People who analyze politics through the lens of political parties can suffer whiplash because of the sudden changes in direction that events can take. Rather than focus on just the actions themselves and whether those are good or bad, they tend to take good and bad actions as indicative of whether the person doing is basically good or bad or, conversely, decide if things are good or bad depending on whether the person doing them is on their team.
A notable example is Donald Trump who praised WikiLeaks and Julian Assange when that organization revealed information that was damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign and has now decided that WikiLeaks is bad when there is a danger that they may reveal information that is damaging to him. After saying during the campaign that he loved WikiLeaks, it appears that his administration is now planning to issue charges against Wikileaks and Julian Assange.
Democrats seem to be suffering similar swings when it comes to fired FBI director James Comey. They praised him when he stood up to the Bush administration in 2004, then condemned him when he made statements that were damaging to the Clinton campaign, and are now praising him again after he was been fired by Trump and is revealing things that are damaging to him, especially the memos that he was in the habit of routinely keeping of things that he felt were important.
What has alarmed the Trump camp is the memo that Comey apparently wrote after his conversation with him that directly contradicts Trump’s statements about what he said and suggests that he tried to obstruct justice. As Trevor Aaronson writes, these memo are far more significant than your run-of-the-mill bureaucratic memos and carry far more weight that one might expect.
Had this been a normal criminal investigation, and had Comey been a special agent in the field, the memo he would have written would have been known, in the FBI’s parlance, as an FD-302. The FBI does not record conversations with subjects related to criminal investigations. Instead, FBI agents, using their memory and sometimes handwritten notes, draft memos that summarize the conversations and include purportedly verbatim quotes. Federal judges and juries have consistently viewed these memos as indisputable fact. For this reason, Comey’s memo is no normal government memo. It could do lasting damage to Trump’s presidency, if not contribute to costing him the nation’s highest office altogether.
It is for this very reason, that the memos are treated as fact, that lawyers like Harvey Silvergate advise people never to talk to police or FBI officials unless they have their own lawyer present and record the conversations themselves. Otherwise, their word counts for nothing against the FBI’s word.
Aaronson takes us through Comey’s history and reminds us of some of the terrible things that he has done and that we should not lionize him now just because he is on the outs with the Trump administration.
In an effort to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, Comey expanded the practice instituted by his predecessor, Robert Mueller, to use undercover agents and informants to catch would-be attackers in sting operations. These stings never caught terrorists on the eve of their attack. Notably, the FBI twice investigated Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others while claiming allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call, but did not deem him a threat. At the same time, Comey’s FBI agents aided in the prosecution of Sami Osmakac, a Florida man caught in a sting operation, despite having called him in private conversations a “retarded fool.” They also busted penniless, mentally ill homeless men who claimed to be associating with ISIS. In one of those cases, an informant even gave a homeless man $40 so he could purchase the machete and knives he needed for his supposed plot. To catch a lonely Michigan man, the FBI used two female informants to set up a honeypot, in which the FBI informants claimed to be in love with the target so as to manipulate him. The target, in turn, claimed to have an AK-47 and to have attempted to travel to Syria. But it turned out he was just saying all that to impress the ladies.
…Just days before his firing, Comey testified before Congress that one-half of all smartphone and computer devices analyzed by the FBI can’t be examined “with any technique” due to encryption. During his tenure, Comey worked aggressively to give the FBI access to encrypted devices. Notably, Comey battled in court with Apple over the tech company’s unwillingness to help unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI later paid a hacker somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million to help unlock the phone. At the time, Comey told a House committee: “There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.”
…Comey endorsed the practice of FBI undercover agents posing as members of the news media, though he called the practice “rare.”
Aronson goes on to list other deplorable things that Comey did.
We see a similar thing with the response of Democrats with deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. He was first condemned for writing the memo that called for firing Comey, then he was praised for the leak that he had threatened to resign if he was blamed for the firing decision, and now he is being hailed for appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian involvement in US elections, the issue that likely led to Trump firing Comey. This move by Rosenstein may be an effort to try and recover the good reputation that he had before he wrote the memo.
The choice of Mueller is interesting. He and Comey are supposed to be close and he went with Comey on the infamous late-night run in 2004 to the hospital bedside of then attorney general John Ashcroft to counter the Bush White House efforts to coerce Ashcroft to authorize the illegal domestic surveillance programs. As someone who was himself director of the FBI for 12 years, Mueller knows how to navigate that bureaucratic maze and will be able to figure out the paper trails and who to talk to. He is also likely to receive more cooperation from people inside the FBI than an outsider would. But at the same time, his loyalty to the FBI may prevent him from reporting on things that are unflattering to the organization. It is also not clear at the moment if Mueller’s mandate covers the broader question of Trump’s possible business dealings with Russian oligarchs and organized crime figures.
I am not sure how Trump is going to react to Rosenstein appointing any special counsel at all to investigate the Russia connection, let alone Mueller. What Trump is discovering is that it is not as easy to fire and silence people in government as it is in the private sector where you can bribe or otherwise coerce people to sign non-disclosure agreements. People in government are bureaucratic infighters who know how to skillfully wield paperwork to further their own ambitions. Comey is a good example of that.
The choice of Mueller is interesting. He and Comey are supposed to be close and he went with Comey on the infamous late-night run in 2004 to the hospital bedside of then attorney general John Ashcroft to counter the Bush White House efforts to coerce Ashcroft to authorize the illegal domestic surveillance programs.
He and Comey both did that, and both turned a blind eye to the torture program, in spite of FBI agents in the field complaining up the chain of command that the CIA was engaging in illegal activity. They’ve both done coverups and whitewashing, but Mueller’s better at it than Comey.
when you put it that way it looks convincing. And by “that way” I mean crudely and inaccurately.
Yes, Democrats condemned him when he made statements damaging to Clinton. that’s because he made them in a way that is clearly unacceptable; making public statements about an incomplete investigation which might influence an on-going election campaign are not acceptable. See the Hatch Act.
When he was fired, I don’t remember Democrats praising him. I remember them criticising Trump for firing the man in charge of investigating him and his own campaign. That is not the same as praising Comey himself.
As Comrade Marcus just pointed out, Mueller helped whitewash the whole [CIA torture] thing.
Oops -- shame on me for not refreshing-before-posting!
I’ve been reading stuff on Foxnews more often recently, because it’s gotten to be more than just two different slants on the news — these days, left-leaning and right-leaning sources print completely different news. I’d rather not be talking to a conservative who suddenly, out of the blue, asks me about some conspiracy theory I’d never even heard of. (See: pizzagate, Seth Rich.)
Anyway, one of their loathsome commenters brought up a point about the Comey memo which sounded a bit desperate, but I wondered about the accuracy of. He said that, if Comey thought obstruction of justice was happening, then he was legally bound to report the episode to the Justice Department right away, not just record it in a memo and file it away. So if he didn’t report it, that meant he didn’t think it was obstruction at the time. At least, that’s the line we can expect Gowdy and the other thugs to take when Comey testifies.
Does anyone know if it’s true that he was supposed to report it? If so, I wonder what he’ll say? (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something like “Because we all know that Sessions is also a Russian stooge,” which would be fun.)
it appears that his administration is now planning to issue charges against Wikileaks and Julian Assange.
We’re talking about the same Julian Assange who has been hold up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid the USA?
The last I heard, the right-wing candidate for president in Ecuador lost. Have things changed and Assange may get turfed?
Otherwise this exercise seems a make-work project for some poor soul in the Justice Dep’t.
Trump is ungoing bureaucratic warfare but trust me, he isn’t learning anything.
brucegee1962,
I would imagine that when an investigation is ongoing, writing an official memo and telling one’s associates about it constitutes ‘reporting’. The FBI is the investigative arm. They have to build up a case first before taking it to the relevant prosecuting arm that is the justice department. At least, that’s how I think such bureaucracies operate.
@ 8 mano
I have never worked in a law enforcement agency but that memo would be standard in gov’t organizations where I have worked. It might not indicate an idea of real malfeasance but just a generalized feeling of uneasiness.
It might not mean one feels there is something really dubious going on but a note-to-file about a concern can be very useful a few months down the road when someone denies all knowledge of XX.
All these bureaucratic niceties can seem foolish and over-kill until you are in battle with an executive who says he knew/said nothing about the issue or when you need to go before a court or tribunal and you have no documentary materials to support your memory.
Then that memo pays back handsomely.
2 8 mao
There’s nothing inconsistent about praising someone (whether Assange, Comey, Rosenstein, Mueller…) when they do something good, and condemning them when they do something bad.