With the Justice Dept.’s coming inspector general report that could find serious wrongdoing by former FBI director James Comey and other senior officials the Times runs a glowing defense of Comey.
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
“James Comey Would Like to Help: The former F.B.I. director wants an end to the Trump presidency. And yes, he knows you might think he caused it” is the headline atop an instructive article on Sunday by Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times. His article makes clear the Times remains determined to support former FBI Director James Comey and sustain the discredited Russiagate narrative they share to the point of helping Comey and his partners avoid possible time in prison.
In late August, the Department of Justice decided to let Comey off with a slap on the wrist for leaking to the Times, through an intermediary, highly sensitive information from his talks with President Donald Trump. At that juncture, it was already a no-brainer to warn that the victory lap Comey chose to run was clearly premature.
Consequential leaks to the media by a former FBI director are serious enough. Now, however, we are talking about possible felonies. Comey is standing in such deep kimchi that he may drown — despite how tall he is, and despite preemptive puff pieces protesting a purity of the caliber of Caesar’s wife. This time, even with the Establishment media and Comey’s accomplices offering fulsome praise for him, there’s serious doubt whether he can wangle a Stay-Out-Of-Jail Card.
Jame Comey. (DonkeyHoty/Wikimedia)
Why do they appear to be running so scared?
In Horror of Horowitz
Over the last year and a half, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating how Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and three deputy attorneys general (Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, and Dana Boente) thought they could get away with signing applications for surveillance of former Trump associate Carter Page without disclosing that, as McCabe later testified, the application was based largely on the shabby, unverified “Steele dossier” paid for by the Democrats.
Providing incomplete, misleading information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a felony.
No problem, these top law enforcement officials probably thought at the time. Who would find out about their misconduct after Hillary Clinton — the odds-on favorite — became president? There would be encomia and promotions for help rendered, not indictments.
But now all of the above are squirming, and there is a paper trail. Only one of the FISA application signers is still in a key position to help from the inside — Boente. He was not demoted to working in the file room. He is the FBI general counsel, that is, its top attorney.
Is it About to Hit the Fan?
According Horowitz, Attorney General William Barr has had his draft IG report for over a month. Horowitz has said that his team “reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews, including several of witnesses who only recently agreed to be interviewed.” The team is “finalizing” the report prior to releasing it publicly.
Some pundits are now suggesting that the DOJ IG report may be published as early as this Friday.
Hold onto your hats.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
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Hillary Clinton is sending out emails re: should she run? The Dems are past their 4th debate, and she makes inquiries now? NO, she will not run. Bill wouldn’t stand for it.Hillary was once the First Lady. I doubt that Bill could stomach being the ‘First Gentleman,” It would make people laugh though.
One more time. With feeling.
The Department of Justice is not and has not been in the business of justice since it’s being compromised by CIA / NSA et al who claim intelligence as their mantle.
You want Truth Justice and the American Way? Good luck, Superman is dead.
Rest well Elijah!
I do like Ray’s missives. They are to the point and extremely well written. But, and here comes my take on some of these trite phrases, some of the sensible people that know what the IC is, and was, guilty of, are counting those chicks before the beaks come through the shells.
“Comey is standing in such deep kimchi that he may drown” and “..all of the above are squirming..” and “..there’s serious doubt whether he can wangle a Stay-Out-Of-Jail Card.” and last, “Hold onto your hats.” Does anyone see the similarity of these statements and those of the Marxist-democrat echo chamber chanting “..the walls are closing in..” and “this could be the tipping point.” and “..this is the bombshell that will sink him..” and “Trump is toast..”?
We all want these scurrilous crap-weasels to face the music and be held accountable. But as with all the ‘this is the one’ mania squawked by the left fell by the wayside, we should not have expectations that any of the swamp creatures will be indicted.
The New York Times is in full-combat mode once again it seems as while they’re doing a preemptive defense of Comey, they’re doing a preemptive attack on the one antiwar candidate in the Presidential race, Tulsi Gabbard. A doctor once said in explaining the difficulty of diagnosis sometimes that just because “one has fleas doesn’t mean they don’t have ticks,” and its plain to see our political class today is simply a rivalry of “fleas versus ticks,” with the people of the world doing the suffering, to include U.S. citizens who are under a government determined to drive the country ever onward to our own version of Stalingrad. And in that, it may be literally true as the Clintonites desire war with Russia first, but the Trumpites have always been driving toward war with China first, with various “sh**hole countries, as seen in each of these fanatic’s eyes, serving as “warmup matches,” like Iran and/or Venezuela. But regardless of targets, and targeteers though, the NYT will be cheering on war, and the likes of Comey and similar government officials will busily work to ensure no “President” gets in the way of the USA going to war. In the case of Trump, as either a flea or tick, he spoils that only in his inconsistency of rhetoric, not his “higher principles,” making him suspect in the eyes of his fellow fanatics We’re seeing the kind of internecine “war” between rival factions of fascists of the sort last seen in the 1930s between rival Japanese fascist factions on the critical issue of whether Japan should strike to the north first, or the south first. That’s what’s going on in the US today between the Trumpites and the Clintonites, both under the ideological umbrella of “Cheneyism,” as described here:https://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/01/were-all-cheneyites-now/ Thanks to Ray McGovern for revealing the tactics and the illegalities of the Never-Trump side in this fascist factional imbroglio the US political class is in.
The NYT hit piece on Tulsi from yesterday, the 14th, contained this gem:
“Ms. Gabbard’s warnings of a rigged election are likely to resonate with her base, an unconventional mix of anti-interventionist progressives, libertarians, contrarian culture-war skeptics, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists.”
I have lost all faith in our elected officials and the leadership of our intelligence agencies. They just don’t seem to care about right or wrong, integrity or villainy. They will lie cheat and connive to save the most dishonest among their allies and stop at nothing to rail-road and imprison even an innocent opponent.
I predict Horowitz will give a stern accounting of the actions taken in this slow rolling deep state coup….but that’s all it will be. A stern accounting. And after six months, He will be back on everyone’s cocktail party invite list.
The Beltway denizens take care of their own in the end. Laws only apply to the little people outside the beltway and those who aren’t part of the elite establishment. I will not be surprised if the house impeaches in the middle of the night and the Senate upholds it. The swamp only needs to flip 20 Republican Senators and with the Obama administraition grantion Fushion GPS full access to the NSA meta-data base in Utah…..I have no doubt they used that access to find a little “leverage” on GOP Senators, Donors and potential Supreme Court candidates.
Comey’s such an establishment sycophant it makes one want to puke in their soup.
John, Trump was already filthy, him and his pals Jeffery, Billy Clinton, the usuals. It’s the secret why he has been effective till now he is in his element.
This appears to me to be a disastrous situation, rapidly deteriorating. Still no outrage. Still no panic in the streets or on Wall Street.
Who the hell has time for correcting the course of the “ship of state” when there is money to made? Right?
All the froggy sheepeople seem to be comfortably relaxing in their hot tubs and the world is on fire.
Seems it might be about time for Americans to get bitch slapped in the mouth really damned hard, something needs to be done to wake them up!
I recommend everyone go find the song “For What It’s Worth, by the Buffalo Springfield Dec 1966, on the youtube and listen to it carefully. If you weren’t alive then try and learn something from it.
No, well then look up Jeff Becks “A day In the House” from his 1969 Guitar Shop Album, “Everyone is talking but nothing is being done.”
Meantime I’m gonna campaign for a change in the name of the” ship of state “, to “ship of fools” and change the National Anthem to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Sants and Allen Collin’s “That Smell”. Why because the U.S. has managed for the last 15 or 16 years to spread the smell of death world wide.
This a smell a\Americans Don’t want their kids to smell for sure and they Gaddemned well need to understand this!
It’s just a thought. you might want to entertain.
Is anybody doing anything to help the Kurds Ray?
Thank you, Ray McGovern and John Chuckman. I assume when John speaks of “either branch of government” he means executive and legislative. But don’t leave out the judiciary, at least at the highest level. The Supreme Court’s lifting of the lower court’s injunction against Trump’s clearly unlawful asylum dictat without even bothering to comment is a clear indication that, at least by a 5-4 count, the Supremes have sunk deeply into the same fen. Or, as I like to think of them, marsupials en regalia. With apologies to both kangaroos and Frank Zappa.
There is no more corrupt branch of government than the judiciary.
I know this from direct experience with 40 – 50 judges in 6 states.
Kangaroos might blush to consider federal judicial corruption.
There is no pretense of justice unless that would bring more bribe money.
The federal judiciary exists to extort bribes and serve oligarchy.
But of course they are appointed by fellow racketeers in Congress.
And the campaign bribes go to the oligarchy-owned mass media.
Right on the money Sam. 100%!
Regardless of your politics i think you have to give McGovern credit for being correct on many occasions about these issues. He was right on Vietnam and Iraq. He was right on his protests that led to his arrests. He is right about Assange and Snowden. If you havent read McGovern ‘s history.
I suggest you do.
And its time to release Manning. As Clarke pointed out in his comment. Manning has done the time.
I seek out Ray’s info on events, as with others in VIPS
I agree. Jane Christ
Thanks, Ray.
In general, who keeps the FBI files on FBI directors such as Comey?
It might be more accurate to say the NYT is committed to using against Trump everyone it can. It is using Comey now while he is still useful, before the report exposes him.
Wrist slapping encourages wrong doing. Perhaps even a coup attempt now and then. Enforce the law w/o fear or favor.
I will be very surprised if anything happens to Comey. We can safely predict that the Dems will go crazy–Barr’s work will be called a distraction, a feint to move attention away from impeachment. Nonsense of course, but be sure that the Dems will send up a mighty howl of virtuous outrage. Should be fun to watch.
Barr is the LAST person to trust for a truthful outcome in this. Or anything that pertains to “transparency” regarding Fed Intel agencies.
The Fix is always in with this cast of characters who deal in CYA full-time because they are all complicit over the decades. “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!” ~ George Carlin
After listening to the MSM explaining that Bidens’ corruption was just business as usual for Establishment politicians, I expect we will hear more justifying actions of any of those involved in the coup to depose the “inauthentic” President, Trump being elected by Deplorables in 30 states. In our Establishment, the voices of the poor and working class should not be heard, and they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Like the banksters in 2008-2010, the Establishment protects their own.
I agree. It is sickening.
Paradoxically this is the man who reopened the email case against Hillary at a crucial time days before the election. He gave Trump the momentum to win ….
Yours is the election seem from Hillary’s position. Hillary lost because she was as unfit to be President as Trump. She still spends 12 hours a day plotting, plotting. She owns her party via Perez. Whoever she lets win, probably Buttagig or Warren, will be totally beholden to her like a dummy to the ventriloquist – which is her role vis a vis the CIA & MIC.
Seems to be true. We have to watch out. One commentary said that Warren was considering asking Hillary to run as VP on her presidential race.
From the New York Times Flegenheimer article cited :
“As deputy attorney general under George W. Bush, he(Comey) famously confronted presidential aides over a surveillance program he found legally dubious.”
Kinda funny.
I am a USAF veteran I watched as young men were sent to prison for making a mistake while on duty! Some where just dumb mistakes; some people actually died. However I’d say no matter how inocent dumb of a simple overlook these mistakes were, they still ended in very serious consequences for a young man or woman who volunteered to serve thier country.
All this being said it would be a huge disrespectful slap in the face to all who served under harsh and stressful conditions.
All wrong doers should stand for trial and judgment in a open court !
Spot on. I served in the USMC during a time when men convicted of crimes were given a choice of prison or military service. I would not give Comey, Brennan, Rosenstein, etc. a choice. Upon conviction I would sentence them to combat frontline duty for the length of their sentence.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Horowitz will be an agent of change. His first duty is to protect the FBI. Remember, in his last investigation he provided the hateful comments on Trump by Page and Strzok and had the balls to then conclude that he saw no indications of political bias. Expect more of the same deep state excuses to justify the traitors in government, “Let’s look forward not backward”.
I like the summary.
You certainly don’t have to be a Trump supporter to recognize what was wrong in the behavior of Comey, Clinton & Co..
Again, as with so many matters, including everything swirling around Ukraine, there’s almost no honor or honesty or even decency in Washington. In either Party. In either branch of government.
It is truly “a swamp,” almost all of it.
That’s the one thing Trump got right, only he not only did little about it, he jumped right into the filth.