I haven't seen a shred of evidence into Comey's supposed investigation into Trump's campaign Russia ties.
We know for a fact Comey send two letters to Congress about Hillary's emails less than 2 weeks before the election.
And you are trying to convince me that Comey is getting a bad rap and will end up as a major hero?

Good spot

Do you know what a Glomar response is, and why it is used?
Have you read the passages related to Comey in either of the articles I linked?
I'm asking you to think with your cortex rather than your limbic system.

Yet he had no problem writing to congress about Hillary's emails.
FBI obviously had time to figure out there was nothing criminal to the emails before the election (as revealed by Comey's second letter to Congress). So FBI could have investigated the emails without any letters send.

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2017, 04:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Comey should have had better control over his own rogue agents in the NY FBI office and should have stayed silent on Oct. 28th without compromising his alleged investigation into trump's Russia/Putin investigations.

What pompous egoism (or extreme partisan hackery) to think that one's own agenda to save the country necessitates turning it over to those out to deconstruct it.

What crappola.

I'm not holding my breath that the man who handed the presidency to a misogynist, racist, Muslim and immigrant-hating white supremcist-appointing buffoon will finally emerge a hero.

Good story though.

I'm thinking "for fucks sake" or "are you fucking kidding me" other than that, excellent post.

If I was editor ...

That would be the quickest way to kill one.

I agree with the OP. I would think that Comey would be very upset that his professionalism and patriotism was called into question by the events that led him to send those letters to Congress. There is a reason that he did what he did, and it is a good idea to investigate how that incident happened.

I believe it would be naive to think he just wanted to throw the election to Trump. There is more to the story.

As I recall?

But he won't ignore the orders of Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump?

Why did he go to the WH to meet with people who are the subject of an investigation?

Answer - because they are Republicans

Comey is compromised.

Do you think the OP is actually Comey?

Jim says hi.

By that I mean evidence that can't be shaded by Olear and Mensch's analysis?

Pretty lame.

that Comey is really a hero and that Democrats are blinded to this fact by their "emotional investment" in a Democratic win.

Where's your incontrovertible proof?

My defense of the idea that Comey can be reasonably painted a good guy is in the two links I posted with the OP.

We don't know any of the circumstances behind the release of the letter. "He shouldn't have done it" is not an evidence-based condemnation. Of course, due to that same lack of knowledge, neither is my faith in him an evidence-based defense. However, the scenario drawn by Mensch - on which I base my current faith - does agree far better with a) what is known of Comey's moral character; b) the laws surrounding counterintelligence investigations; and c) what we strongly suspect about the subversion of the NYC FBI field office.

My position is that Comey's past behaviour makes it believable to me that he is the kind man who would put the continued survival of nation ahead of the outcome of one presidential election - no matter how egregious that outcome might be. Given what I know of Putin's and Dugin's desires for the USA, the continued survival of the nation is by no means assured if their activities are not thwarted.

As it is, there are few enough senior law enforcement officials standing between America and the abyss. I simply propose not arbitrarily throwing the last one over the cliff ahead of us.

The proof of my contention that many Democrats are thinking with their limbic system rather than their cortex is contained in the bulk of this thread.

is not the incontrovertible proof that you so insistently demand of others. I expect more from a Comey apologist.

If you're going to judge him guilty as a traitor, you need proof, at least evidence of mens rea. Otherwise we may end up in an unenviable position similar to imprisoning a woman as a thief for stealing bread to feed her kids.

I'm assuming his innocence, so frankly I don't have a burden of proof. I just need reasonable doubt. that's what Mensch's explanation provides.

He has been revealed as a on the take political hack...I wonder what Trump offered him.

and then again in late October. He could have been an equal opportunity violator, but chose to only hurt Democrats. Poor misunderstood hero!

"The outrage many Democrats feel towards Comey seems to flow largely from their emotional investment in Hillary Clinton's victory."

poll numbers, but more importantly, it prevented them from rebounding upon the story's conclusion.

There really never was a basis for a wide-spread investigation to begin with. The GOP Congress initiated the fake email scandal and Comey went along with it.

I don't trust Comey one iota

Somebody's running scared.

He's a hero who saved us from out emotional investment in a Democratic president!

Innocent until proven guilty. We're all allowed to form our own opinions here, right? As long as we don't speak against Democrats or against the Democratic party. I'm doing neither, I'm just drawing a different conclusion from the available evidence. You may not agree with my conclusions, but I assure you I didn't text comey and ask him what I should think. I thought about the evidence I read, and drew my own conclusions.

"I am ever more convinced that Comey is getting a bad rap, and will end up being seen as one of the major heroes of this affair."

There is no standard. There is no burden of proof. There is only trust and that has to be earned.

There's nothing wrong with holding ourselves to a slightly higher standard. Comey's actions up until he sent that letter had earned my trust, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I will continue to hold the possibility based on that accumulated trust that a much larger issue is in play here than a simple presidential election - at least while the evidence is still lacking. I don't do witch-burnings.

Of course.

I don't know what to think because his actions were very bad. Republicans have shown me that they are way worse than I ever wanted to believe them to be.

Would you trust Comey that much?

Got evidence of mens rea?

You interpret his complete silence on this matter the way you want to make him into some "hero."

most damage to Clinton. And in violation of FBI protocols that have been in place since the inception of the FBI. While he sat on much more damning and substantiated information about Trump.

But who are we to go and believe what we see with our own lyin' eyes?

about emails) but believe into something he hasn't made a peep about (super secret Russia investigation).

If Trump is brought down over his Russia connections, Comey will likely have a major hand in it.

but he has a chance to partially redeem himself.

Yipee.

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2017, 03:46 PM - Edit history (1)

A woman not stealing food for her starving children would be more discreet as well. the kids might not appreciate her discretion so much, though.

We have no idea what factors went into Comey's decision. If the alternative is as frankly awful as it it might be (.e.e the eventual complete destruction of the United States), I'm prepared to accept that committing a small sin to prevent a larger one might be a realistic moral and legal choice. That alternative is conceivable to me because of the invrestigation I've done into Putin, Dugin and the Russian oligarchs.

I not prepared to believe that it's an open-and-shut case of lack of discretion or morality on Comey's part. Certainly not without a lot more evidence than just the fact that he sent that letter.

point?

I defy you to come up with a scenario that required that Comey just HAD TO throw the election to Trump for the survival of the United States.

And yet, I can come up with dozens of ways that the election of Trump, engineered by Comey, has very tangibly compromised the United States and threatens its survival.

The "starving children" I see here is the possibility that the Russians, true to their stated intentions, have embedded themselves in our institutions in such a way that they have the ability to destroy the United States. You can argue that President Bannon is already doing that, but his presence on the stage is temporary, and a visible actor can be walled off in various ways. the kind of subversion I'm talking about is not visible, is spread through a wide variety of institutions and can't be easily walled off. As McCarthyesque as it sounds, that is what I believe Comey may be fighting.

Read up on Dugin. This is a far bigger deal than just a presidential election.

as President.

So your premise is still very silly.

No idea what they were, but I quell the feeling that Comey doesn't seem like the kind of guy to fuck with an election as blatantly as he did. Meaning that what we "saw with our own eyes" isn't the whole of the story.

It seems silly until you dig down a few layers. When Aleksandr Dugin is involved, nothing seems silly any more.

Russian infiltration of the US government, and that led him to give an advantage to the campaign with Russian links? You have no idea why this would have helped the USA out of the existential threat, but you're so convinced of Comey's rectitude that you're willing to assert that he did it for good reasons?

Your argument consists of "Comey is dreamy, so whatever he did must have been good, though I have no idea why. Comey will eventually be shown to be a hero."

Since so many people have rushed to judgement on the villain side, my posts are mainly to remind people that it's possible he may not be all that and a bag of turds.

We're all reading tea leaves here, and the results are coloured by our own emotional reactions - mine included. We have no idea what the motivation behind the action was. Yes, it damaged the election. Based on comey's history I can't see him flipping to evil in the course of a few months. If so, then something else caused him to do what he did. My belief is that it had something to do with Russian infiltration, but I don't know what that something might be.

At the moment I don't think of Comey as a hero, but for me that possibility is definitely open.
I hope he is, because if he's not the USA faces a very shaky future.

our pointing out the illogic of this line of thinking is a form of "forced norming."

No, seriously.

It's clear his motives were political. He promised hardliners to do things he shouldn't have done. Those new emails inside the last 10 days of the election were nothing and already known about.

He just HAD to let everyone know about them without actually having them inspected.

Meanwhile, the Russian connections to Trump, he just couldn't speak about.

This site makes my blood boil when I read shit like this.

One day, an opinion post of mine gets 134 recs (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028701397)

The next day I'm excoriated, put on ignore and told to fuck off because I hold another opinion that differs from the groupthink.

The thing that leaves me a bit open-mouthed is that it's not even a pro-Republican or anti-Democrat opinion. It's just the opinion that our senior law enforcement official may actually be upholding a larger law despite breaking a smaller one.

Please.

Your premise here is fairly ridiculous and flies in the face of what we all saw with our very own two eyes.

Therefore many here, who saw what Comey did with their own two eyes, will disagree with you.

It really isn't "funny" or surprising in the least.

I am as guilty of groupthink as the next human being, even when I agree with the proposed idea. It's one of the things humans do.

In this area, politics uses much the same tools as organized religions. Both institutions engage in the forceful norming of their members, with recognition for the conformers and vociferous criticism and ostracism of those who publicly transgress those norms.

The action of the criticism and ostracism associated with groupthink is most visible whenever a dissenting opinion is on display, as happened here. It's a lot harder for us to identify it when we agree with the group's uniform opinion on a given subject, though it would be obvious to an outsider. The group expends a lot of energy enforcing it's rationalization (eg. We know what we saw him do, so our conclusion is totally justified. )

The thread I cited above and this one are examples of what happens when someone supports the norm (they receive praise and recognition), versus what happens when someone transgresses it (they receive heated criticism and ostracism.) these mechanism act to enforce the norms of the group and preserve its cohesion against disturbing influences.

It's one of our evolved psychological blind spots. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It serves the purpose of group survival, but at the cost of reducing our ability to relate to the world in an objective fashion.

You don't seem to have any awareness that what you are proposing in your OP flies in the face of what people have seen with their own eyes.

I completely agree with what they saw. I just drew a different conclusion.

As far as forceful norming goes, being told to fuck off, being put on ignore and even your "Get over it" sort of make my point.

It equals disagreement with you.

I admire your ability for critical thinking.

I've been following all the reporting about the Trump Campaign and Russia KGB/FSB links. There definitely is a current investigation going on, and for that I am hopeful.

I was (and still am) upset about the letter to congress he wrote re: the Clinton emails. I don't understand why he did it. My own speculation about it is that it helped to establish himself as non-partisan, especially when the ties between Russia Intelligence and the Trump Campaign really starts to heat up. The Republicans all heaped great love on him when he did it. They won't be able to brush him off as easily as a partisan hack when, because of this investigation, we will be able to rid ourselves of their entire cabinet. (OK, I'm a bit of a dreamer here. One can hope)

The Russian interference in the US election is HUGE. And it is not just the US. Brex it, France, other nations are also being interfered with by Russian KGB/FSB. Revelations can be a game changer. Our best hope is that there will be an Independent Counsel appointed, and I think that this will happen, no matter how much the Trump administration wants to bury the story. The Independent Counsel will be reliant on the FBI investigations. If we start to see all of the US Attorneys being replaced (as happened in the Bush Administration), it will mean that the window for this Independent Counsel for being appointed is closing. (It is a US Attorney who must appoint an Independent Counsel)

There has been lots of newspaper reporting on the Russia connection, I've not seen a lot in the TV or cable news. Here are just a few articles:

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html?_r=0

RUSSIA HACKS FRENCH ELECTION

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russia-election-hack_us_58aa6654e4b07602ad55f562

And then there are a lot of dead Russians showing up, some of them linked to the Steele dossier, which I believe the FBI and CIA are in the process of vetting, with cooperation from Ukraine and others. Forget the salacious stories, the other information in that dossier is much more damming. And now people who are considered possible sources for information in this dossier are turning up dead

Dead Russians linked to the Steele Dosier:
Andrey Malanin, Russian consul found dead in Athens
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38560438

Oleg Erovinkin, Mystery death of ex-KGB chief linked to MI6 (Christopher Steele) spy’s dossier on Donald Trumphttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/mystery-death-ex-kgb-chief-linked-mi6-spys-dossier-donald-trump/

Sergei Mikhailov, The Telegraph says Mikhailov was arrested during an FSB meeting in early December when officers came into the room, put a bag over his head and took him away.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/02/russian-spies-cyber-expert-charged-treason-cooperating-us/

Vitaly Churkin, & Sergei Krivov, Russian ambassador to UN Vitaly Churkin dead: Diplomat dies suddenly in New York
****Another LESS SENIOR Russian diplomat, SERGEI KRIVOV, was reportedly found lying on the ground by the Russian Consulate in New York on the US election day last November having died in mysterious circumstances.***
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russian-ambassador-un-vitaly-churkin-dead-diplomat-dies-suddenly-new-york-puton-a7590366.html

Petr Polshikov, Senior Russian diplomat shot dead in flat in Moscow hours before assassination of Ambassador in Turkey
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-diplomat-found-dead-moscow-before-ambassador-turkey-assassin-andrei-karlov-a7486546.html

Andrey Karlov, Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov shot dead in Ankara
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/russian-ambassador-andrey-karlov-shot-ankara-161219162430858.html

We need to get over this My team vs Your team thinking. Russia is a threat to all democratic countries.

Needless to say, I agree with you point for point.

We really have no idea why Comey did what he did.

Within the context of his past actions, and considering the public observations of others regarding the strength of his moral compass, the conclusion that he suddenly did a partisan volte-face and did something so egregious as fuck with a presidential election because Hillary ... seems a little too facile to me.

Fuck Comey.

A man of integrity? So full of integrity his main concern, since his days as an Attorney General, has been that others also see him as a man of integrity. A man so full of integrity he interjected his personal opinion last year July into the Clinton email affair, which was totally unnecessary as his very words were used as fodder during the election. A man so full of integrity he didn't bother to play it by the book and threw a bomb into the Clinton campaign two weeks before the election, with a dodgy warrant - not for the sake of the rule of law, or to protect due process, but because his vanity and obsession with being seen as a "man of integrity" lead him to make decisions that will tar his name and the bureau's for a long time to come.

Again.

Fuck Comey.

My Shakespeare college professor said, "Shakespeare wrote about one thing: the difference between what appears to be and the difference between what is."

Think in terms of the wildest plots that could be imagined in regard to the election and Comey's involvement and then you may understand the possibility that Comey may be our only hope and that his silence is to protect the investigation.

It really should not be that difficult to think in surreal terms as we are surely living in a surreal dream.

I just don't believe that Comey is evil. He may be our Hamlet.

Everyone is reactioning to events in real time rather than thinking in terms of a the denouement.

........

Reacting, rather. Typo

you will find an edit post thingy in the lower right hand corner of your post. I used it often because I can't speil for shit.

Welcome to DU

. I truly adore du ! i will continue to read it daily.

Thank you . I truly love du and will continue to read it daily.

Oh dear. That play ends with most of the main characters killed, and a successful foreign takeover of a previously thriving country. The only consolation is the murderer/usurper is one of the dead.

I had a hard time rethinking Comey while reading Mensch, but the argument is compelling and worthy of consideration, and as you say, more in keeping with how Obama described this man's character. We will see...

I hope in the end, the truth will be known. Perhaps, perhaps not. Comey is either a traitor, an abuser of power, or a man of integrity. I don't know which, but I am willing to consider all possibilities. I can wait a long time for the truth.

would he have helped the campaign with the Russian links? Are you, like the thread starter, just saying "Obama trusted him, so we must too"?

It is a hypothesis which one may choose to consider or not. If you look at previous posts of mine, you'll see that I feel comeys actions threw the election, and I felt this was unforgivable. As I read the posts from Mensch, I had to face the possibility that I could be wrong about Comeys intent. That's all. I don't think most people are ready to let go of the anger long enough to consider this possibility.

so I'm familiar the patribotics blog, but the Greg Olear piece is new to me.

Much appreciated!

He has posted a summary of what he's been writing about here:
http://www.theweeklings.com/golear/2017/02/24/the-russia-story-everything-donald-trump-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

The first time I read her Chess piece, I was semi-sold, I think mostly just out of pure desire for a reason to stop being so angry and devastated all of the time. If her theory were true, then I both could let go of all of my built-up anger towards Comey and relax knowing Trump would eventually go down in flames.

The more I read of her Twitter, though, the more suspicious I become of her motives. Something doesn't seem right. I'm not sure if she just really likes the attention, is trying to overwhelm and distract us, or is just mentally unwell. Why is she so obsessed with telling us precisely what the end result is going to be instead of just telling us her ideas on what is going on behind the scenes? I think one of the most unsettling components of the current situation is we really just don't know what is going to happen...will he be impeached in months? in years? Never? Will Pence be implicated with him? Will we never get the truth? Will they succeed in burying an explosive story? Or was there never actually one there to begin with? Louise gets on Twitter and tells us, oh he'll be gone by June at the latest, and even though the campaign won by colluding directly with the Russians according to her own theory, Pence would become President. I think that is ultimately her appeal. She gives people answers to the questions no one is answering for them because no one can truthfully answer for them right now. That's the hallmark of a snake oil salesman.

Another thing about her that drives me nuts is her supporters get downright defensive and insulting when someone dares to express doubts about her theories. We had no way of verifying any of what she says with 100% certainty right now, so why are they so insistent that people believe her or else?

It would mean a crawl on 300 million cable newsscreens with the words "CLINTON..FBI..EMAILS..LAPTOP..ANTHONY WEINER...UNDERAGE SEXTING... INVESTIGATION REOPENED"

Oh, and surprise! There was nothing there relevant to Hillary's bullshit email "scandal", after all. Oops. Sorry. Our bad.

It was unconscionable.

1) knew that election was already hacked and no way to stop it, therefore he became fall guy to offer plausibility to trump win in order to maintain civil order and proceed with investigation.

????

Then Obama protected Artic and kicked out spies to set up barrier.

I know: this is a wild theory, but thinking in terms of why this would happen and bizarre twists.
Or

2) ?????? You finish the plot.


What's your theory?

My wild theory is this:

1. Comey was fully aware of the depth of Russian penetration into American security and governance institutions. He was also aware that the DNC hacks had already tipped the election.

2. He knew that the CIA, NSA and other counterintelligence groups (including FBI counterintel) were still relatively secure, but that the FBI law enforcement side (NYC Field Office) was not.

3. The FBI NYC Field Office was given a pretext to grab Weiner's computer and "discover" the huge number of emails previously placed on it - too many to investigate in the time remaining before the election.

4. The next bit of my theory is paraphrased from Louise Mensch's insightful article on the subject:

Remember what they left out of their report?

Monica Lewinsky saying: "Nobody asked me to lie and nobody offered me a job for my silence."

They didn't think that was worth mentioning.

I wonder what details Comey excluded?