For Comey, Hard Questions About Rudy Giuliani And The FBI

[turbinetree]

Joe Conason

April 18, 2018 10:54 pm

For months, the White House has insistently whined that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is persecuting the president. Echoed by right-wing propaganda media, that theme is now amplified in Donald Trump’s tweeted blasts at former FBI director James Comey, whom he vilifies as a “liar and leaker.”

To anyone who remembers the final days of the presidential election, Trump’s paranoid claims have always seemed ludicrous. If the bureau appeared to be tilted, it was firmly in his direction, especially in its handling of the criminal investigations of him and Hillary Clinton.

Now Comey’s media tour promoting his new book, A Higher Loyalty, offers an opportunity to debunk such mythologizing — and to ask a few unanswered questions about the bureau’s perverse role in that election.

In his book and media appearances, the former director tries to justify his denunciation of Clinton’s management of her emails in July 2016 when he declined to recommend prosecution — and his stunning revelation, less than two weeks before Election Day, that the bureau was examining emails on a laptop owned by her aide Huma Abedin.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/comey-hard-questions-rudy-giuliani-fbi/


-snip-

"Did Comey ever investigate leaks from within the bureau to Giuliani and Kallstrom? What did he learn about their contacts and activities? Did he take any action when he heard their televised claims that agents were discussing the investigation with them? Does he know who leaked the stories about the Abedin emails and the Clinton Foundation? And does he know whether FBI director Christopher Wray or the Inspector General of the Justice Department are examining these breaches of conduct?

He’s doing a lot of interviews. Someone should ask him."

[global1]

1. He's On With Rachel Tonight.....nt

[turbinetree]

2. Good time to ask that question..................

"Did Comey ever investigate leaks from within the bureau to Giuliani and Kallstrom? What did he learn about their contacts and activities? Did he take any action when he heard their televised claims that agents were discussing the investigation with them? Does he know who leaked the stories about the Abedin emails and the Clinton Foundation? And does he know whether FBI director Christopher Wray or the Inspector General of the Justice Department are examining these breaches of conduct?

He’s doing a lot of interviews. Someone should ask him."


Maybe it's time to contact Maddow........................

[Justice]

4. We should all tweet this article to Rachel to get her attention

[SHRED]

6. Good idea...thanks

Link to tweet

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Good article from 2017 with Giuliani stuff surely known by Rachel for some time now

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/james-comey-fbi-director-letter
about halfway down

The disquiet within the F.B.I. was made public, largely by James Kallstrom, head of the F.B.I.’s New York office from 1995 to 1997. He is close to former U.S. attorney (and former New York City mayor) Rudy Giu­lia­ni, about whom he says, “When I was a young agent, he was a young prosecutor. We’ve known each other for 40 years.” During the campaign Giuliani was one of Trump’s most prominent supporters. In the weeks following Comey’s July announcement, both Kallstrom and Giuliani were all over conservative news outlets, talking about the “revolution,” as Giuliani called it, among the F.B.I. rank and file, who viewed the failure to indict as “almost a slap in the face to the F.B.I.’s integrity.” By late September, Kallstrom was telling the Daily Beast that he had talked to hundreds of people, “including a lot of retired agents and a few on the job” who were “basically disgusted” and felt they had been “stabbed in the back.”

A former prosecutor who knows Kallstrom says, “He is full of shit.” Another says, “The fact that a retired agent is on TV talking about a case usually proves that he doesn’t know the first damn thing about it.”

...

On October 26, Rudolph Giuliani appeared on Fox News and said, “We got a couple things up our sleeve that should turn this around. Even the liberal pollsters will get to see.” When pressed about what these surprises would be, Giuliani broke into a smile and said, “You’ll see. Ha ha ha.”

Two days later, on October 28, just 11 days before the election, Comey sent his letter to Congress saying that “in connection with an unrelated case, the F.B.I. has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” of Clinton.

...

In fact, on the morning of November 4, Giuliani returned to Fox & Friends, to gloat, “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it.” Later that day, he tweeted, “I still challenge someone to produce proof of my direct involvement w @fbi.”

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[Wounded Bear]

5. If any FBI agents were pro-Trump, they worked in NY...

Gouliani and his ties to the NY office of the FBI are highly suspect IMHO.

[zentrum]

7. He's admitted

…..that leaks from the NY offices which were anti-Clinton and Pro-T and were of great concern to him. Whatever that means.

In general, I find Comey to always be playing both sides and to have a hard time taking a firm position. Kind of an empty suit bureaucrat who thinks very highly of him self. The "honest loyalty" phrase is a case in point. He gave Trump just enough of what Trump wanted in hopes it would save his own ass. Can't believe he's now teaching a class sin leadership.

[mountain grammy]

8. Yes, someone should ask him about Giuliani.

[onecaliberal]

10. Hopefully Rachel Maddow will tonight. One on one with him.

[spooky3]

11. And what about the story that Comey feared that agents

would leak info about the “new” emails, so Comey felt he had to do it first? He should have cracked down with authority, telling them leaks would be punished, as soon as he heard this could happen.

[BobTheSubgenius]

12. Comey is nowhere NEAR free and clear from all that pre-election crap.

How could he NOT know that revisiting the HRC email nonsense was going to tilt the playing field? And he did it anyway.