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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-director-james-comey-fired/story?id=47309009

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FBI Director James Comey has been fired

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FBI Director James Comey has been fired, according to the White House.

 

"Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office," the White House statement reads.

 

"President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions," the statement said.

 

President Trump has previously been critical of Comey, suggesting that his actions helped Hillary Clinton during the campaign, while Clinton blamed Comey and his late announcement about the FBI's investigation into her email server contributed to her electoral college loss.

 

"FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?" Trump wrote in two tweets on May 2.

 

In the wake of those tweets, press secretary Sean Spicer said "the president has confidence in the director" on May 3.

 

 

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On 5/9/2017 at 9:58 PM, Jamie_B said:

The best response came from the Nixon Library.....the sheer irony of it....

 

 

 

 

Are you suggesting that he was fired in order to hamper an ongoing investigation? Why, that would be unethical and possibly even illegal.

 

You and your conspiracy theories. Take off the tinfoil hat, bro.

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3 hours ago, T-Dub said:

 

 

Are you suggesting that he was fired in order to hamper an ongoing investigation? Why, that would be unethical and possibly even illegal.

 

You and your conspiracy theories. Take off the tinfoil hat, bro.

 

Aren't you cute.

 

I haven't suggested anything other than the Nixon Library's response was funny as hell due to it's irony.

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4 minutes ago, Jamie_B said:

 

 

That the Nixon Library trolled Trump.

 

It's cute what you are attempting to do.

 

You're still wrong that the Bengals are targeted.

 

 

Well obviously I'm wrong!  You called it a conspiracy theory and we all know there's no such thing as conspiracies. QED.

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Just trying to determine how far your "LOL tinfoil hat!" thing goes...  I'm sure you're aware that a lot of people think this whole "Russian influence" thing is a total fabrication. "fake news" or whatever? That is, the theory that Trump conspired with Putin. Maybe you were one of those kids convinced the WWF was real, IDK, but at least we've established your standard of evidence as "whatever you happen to believe at the moment."

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51 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

Just trying to determine how far your "LOL tinfoil hat!" thing goes...  I'm sure you're aware that a lot of people think this whole "Russian influence" thing is a total fabrication. "fake news" or whatever? That is, the theory that Trump conspired with Putin. Maybe you were one of those kids convinced the WWF was real, IDK, but at least we've established your standard of evidence as "whatever you happen to believe at the moment."

 

 

Well there is just one problem for you.

 

I am privy to information you are not because of who I work for, as such I have a better idea than John Q Public of what is and isn't legit with this.

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50 minutes ago, Jamie_B said:

 

 

Well there is just one problem for you.

 

I am privy to information you are not because of who I work for, as such I have a better idea than John Q Public of what is and isn't legit with this.

 

Oh I don't trust the Trump administration one bit.  I find it odd that you'd give Goodell's NFL the benefit of the doubt.  No matter.

 

I think the real question here is whether you've seen the piss tape.

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Just now, T-Dub said:

 

Oh I don't trust the Trump administration one bit.  I find it odd that you'd give Goodell's NFL the benefit of the doubt.  No matter.

 

I think the real question here is whether you've seen the piss tape.

 

Not so much give him benefit of doubt as suggest that the idea they are targeting the Bengals is nonsense, but I digress.

 

LOL@Peetape

 

 

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5 Questions About James Comey’s Firing, Answered

A former FBI special agent weighs in.



 

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5 Questions About James Comey’s Firing, Answered

A former FBI special agent weighs in.

 

Donald Trump’s unexpected decision to fire FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday has put us in uncharted territory and prompted a flurry of questions. What does this mean for the FBI’s ongoing investigation that could implicate the administration? If Trump is determined to make the investigation disappear, could he? And, more simply, what happens next? Based on my experience as a former FBI agent who worked on counterintelligence matters, here’s some insight into the most common queries that have been raised in the wake of Tuesday’s surprise. Don’t worry; it’s mostly comforting.

 

What happens to Comey’s documents and to investigative files that have already been gathered? Can they be destroyed?

 

Remember that the FBI is a law enforcement agency. Not that Comey’s office is exactly a crime scene (yet), but the culture is one that places a high value on preserving information, not destroying it. Particularly in light of a letter from Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee requesting that all documents pertaining either to Comey’s firing or to the investigation into Russia’s election interference be preserved and put off-limits to White House officials and associates (as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, specifically), the FBI is under an affirmative duty to comply, and a failure to do so could be considered obstruction of justice. In general, any official documents that were in Comey’s office relating to the Russia investigation, such as memos regarding investigative steps or conclusions, approvals for decisions taken and communications with field offices would become part of the case file itself. Personal notes, emails and informal communications would likely be compartmentalized, classified if necessary, and remain in the custody of acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

 

FBI investigative files are official Department of Justice documents and as a legal matter, cannot be destroyed. (One of J. Edgar Hoover’s legacies is that he never got rid of anything: The National Archives contains FBI files going back to 1908, including up to 17,000 pages of documents maintained by Hoover himself in his personal vault.) This would be especially true for a case that has two active congressional intelligence committee investigations underway.

 

As a practical matter, it would not be possible to destroy FBI documents anyway, since case files are electronic and not paper-based—so there can be no “accidental” fires in the file room. Files are also kept in a secure system that tracks all access and is designed to prevent unauthorized tampering such as alterations or removal, so you can step down from the ledge: Everything will remain intact.

 

What happens with the Russia investigation until a new director is confirmed?

 

FBI agents will continue doing their job. As a matter of procedure, investigations are governed by something called the Attorney General Guidelines. The AG Guidelines lay out the rules and regulations including predicates for opening an investigation, the sequence an investigation should follow, and investigative techniques that can and should be used at various stages and the approvals needed for them. The AG Guidelines also specify the procedures for closing an investigation; and this cannot be done until all of the open questions in an investigation are satisfactorily resolved. Based on Comey’s most recent testimony, this is not happening anytime soon, so even in the absence of a director, the Russia investigation will proceed apace.

 

Furthermore, FBI agents feel a sense of ownership over their cases and have a vested interest in seeing them through to their conclusion. Russian counterintelligence, in particular, is one of the Bureau’s oldest programs, and its agents often spend years, and sometimes their entire careers, on this target. The damage wrought by former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who spied on behalf of the Russians for 15 years, also lives in the FBI’s institutional memory and makes this adversary a personal one. In short, there’s no love lost between the FBI and Russian intelligence, and the agents working on the investigation wouldn’t be inclined to abandon it anytime soon.

 

Can a new director “kill” the Russia investigation?

 

No. Even a director with the most nefarious motives would not be able to put the brakes on an ongoing investigation, particularly one of this scale and under such public and congressional scrutiny. At this stage, the Russia investigation will have expanded beyond FBI Headquarters and the director’s immediate control. The FBI is a quasi-decentralized system with 56 field offices in addition to FBIHQ, and several field offices can be involved in a single case: If someone in Ohio might have information about a case being worked out of New York City, for example, a “lead” is sent from the case agent in New York to the Cleveland field office. An agent there would conduct the interview and send the report back to the case agent. A case like the Russia investigation would generate hundreds of leads dispersed around the country and can’t officially be closed out until all such leads are covered.

 

This case also likely has open electronic surveillance orders, which would require regular paperwork and updates, as required by statute and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approving such orders. Any attempt to immediately shut one down would involve lawyers from the DOJ and essentially contradict submissions made under oath justifying the order in the first place to the FISC. And given that the Russian threat has also affected our allies, such as France, intelligence generated from the investigation would have been shared not only within the U.S. intelligence community but also with intelligence agencies from other countries. With so much already in motion, no single person, even the director, would be able to make it “disappear.”

 

Can a new director do anything to stall the investigation?

 

Possibly, but only indirectly and over a long timeline. A director can change the priorities of the Bureau and reallocate its resources, including its budget, accordingly. This could put pressure on the field offices working the investigation to reassign personnel and potentially reduce the available bandwidth for the Russia investigation. A director could also phase out sources of information for the investigation, like FISA orders for electronic surveillance by refusing renewal requests, which would be required anywhere from every 90 days to every year. Lastly, a director could reduce the scope of information sharing, either within the U.S. intelligence community or with allied countries.

Still, this course of action would be very perilous for a new director to follow. Some moves, like suddenly changing priorities or budget allocations, would be very visible and would raise questions—and, potentially, calls for the new director’s removal—given the magnitude of the threat as described by Comey in his recent testimony (and the acting director’s testimony on Thursday). In addition, Congress can review and compare statistics concerning personnel, investigative techniques and the level of information sharing on a case at different points in time and, if it’s clear that the investigation is not as robust as it was previously, ask the director to explain the reasons why. Many of the FBI’s powers come from statutes authorized by Congress, which can take them away and affect the Bureau’s investigative authority if it feels the agency is acting improperly. Finally, the quasi-independence of individual field offices, which would resist efforts to “starve” resources on open cases, would create internal pressure and possible backlash against these efforts.

 

What is the morale of the agency, and how will that affect what happens going forward?

 

Reports suggest that the Bureau has not taken Comey’s firing well: One agent told me that people have been “gobsmacked” by the news. This isn’t surprising, considering that Comey made it a point to foster a good relationship with his agency, personally visiting all 56 field offices—twice—after being appointed director. To be sure, Comey’s public commentary regarding the Clinton investigation had also led to some loss of morale, but that had less to do with lack of faith in Comey’s leadership and more to do with the public criticism that the FBI was acting with partisan motives. The FBI has traditionally been able to steer clear of political minefields even while investigating charged issues—think of the Kenneth Starr investigation under President Bill Clinton or the Valerie Plame leak under President George W. Bush (both cases, incidentally, in which neither president interfered)—so being caught in partisan cross hairs is not a space the Bureau is accustomed to occupying.

 

On this front, Comey realized that the FBI needed a public relations makeover. Prior to his firing, he had approved a new documentary TV series on the day-to-day work of the FBI, in order to assure the public that the Bureau is “not on anyone’s side.” Interestingly, the series focuses on the FBI’s traditional investigations into violent crime, harkening back to the J. Edgar Hoover days when popular depictions of “G-men” in comics and movies—often promoted by Hoover himself—glorified FBI agents as the ultimate good guys and bastions of justice. At this point, however, the FBI may not need the PR. It’s possible that the doubt cast on the FBI’s ability to conduct its Russia inquiry at all will in fact spur agents to double down on the investigation, restoring the public’s trust—but maybe not in the way Trump intended.

 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/11/5-questions-about-james-comeys-firing-answered-215127

 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?
 

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Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMAY 16, 2017 

 

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

 

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

 

The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

 

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

 

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter.

 

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

 

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

 

Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: “I agree he is a good guy.”

 

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

 

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

 

In testimony to the Senate last week, the acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, said, “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”

 

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.

 

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

 

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last week. Trump administration officials have provided multiple, conflicting accounts of the reasoning behind Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Mr. Trump said in a television interview that one of the reasons was because he believed “this Russia thing” was a “made-up story.”

 

The Feb. 14 meeting took place just a day after Mr. Flynn was forced out of his job after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of phone conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

 

Despite the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey, the investigation of Mr. Flynn has proceeded. In Virginia, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas in recent weeks for records related to Mr. Flynn. Part of the Flynn investigation is centered on his financial ties to Russia and Turkey.

 

Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present — including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to leave the room except for Mr. Comey.

 

Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

 

Mr. Trump then turned the discussion to Mr. Flynn.

 

After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Mr. Comey shared it with senior F.B.I. officials. Mr. Comey and his aides perceived Mr. Trump’s comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret — even from the F.B.I. agents working on the Russia investigation — so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.

 

Mr. Comey was known among his closest advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question, according to two former confidants, who said Mr. Comey was uncomfortable at times with his relationship with Mr. Trump.

 

Mr. Comey’s recollection has been bolstered in the past by F.B.I. notes. In 2007, he told Congress about a now-famous showdown with senior White House officials over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. The White House disputed Mr. Comey’s account, but the F.B.I. director at the time, Robert S. Mueller III, kept notes that backed up Mr. Comey’s story.

 

The White House has repeatedly crossed lines that other administrations have been reluctant to cross when discussing politically charged criminal investigations. Mr. Trump has disparaged the ongoing F.B.I. investigation as a hoax and called for an investigation into his political rivals. His representatives have taken the unusual step of declaring no need for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s associates.

 

The Oval Office meeting occurred a little more than two weeks after Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Comey to the White House for a lengthy, one-on-one dinner in the residence. At that dinner, on Jan. 27, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey at least two times for a pledge of loyalty — which Mr. Comey declined, according to one of Mr. Comey’s associates.

 

In a Twitter posting on Friday, Mr. Trump said that “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

 

After the meeting, Mr. Comey’s associates did not believe there was any way to corroborate Mr. Trump’s statements. But Mr. Trump’s suggestion last week that he was keeping tapes has made them wonder whether there are tapes that back up Mr. Comey’s account.

 

The Jan. 27 dinner came a day after White House officials learned that Mr. Flynn had been interviewed by F.B.I. agents about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. On Jan. 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates told the White House counsel about the interview, and said Mr. Flynn could be subject to blackmail by the Russians because they knew he had lied about the content of the calls.

 

 

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This is fucking crazy. We have turned into a reality show / WWF angle.

 

What do you all think happens next? How long will Ryan / McConnell / Graham drag their feet taking action on this?

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3 hours ago, Cat said:

This is fucking crazy. We have turned into a reality show / WWF angle.

 

What do you all think happens next? How long will Ryan / McConnell / Graham drag their feet taking action on this?

 

The American people will see if the Republicans can do what is right for the country over what helps further their agenda...I'm guessing they will attempt to sweep this under rug until the mess gets too big to hide. 

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41 minutes ago, Jamie_B said:

Right now it's he-said, he-said. I hope Comey can come up with some sort of proof.

 

 

That proof would have to be shocking enough to turn into immediate criminal charges and/or resignation.  Otherwise we're still stuck with Congressional investigations & they aren't going to do anything but prevaricate.  Normally there'd be another option, the possibility of offending the Bible Belt &tc with something foul & shocking enough to bring out the torches & pitchforks.. but Trump won while being cartoon-villain sleazy and proud of it. People admire him for being a loudmouthed jackass so who knows? Do we even care if he sells us out to a Russian dictator? It doesn't much seem like we do, overall. 

 

Point being all this crap will have to get much worse for it to matter before next year's midterms, and that's to expect a solution from the same system that created our Troll President.

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