whatever budget he put in front of them? If so, that seems worthy of termination."

I think his statement about the "duty to correct" was fair, actually.

Interesting Comey didn't memorialize any of Loretta Lynch's interference.

6/8/2017 4:03:08 PM

Quote :

"and he validly explained that its exactly why he didn't want to do that again"

6/8/2017 4:06:07 PM

Posted this in the other thread but wanted to add a fourth:

Comey's testimony was important, and good. My thoughts:

1) In my view, the probability that Trump directed or was aware of collusion with Russia actually went down after watching this testimony (unless things have changed since Comey left).

2) Trump absolutely tried to pressure Comey to get rid of the Russian stuff. That being said, no evidence exists to prove that (unless the "tapes" Trump mentioned actually exist). It's pretty much all circumstantial, though combined with Comey's actual firing, there may be something there that can be prosecuted. I thought Feinstein's first question drew one of the most important responses the entire time, when Comey responded that he believed (took the President at his word) that he was fired over the Russia investigation. Comey then said he supposed the President could have been lying when he said that, but he took everything to believe it was over the Russia investigation.

That's pretty important. In other words, the President committed obstruction or the President lied (again). Either one is serious.

3) So if we remove Trump (for the time being) from scope, we're looking at a more classic case of espionage activity with respect to Flynn, Stone, Kushner, Page, Manafort and Cohen. I'm still not sold on Page and Kushner, at the moment, appears to be a long shot to me. In any event, when I say classic case, I think this is going to head more towards the direction of monetary corruption being used to influence a foreign power.

4) Completely switching topics, Lynch's behavior during the Clinton email investigation is highly concerning to me and given what Comey's said, if you reconsider the tarmac meeting with Bill on the private plane, I'd argue for an investigation into her for certain.

[Edited on June 9, 2017 at 11:42 AM. Reason : a]

6/9/2017 11:41:49 AM

Quote :

"1) In my view, the probability that Trump directed or was aware of collusion with Russia actually went down after watching this testimony (unless things have changed since Comey left)."

The probability that it happened or probability that enough evidence can be produced to indict? The former I don't understand, we're talking about 5-7 campaign staffers/surrogates/cabinet officials who've all had multiple questionable meetings with Russian operatives. There's no way Trump (or Pence) didn't know.

6/9/2017 11:53:52 AM