Written like there was no actual person there.

Who actually looked comfortable with her. She allowed him to express his opinions and asked him a ton of questions which which he couldn’t answer. The interview was an hour long with no breaks.

that she just got, and is trying to do an investigation on the fly. Comey does look pretty tired, but he strikes me as truthful.

watching this taped.. so it's over...but he sounds like he is about to fall asleep - seriously - Does he??

He cannot be getting much sleep this week also had pictures taken with members of the WuTang Clan.
He also did one with the BBC

on those not used to it.

... say something I'm sure.

He did make a headline stating he opened an investigation on leaking after Rudy's statements in regards to "surprises".

I'm thinking Rudy is going to Trump's team to keep from answering questions about who leaked to him about the emails

but she wasn't expecting him to be half asleep.

You're right, Comey looks like he can't wait to get out of there. Rachel isn't experienced enough of an interviewer to make the adjustment and shift gears to just having a conversation with him. In fact, I think interviewing is a weakness of hers.

the Comey memos were just released before she went on air and she was trying to come up with questions about them on the fly. In light of that, I think she's doing a pretty good job.

The questions about his memos were on the fly, but many questions were worked on for some time. She has been promoting this interview for 10 days.

I'm not saying she did a bad job at alll, she just isn't great at interviewing.

I sure couldn't have done it.

Except for the blip about Giuliani, the rest of the time she was reading highlights and notes from the memos handed to her from her producers, and asking for clarification on certain things written in them.

right when she started the interview, so almost everything she was asking was from something she was seeing for the first time and asked based on what her producers were able to scan through on-the-fly, and highlight for her.

Sure, he’s a “victim” of trump obstruction, but it’s hard to forget what he did even if he was in a tough place.

statement because he feared the NYC FBI was going to announce it? And it would have looked bad if they went rogue? I read that long ago and it was based on a Rudy/Former Head of NYC FBI interview/TV chat. NYC FBI hated Clinton because they were trying to investigate Clinton Foundation and Loretta Lynch was stonewalling it (per them). Also read NYC FBI was the entity that Steele went to with Trump gone bad evidence and they never called him back.

Thinking he would look bad as head of FBI when he heard a rogue office (NYC) was going to go public that they had Weiner laptop and we're investigating. Not my theory ...read it from a transcript of a tv appearance of former head of NYC FBI.

In one excerpt of either his book or an interview, the dynamics of what was happening were described. It spoke of the concern that some of those emails found could be the early blackberry messages that Clinton no longer had. That explains why the team investigating Clinton came to him to reopen their investigation.

It is possible that he intended this to be done quietly, but stories, true or not, that it could be leaked pushed him to send that first letter. Consider the possibility raised of the impact of this leaking in early November.

I suspect if that happened, it would have not just led to Comey and the FBI being accused of coverup, the Clinton campaign would have been hit even worse than it was with the two letters. Think of how that would have played and how it would have been played by the right. All the FBI could have done was to verify that they were going through those emails - verifying the story - even as the FBI added they had found nothing to change their conclusion.

I have more fault for his appearance where he cleared Clinton, but front loaded many negative comments.

Good article - look back at NYC FBI/Comey
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2018-01-09/gop-looking-the-wrong-way-on-the-fbi-leaks-and-donald-trump

snip
In fact, internal bureau dissension was part of the context in which Comey made the decision to forego standard FBI practice regarding announcements that could affect elections and disclose the new emails to Congress. "FBI Director James
Comey was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency when he decided to tell Congress the FBI was investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton, law enforcement sources said on Thursday," Reuters' Mark Hosenball reported in November 2016. And as ProPublica and The New Yorker put it last May: "There was another motivation for Comey's decision to 'speak': FBI officials feared that news of the new emails would leak out, damaging the Bureau and its director. The primary source of anxiety was the FBI's own New York field office, which was handling the Weiner case and harbored deep pockets of anti-Clinton sentiment. … Comey's deputy also made clear [to a Justice Department official protesting his plan to release the information] that the FBI director was 'very concerned' about a leak — that the news 'was coming out anyway.'"

protocol. The investigation was closed, and should have remained closed.

And he kept quiet about investigating trump.

If he thought "that the was coming out anyway" He should have just let it happen, and then say "It was against FBI protocol to comment on that matter so close to the election", which was the truth.

thought the AG told him NOT to.

Immediately after that letter was given to the republicans in Congress, MSNBC and every new outlet said the "emai investigation was reopened", which was a LIE, and paraded every right wing politician across the television screen propagating that LIE.


For at least 2 months the FBI had Huma Abedin's laptop computer in their possession, and the only thing that was needed was to determine if there was any NEW information on that computer. It took them over a week to determine that there was NO new or additional information on that computer, yet Comey had no problem leaving the impression that the "email investigation was being reopened", and made himself unavailable to clarify that it was simply to determine if this was new information or not, while the media, and the republicans used every opportunity to distort the fact. Late Friday, he quietly announced that there was no new information, and nothing had changed.

Sorry, Comey gets no free pass, nor is he a hero for what he did. He directly disobeyed the AG telling him NOT to do what he did so close to the election.

As far as I am concerned, Comey bears a large part of the responsibility for the person who now occupies the WH, with the sorry excuse for a press that we have being his accomplices.

By the way the Clinton Foundation reference you made was lied about at the same time Comey sent the letter to the republicans in Congress. Bret Baier of Fox News reported that from his sources at the FBI that an immenent indictment on the Clinton Foundation was about to take place. It was a lie, but it was also picked up by the other news outlets, who had no problem propagating that lie. A few days later, Baier came out and said his information was incorrect, and apologized, but by then the damage was done. In fact Rachel Madow gave disgusting praise for Baier for admitting his mistake, saying something to the effect, "we all make mistakes"

None of this was a mistake. It was a fully orchestrated coup

Funny how DU seems to love Comey now.

Not me. Hillary said he “shivved” her, and I agree.

No sympathy for that scum.

I think she did very good, especially knowing that she had to throw away most of her notes because of breaking news.

So yeah.

She appeared nervous and fidgety. It seems like she was pushing at him, sometimes even hostile, and several times she tried to put words in his mouth to get him to go in a direction she wanted, but he always came back to his story.

She was searching for some sort of a big headline. Maybe she was looking for some scoop to fall out of his just released memos and she couldn't find it and got frustrated with Comey when he couldn't reveal anything.

more energetic. He seems more engaged. I think he appreciates that RM has read and marked his book.

I was going to post that at the start, with nothing else in the O.P., but decided to wait for a thread on the subject in which to react. He's been taking fire from all sides in these appearances, so I expected him to be "exhausted and weary." Last night Stephen was tough all the way and talked a lot and played a video clip of his audience cheering the news COMEY was fired, which was tough for COMEY to sit through, but helping to cost us the election was tougher.

telling the world Trump is a lying sack of shit.

re-opening because NYC FBI was about to do just that.

Rachel did have questions prepared like she always does...but the release of the Comey memos just before she went on the air upset the apple cart for both of them....and I thought both Rachel and Comey looked tired.

It's not easy to answer questions about memos you wrote a year ago and haven't had a chance to review. And there was the added pressure of trying to remember what's classified and what isn't.

I'm sure part of the reason they were leaked was to try to get him to say something on the air that either contradicted the memos or was classified so they could accuse him of leaking or being a liar. He was being extra cautious with his answers which takes a toll on your ability to also be chatty and convivial.

I have no idea how she receives so much praise, given the one-dimensional nature of her show and her approach.

If you leave Rachel alone with her staff and they check on something that happened months or years ago, they are more than capable, even if it is more interesting than valuable.

She doesn't adjust well or interview well or predict well.

Even if it's not her preference she really should do more programs with guests and interviews instead of canned researched repetitive presentations. I view Rachel Maddow as the Ryan Tannehill of politics. Neither one of them is going anywhere, despite my related frustration. If Rachel is going to stick around then she needs to be forced into uncomfortable environs, enabling more chance to reach her ceiling, as low as it may be, like Tannehill.

Talk show host.....oh wait.......

I watch her every night and tonight was no exception. She is stellar in every way, shape and form.

I wish Ari Melber had done this interview.

Comey is. I think you're complaining about the wrong person.

Your description is a lot more articulate than mine.

I don’t quite know how she did it, but Comey seemed to be answering questions without answering them.

I saw several instances where the meticulously worded questions actually supplied the answers that Comey was unable to provide. Well done, Maddow and staff!

For Comey’s part, I found him clear and concise, and maybe just a little bit pissed off at what a bunch of two-bit con men have done to this wonderful country.

Best interview I’ve seen in a long time.

No chance to connect dots when he is being rapid fire quizzed about a list of facts like a spelling bee