"The Deep State" aka the American Intelligence Community

[MDlaxfan76]

"Justice Department inspector general has done separate report on James Comey"

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... ames-comey

Barr passed on indicting Comey regarding leaked memos so he can nail him later as part of the FISA abuse investigations

Hasn't stopped Horowitz from emphasizing Comey's bad actions and possible crimes in a separate report.

Looks to me from the reporting you linked that the Washington Examiner reporter doesn't have a clue what Horowitz will say.
Nor, I dare say, do you, tech, right?

Well that's right, Horowitz isn't a leaking sieve like your hero Comey, so who would know? I'm sure Comey's response to the IG's report must make you very proud.

I'm cool with waiting for the IG's report. Apparently you're not.

Not sure why you think Comey is a "hero" to me.
Pretty sure that we'll hear much the same as Rosenstein critiqued.
Likely not "crimes", but some judgments that are certainly open to critique.

That said, yeah, I think Comey is way, way, way more a patriot than the knucklehead, dishonest jerks occupying the White House.
Whataboutism at it's finest. We're talking Comey here, try to focus.

But that's a disgustingly low bar, so it's not as if he didn't err in his judgments and deserving of critique and/or reprimand.

This is a pretty balanced reporting of this first report by the IG, worth reading to the end to get the full flavor of that balance:
"Balance," in the minds of resistance warriors such as yourself

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/29/opinions ... index.html

Once again, here are the facts, sans opinion, and despite your concept of "balance":

"The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report on Thursday that sternly reprimanded former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of a series of memos he created to document conversations with President Donald Trump in 2017."

"While the OIG does not find that Comey's conduct merits prosecution, it does conclude that "Comey's retention, handling, and dissemination of certain memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement."

"The OIG report is harshly critical of Comey, and rightly so. No, it does not appear Comey committed a crime -- for instance, by knowingly leaking classified materials -- and Comey made a hollow claim of vindication on Twitter, generously offering to accept quick "sorry" messages in lieu of formal apologies. But it is no small matter for the director of the FBI, who titled his memoir "A Higher Loyalty," to violate policy of the very organization he leads."

"As the OIG report concludes, by disclosing sensitive issues about the ongoing criminal investigation of Flynn and the broader investigation of Russian election interference to create public pressure on Trump, "Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees." Most damning of all, the OIG report rejects Comey's explanation that he felt compelled by some moral duty, concluding that "were current or former FBI employees to follow (Comey's) example and disclose sensitive information in service of their own strongly held personal convictions, the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly."

I'm not sure why you have such a hard time understanding what I mean by "balance" tech37. The article does a good job, at least IMO, of describing what Comey did and why some of it was 'wrong' or at least against regulations. It doesn't exaggerate his mistakes, but it doesn't shy away from them either. It's tough on Comey as well for his claims of "vindication" calling them "hollow".

I agree.

It also makes very clear that Trump's claims of exoneration are BS too.
That's included because Trump is making this about himself, not me or CNN.
He just can't help himself, can't stand not to be the center of attention

I responded to to the "hero" label because that's what you threw out. And, yeah, it's not a close call between those two who I'd trust more to have America's best interests in mind.

[MDlaxfan76]

Bottom line.... A Deep State exists, the FBI lied, and there is a special club...

This narrowly focused IG report is a detailed " how to " manual, showing how a savvy Deep State bureaucrat can abuse the powers of his office, play the margins, exploit the media & get away with it (so far).

Comey's memos were classified material & an official record from his first keystroke, based solely on his access, position & the subject matter.
He simply witheld the memos from review & classification. That's why there were no classification markings on the copies he leaked & retained privately.

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

Indeed it has the negatives detailed in the CNN reporting, but as usual you are far more concerned with whacking Comey as "Deep State" than recognizing the validity of his concern about the Russian interference, kompromat, and the corrupt, authoritarian liar in the Oval Office.

Just to be clear, the IG does not come to the same conclusion as you purport re classification. It was not based merely on Comey's not having requested a review, rather it was an open question answered by the IG's own review of the released content. Not classified, but any "sensitive information" about an ongoing criminal investigation is not to be released to the public, according to DOJ directives. Big difference.

Nevertheless, it does set an unfortunate precedent, as you describe. A lot of unfortunate precedents being set these past few years, IMO.

[a fan]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

[MDlaxfan76]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Yes, Salty was quite adamant that he would wait for the IG's report, and the standard was "classified" and "criminal".

As to "precedents", Comey was fired. He's now had the first of likely 3 IG reports that will be critical of his actions.

Heaven help us if the precedent with Trump is that he's not at least 'fired'.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

[get it to x]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

Comey is still in jeopardy. I believe these leaking investigations are nothing compared to an indictment for conspiracy along with many other potential defendants. One of those potential defendants turning on their pals would be enough to get the ball rolling. Once it is clear a case can be made more offers of cooperation will happen. Nobody will want to be without a chair once the music stops.

[RedFromMI]

Comey was acting as a whistleblower in exposing those memos - as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it:

Comey can take care of himself. The report confirms the legally significant point: he broke no laws. But of course Comey was not simply within his rights but had an affirmative obligation to bring this information to light. Critically, he had no reason to believe that the others in the existing chain of command weren’t compromised by Trump’s corruption and efforts to end the investigation. Indeed, what we have subsequently learned gives every reason to believe they were compromised. The only reason this isn’t obvious is that we’ve had Trump’s denials, lying and gaslighting in our collective heads for the last two plus years.

[a fan]

Comey is still in jeopardy. I believe these leaking investigations are nothing compared to an indictment for conspiracy along with many other potential defendants. One of those potential defendants turning on their pals would be enough to get the ball rolling. Once it is clear a case can be made more offers of cooperation will happen. Nobody will want to be without a chair once the music stops.

Conspiracy? Conspiracy to do what? Investigate Trump, and find that Trump didn't break any laws?

[old salt]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

Not worth prosecuting. Too hard to prove intent (just like Comey said about HRC -- he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).
It was a firing offense. He got fired. FBI Director -- fired. Term cut short = BFD

[Typical Lax Dad]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

Not worth prosecuting. Too hard to prove intent (just like Comey said about HRC -- he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).
It was a firing offense. He got fired. FBI Director -- fired. Term cut short = BFD

Yep. BFD. He didn’t commit a crime.

[a fan]

he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).

But you've said dozens of times over the past three years that you don't care about ethical violations. You've said, and I quote "so what, that's not illegal".....a cr*pton of times.

So Comey SHOULD be clean as a whistle in your eyes. But he's obviously not.

Change of heart, and ethics now matter to you? What happened?

[old salt]

Bottom line.... A Deep State exists, the FBI lied, and there is a special club...

This narrowly focused IG report is a detailed " how to " manual, showing how a savvy Deep State bureaucrat can abuse the powers of his office, play the margins, exploit the media & get away with it (so far).

Comey's memos were classified material & an official record from his first keystroke, based solely on his access, position & the subject matter.
He simply witheld the memos from review & classification. That's why there were no classification markings on the copies he leaked & retained privately.

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

Indeed it has the negatives detailed in the CNN reporting, but as usual you are far more concerned with whacking Comey as "Deep State" than recognizing the validity of his concern about the Russian interference, kompromat, and the corrupt, authoritarian liar in the Oval Office.

Just to be clear, the IG does not come to the same conclusion as you purport re classification. It was not based merely on Comey's not having requested a review, rather it was an open question answered by the IG's own review of the released content. Not classified, but any "sensitive information" about an ongoing criminal investigation is not to be released to the public, according to DOJ directives. Big difference.

Nevertheless, it does set an unfortunate precedent, as you describe. A lot of unfortunate precedents being set these past few years, IMO.

Just to be clear --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

The inspector general criticized Comey for keeping the government documents at his home, engineering the release of some of their contents to the news media and not telling the bureau to whom he had given them — even after he was aware that some contained classified information.

Comey told investigators that he felt the memos were personal and that he was acting in the best interests of the country. But the inspector general rejected that defense, writing that Comey’s senior FBI leaders all agreed the memos were government documents, and that the former director’s “own, personal conception of what was necessary was not an appropriate basis for ignoring the policies and agreements governing the use of FBI records.”
“The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties,” the inspector general wrote. “Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility.”

In total, the inspector general wrote, Comey wrote seven memos, documenting most of the nine one-on-one conversations he had with Trump in early 2017, just before he was fired.
Comey left three memos at the FBI, the inspector general wrote. He stored the other four documents in a safe in his home and provided copies to his personal attorneys, the inspector general found. Of those four, he gave one — which included information the inspector general called “sensitive” but unclassified — to a friend and authorized him to share its contents.
One of those memos shared with the attorneys was later determined to contain information that was classified as confidential, the lowest level of secrecy, after a review that included Comey’s FBI general counsel, the inspector general wrote.

The confidential material in that memo entailed just six words “from a statement by President Trump comparing the relative importance of returning telephone calls from three countries,” the inspector general wrote. Another memo Comey kept contained a classified “assessment of a foreign leader by President Trump,” though Comey redacted that before providing it to his attorneys, the inspector general wrote.

That Comey had in his possession material that was later deemed classified and shared it with his lawyers has also rankled liberals. It was Comey, after all, who said Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information in their use of a private email server.

Many Clinton supporters say the FBI’s investigation into that matter — and Comey’s revelation on the eve of the 2016 election that the case was resuming — cost her the presidency. As an FBI employee, Comey had to surrender all bureau materials upon leaving his job and abide by a “lifelong” duty to protect classified material, the inspector general wrote.

None of it was authorized by the FBI. When Comey revealed what he had done at a June 2017 congressional hearing, senior bureau leaders were taken aback, the inspector general wrote.
Earlier that month, Comey had reviewed the memos and seen the classification markings the FBI had applied to the memos after he had left, the Inspector general wrote.
FBI officials scrambled to get in touch with Richman, who told them Comey had also shared the material with his other lawyers, the inspector general wrote.

The memo provided to Richman was determined to be “For Official Use Only” but did not contain classified information, the inspector general wrote. But because other memos Comey shared with attorneys had material deemed classified, officials had to track down who had accessed the documents so they could be secured, the inspector general wrote.

“Members of Comey’s senior leadership team used the adjectives ‘surprised,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘shocked,’ and ‘disappointment’ to describe their reactions to learning that Comey acted on his own to provide the contents of Memo 4, through Richman, to a reporter,” the inspector general wrote.

The man who subsequently became the acting head of the FBI, Andrew G. McCabe, referred the matter to the inspector general in July 2017, the inspector general wrote. The inspector general said a decision on what to do next lies with the FBI and Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

[old salt]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

Not worth prosecuting. Too hard to prove intent (just like Comey said about HRC -- he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).
It was a firing offense. He got fired. FBI Director -- fired. Term cut short = BFD

Yep. BFD. He didn’t commit a crime.

...& to cite your favorite precedent -- did OJ kill anyone ? ..

[old salt]

he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).

But you've said dozens of times over the past three years that you don't care about ethical violations. You've said, and I quote "so what, that's not illegal".....a cr*pton of times.

So Comey SHOULD be clean as a whistle in your eyes. But he's obviously not.

Change of heart, and ethics now matter to you? What happened?

The FBI Director is supposed to be a straight shooter "lawman", not some lying weasel politician.
Nobody voted him into office.
Comey showed himself to be a political hack. Not worth prosecuting because of the difficulty in proving intent.
Fired & disgraced (so far) is good enough for me re his mishandling of classified material.
It will be interesting to see what he did in forthcoming investigation reports.

[a fan]

So you hold the leader of the free world----and his minions who were appointed, not voted in----- to a lower standard than a career Federal worker?

Come on. You can't be serious. Same standard, fine. Higher standard, fine. But lower? Seriously?

[Typical Lax Dad]

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

You told me you were fine so long as Comey didn't leak classified info. or break laws.

What happened to that?

As for precedents, you don't care. If you did, Comey would be the least of your worries.

Comey didn’t break the law. BFD.

Not worth prosecuting. Too hard to prove intent (just like Comey said about HRC -- he's got it down pat, how to cheat the system).
It was a firing offense. He got fired. FBI Director -- fired. Term cut short = BFD

Yep. BFD. He didn’t commit a crime.

...& to cite your favorite precedent -- did OJ kill anyone ? ..

No. It’s OJ was not guilty.

[old salt]

So you hold the leader of the free world----and his minions who were appointed, not voted in----- to a lower standard than a career Federal worker?

Come on. You can't be serious. Same standard, fine. Higher standard, fine. But lower? Seriously?

Yes I do -- for good reason.
The DoJ is not just a law enforcement officer. He's also charged with investigating for compliance with DoJ policies & rules.
There's no IG enforcing compliance by a President. The voters put him in office & Congress removes him.
in the final analysis, a President gets away with whatever the voting public will tolerate.
Not so with a federal worker.

[MDlaxfan76]

Comey was acting as a whistleblower in exposing those memos - as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it:

Comey can take care of himself. The report confirms the legally significant point: he broke no laws. But of course Comey was not simply within his rights but had an affirmative obligation to bring this information to light. Critically, he had no reason to believe that the others in the existing chain of command weren’t compromised by Trump’s corruption and efforts to end the investigation. Indeed, what we have subsequently learned gives every reason to believe they were compromised. The only reason this isn’t obvious is that we’ve had Trump’s denials, lying and gaslighting in our collective heads for the last two plus years.

That said, there are channels for whistle blowing, processes that could have been utilized, prior to any leaking.

We'll never know whether going through the proper processes would have been successful. It's untestable.
It's the IG's opinion that he should have gone that route and that not doing so is a serious issue. Big surprise there!

But we do know that he felt it was SO important to get this investigated, and so unsure that it wouldn't get quashed in a corrupt
Administration, that he was willing to break guidelines he knew full well were in place. He took pains to not actually reveal classified information, redacting in one case such material, from even his own attorney. But he knew darn well that it was 'sensitive information' and he was breaking the rules.

History will tell how his actions are seen.

[MDlaxfan76]

So you hold the leader of the free world----and his minions who were appointed, not voted in----- to a lower standard than a career Federal worker?

Come on. You can't be serious. Same standard, fine. Higher standard, fine. But lower? Seriously?

Yes I do -- for good reason.
The DoJ is not just a law enforcement officer. He's also charged with investigating for compliance with DoJ policies & rules.
There's no IG enforcing compliance by a President. The voters put him in office & Congress removes him.
in the final analysis, a President gets away with whatever the voting public will tolerate.
Not so with a federal worker.

WOW.

So acting criminally to achieve election, if successful, inoculates a President from criminal prosecution. Above the law, rather than actually bound to protect the Constitution and the rule of law.

Imagine this is some a-hole on the left side of the ledger.

Of course, what you are saying is about process, not whether a President should actually be held to a higher or a lower standard (by you, the voter), which is what a fan keeps pressing you to answer.

You are answering lower, right?

You get another chance at this one, Salty.

[MDlaxfan76]

Bottom line.... A Deep State exists, the FBI lied, and there is a special club...

This narrowly focused IG report is a detailed " how to " manual, showing how a savvy Deep State bureaucrat can abuse the powers of his office, play the margins, exploit the media & get away with it (so far).

Comey's memos were classified material & an official record from his first keystroke, based solely on his access, position & the subject matter.
He simply witheld the memos from review & classification. That's why there were no classification markings on the copies he leaked & retained privately.

Gotta give Comey credit -- it was a brilliant, arrogant, audacious gambit to get his story out, portray himself as a self-righteous hero of the resistance, & inoculate himself from prosecution (for this). This sets a horrible precedent.

Indeed it has the negatives detailed in the CNN reporting, but as usual you are far more concerned with whacking Comey as "Deep State" than recognizing the validity of his concern about the Russian interference, kompromat, and the corrupt, authoritarian liar in the Oval Office.

Just to be clear, the IG does not come to the same conclusion as you purport re classification. It was not based merely on Comey's not having requested a review, rather it was an open question answered by the IG's own review of the released content. Not classified, but any "sensitive information" about an ongoing criminal investigation is not to be released to the public, according to DOJ directives. Big difference.

Nevertheless, it does set an unfortunate precedent, as you describe. A lot of unfortunate precedents being set these past few years, IMO.

Just to be clear --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

The inspector general criticized Comey for keeping the government documents at his home, engineering the release of some of their contents to the news media and not telling the bureau to whom he had given them — even after he was aware that some contained classified information.

Comey told investigators that he felt the memos were personal and that he was acting in the best interests of the country. But the inspector general rejected that defense, writing that Comey’s senior FBI leaders all agreed the memos were government documents, and that the former director’s “own, personal conception of what was necessary was not an appropriate basis for ignoring the policies and agreements governing the use of FBI records.”
“The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties,” the inspector general wrote. “Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility.”

In total, the inspector general wrote, Comey wrote seven memos, documenting most of the nine one-on-one conversations he had with Trump in early 2017, just before he was fired.
Comey left three memos at the FBI, the inspector general wrote. He stored the other four documents in a safe in his home and provided copies to his personal attorneys, the inspector general found. Of those four, he gave one — which included information the inspector general called “sensitive” but unclassified — to a friend and authorized him to share its contents.
One of those memos shared with the attorneys was later determined to contain information that was classified as confidential, the lowest level of secrecy, after a review that included Comey’s FBI general counsel, the inspector general wrote.

The confidential material in that memo entailed just six words “from a statement by President Trump comparing the relative importance of returning telephone calls from three countries,” the inspector general wrote. Another memo Comey kept contained a classified “assessment of a foreign leader by President Trump,” though Comey redacted that before providing it to his attorneys, the inspector general wrote.

That Comey had in his possession material that was later deemed classified and shared it with his lawyers has also rankled liberals. It was Comey, after all, who said Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information in their use of a private email server.

Many Clinton supporters say the FBI’s investigation into that matter — and Comey’s revelation on the eve of the 2016 election that the case was resuming — cost her the presidency. As an FBI employee, Comey had to surrender all bureau materials upon leaving his job and abide by a “lifelong” duty to protect classified material, the inspector general wrote.

None of it was authorized by the FBI. When Comey revealed what he had done at a June 2017 congressional hearing, senior bureau leaders were taken aback, the inspector general wrote.
Earlier that month, Comey had reviewed the memos and seen the classification markings the FBI had applied to the memos after he had left, the Inspector general wrote.
FBI officials scrambled to get in touch with Richman, who told them Comey had also shared the material with his other lawyers, the inspector general wrote.

The memo provided to Richman was determined to be “For Official Use Only” but did not contain classified information, the inspector general wrote. But because other memos Comey shared with attorneys had material deemed classified, officials had to track down who had accessed the documents so they could be secured, the inspector general wrote.

“Members of Comey’s senior leadership team used the adjectives ‘surprised,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘shocked,’ and ‘disappointment’ to describe their reactions to learning that Comey acted on his own to provide the contents of Memo 4, through Richman, to a reporter,” the inspector general wrote.

The man who subsequently became the acting head of the FBI, Andrew G. McCabe, referred the matter to the inspector general in July 2017, the inspector general wrote. The inspector general said a decision on what to do next lies with the FBI and Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Exactly, what Comey had leaked didn't include the little tiny bit of classified information contained in the memos. The memos did, but not what was leaked. He took pains to avoid even providing that information to his own lawyer.

None leaked.

Ahh well, you were hoping otherwise...