Konbini, 11 May 2017: “Coverup? FBI Director Comey’s Firing Ignites Trump-Russia Suspicions.”
There are so many questions that need to be answered about the bombshell breaking news that shook Washington D.C. to its core on Tuesday. President Trump summarily dismissed FBI Director James Comey at the same time that Comey was leading an investigation into the Trump campaign’s shady connections (and possible collusion with) the Russian government’s meddling in the U.S. elections.
What are we to make of all the comparisons to the Watergate scandal? What does this all mean for the ongoing FBI, Congressional and Senate investigations into Trump-Russia? What does this mean for the functioning of the United States government - are we officially in a constitutional crisis?
If so, does America have the institutional integrity and fortitude to survive it?
No one is buying the official reasoning from the White House that FBI Director James Comey was dismissed by President Trump because of his “unfair” treatment of candidate Hillary Clinton last summer. No one is buying the implication that Comey simply had to be removed because the FBI was getting “too political” in recent months.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly and vocally praised Comey’s actions in making disclosures about the investigation into Clinton’s email scandal. In October, then-Senator Jeff Sessions (now the Attorney General who wrote a letter recommending Comey’s firing) claimed Comey had “no choice” but to reignite the controversy surrounding Clinton’s emails just days before the election.
Based on the New York Times’ Michael Schmidt’s reporting, it seems Trump had a set outcome in mind, and tasked his attorney general with digging up some justifications for it:
Michael S. Schmidt
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@nytmike
WH and DOJ had been working on firing Comey since at least last week. Sessions had been working to come up with reasons.
12:28 AM - 10 May 2017
This is exactly the kind of dissembling, smoke screening and naked dishonesty that has churned up such distrust of this administration only 110 days into Trump’s presidency. If Sessions and Trump were so utterly appalled by Comey’s toe-dipping into the political arena, they could - and should - have fired him way back in January.
Oh, by the way, didn’t Attorney General Sessions recuse himself from all questions involving the Trump-Russia investigation..?
Here we are in May, with the FBI suddenly decapitated and with no replacement lined up ready to step in. As suspicion mounts that Trump is simply trying to make the FBI’s Russian meddling investigation go away, the comparisons to Watergate are growing louder by the second.
But are Richard Nixon’s actions during Watergate really the most apt comparison to shed light on current events? Or is this an entirely different political animal?
Posted by Clytemnestra on Fri, 12 May 2017 10:46 | #
How, precisely, did the Russians interfere with the U.S. elections and why would they do so?
In Hillary Clinton, they already had a corrupt incompetent who they could sway if they deposited enough rubles into her piggy bank, so why would they want Donald Trump?
Are you saying the Russians hacked the election machines? A great number of which were owned by Hillary Clinton supporter, George Soros?
Democrat campaign worker, Seth Rich, is the most obvious suspect for giving the emails to Wikileaks and it’s obvious La Clinton suspected as much or he wouldn’t have been “Arkansided.”
Or are you saying that Russian undercover agents infiltrated Ms. Clinton’s campaign and advised her to pull stupid stunts like campaigning in Pennsylvania Coal Country on an anti-coal platform and ignoring poor White voters in the rustbelt and poor Black voters in the ghettos to woo wealthy globalists? Is that what you are saying?
So, from what I see, from the Russians we have no means, no method, no motive, no opportunity to rig the election against Hillary Clinton in favor of Donald Trump, erego, they must be guilty of colluding with the Trump campaign to cheat a shoo-in like Hillary Clinton out of her rightful presidency!
Trump is on my shiot list for a number of reasons, but this is getting beyond ridiculous. Move on, please.