Official James Comey testimony thread

[OMGturt1es]

100% correct. How can Trump's approach be seen as anything but a direction?

If you don't look at surrounding context, don't understand the extreme breaching of norms involved, and you try to understand Trump as a normal human being who is simply seriously concerned about a friend's future and therefore expressing his feelings aloud, I could completely understand how Trump's words could be seen as not quite reaching obstruction of justice. But of course, this is a man who canceled his special-needs, infant nephew's health insurance, which had been guaranteed by his late father, simply to retaliate against his brother. He's not normal. And we shouldn't normalize him. He's spent a lifetime proving exactly who he is. And it's time we paid attention to that. It's pretty obvious many of us didn't during the election. Unfortunately.

 

[Tony Stark]

If you don't look at surrounding context, don't understand the extreme breaching of norms involved, and you try to understand Trump as a normal human being who is simply seriously concerned about a friend's future and therefore expressing his feelings aloud, I could completely understand how Trump's words could be seen as not quite reaching obstruction of justice. But of course, this is a man who canceled his special-needs, infant nephew's health insurance, which had been guaranteed by his late father, simply to retaliate against his brother. He's not normal. And we shouldn't normalize him. He's spent a lifetime proving exactly who he is. And it's time we paid attention to that. It's pretty obvious many of us didn't during the election. Unfortunately.

I think that many Republicans knew that Trump is a terrible person but voted for him anyway because he had an R by his name.

 

[OMGturt1es]

In other words, we turn into Russia. I think Putin would be very pleased if that happens.

It was conservatives in the US who helped shape post-Soviet Russia. And conservative economics result in extreme economic inequality. It's difficult to have market-based liberalism and extreme economic inequality for very long. Money is power in liberal markets, and so even strong institutions and government are eventually corrupted. And the economic inequality itself breeds populism. Post-Soviet Russia was already full of kleptocrats and oligarchs. So conservative economic policy just sped up the process. Especially since we were so eager for Russia to privatize everything in the wake of communism.

We've been heading in the same direction here since the Post-War Consensus. But our government and institutions are (or were) much stronger. And we didn't have so many existing kleptocrats and oligarchs so close to power already-- though we've always had the wannabe oligarchs from the Old South who never really embraced liberal democracy.

Liberalism is retreating globally, though Trump's incompetence seems to be providing European liberalism a second wind. Hopefully it's sustained. And hopefully we correct our own problems before it's too late. But I don't see much systematically for hope.

 

[OMGturt1es]

I think that many Republicans knew that Trump is a terrible person but voted for him anyway because he had an R by his name.

I think it's less than you think.

I think many convinced themselves that he wasn't a horrible person. And I can understand where they were coming from. Or, at least, how they could see things differently. By the time Trump won the nomination, the rightwing messaging infrastructure was more or less fully backing him. And that's largely where these folks get their news. Mainstream media didn't help. They were far to lazy and sensationalist. Yes, many of the things Trump said on the campaign trail were awful, but they could easily be viewed as simply intentional exaggeration for the sake of showmanship. The context necessary to understand that they weren't simply showmanship was covered a bit by the print media but nearly entirely ignored by cable news. So many simply perceived the left hyperventilating about intentional showmanship. And that's what many still perceive.

The missing piece is context. And that's where I'm less forgiving. There are multiple biographies about Trump authored by folks who have followed him for decades, well before he was involved with politics. And there are mountains of investigative reports that clearly indicate Trump is unfit for rule in a liberal democracy. Pick one. Pick something. Read a *********** book. Read something.

It's just depressing.

 

[TofuFighter]

I think that many Republicans knew that Trump is a terrible person but voted for him anyway because he had an R by his name.

To wit, you'll find these quotes tickle you...

With reference to Republican officials:

“Their calculation is that there’s no percentage in being public,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican strategist and Trump critic. “Now I know what Vichy France must have felt like. Everybody is a patriot after 6 o’clock in the privacy of their own living room.”

and

“If being crude, rude and a bull in a china shop was a crime, Trump would get the death penalty,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “It’s not.”

 

[Tony Stark]

I think it's less than you think.

I think many convinced themselves that he wasn't a horrible person. And I can understand where they were coming from. Or, at least, how they could see things differently. By the time Trump won the nomination, the rightwing messaging infrastructure was more or less fully backing him. And that's largely where these folks get their news. Mainstream media didn't help. They were far to lazy and sensationalist. Yes, many of the things Trump said on the campaign trail were awful, but they could easily be viewed as simply intentional exaggeration for the sake of showmanship. The context necessary to understand that they weren't simply showmanship was covered a bit by the print media but nearly entirely ignored by cable news. So many simply perceived the left hyperventilating about intentional showmanship. And that's what many still perceive.

The missing piece is context. And that's where I'm less forgiving. There are multiple biographies about Trump authored by folks who have followed him for decades, well before he was involved with politics. And there are mountains of investigative reports that clearly indicate Trump is unfit for rule in a liberal democracy. Pick one. Pick something. Read a *********** book. Read something.

It's just depressing.

I recall a poll conducted of Republicans. Before Trump, the large majority of them said that sound moral character was a requirement for being president. And after Trump became the GOP nominee, they reversed their positions for some odd reason.

 

[OMGturt1es]

I recall a poll conducted of Republicans. Before Trump, the large majority of them said that sound moral character was a requirement for being president. And after Trump became the GOP nominee, they reversed their positions for some odd reason.

That reason would be the propensity for authoritarianism on the right combined with a well coordinated and funded rightwing messaging infrastructure. It's the same reason that Republican support of Putin has increased as well.

 

[uke2se]

It's quite sickening to see that a semantic defense of Trump is really all there is. "I hope" is clear direction. A court would convict. Impeachment must follow on this. Failure to do so would be treasonous.

 

[Tony Stark]

It's quite sickening to see that a semantic defense of Trump is really all there is. "I hope" is clear direction. A court would convict. Impeachment must follow on this. Failure to do so would be treasonous.

Republicans are not going to impeach Trump over this unless they decide that impeachment would be better for their party. Only real hope is that Democrats win big in 2018 and Republicans decide that it is Trump's fault and they would be better served with Pence.

 

[uke2se]

Republicans are not going to impeach Trump over this unless they decide that impeachment would be better for their party. Only real hope is that Democrats win big in 2018 and Republicans decide that it is Trump's fault and they would be better served with Pence.

What you are saying is that the US political system is completely broken, and that there are no checks and balances.

 

[Tony Stark]

What you are saying is that the US political system is completely broken, and that there are no checks and balances.

Pretty much.

Thanks GOP for helping Putin succeed in his goal.

 

[The Don]

What you are saying is that the US political system is completely broken, and that there are no checks and balances.

Perhaps only a semantic difference but those checks and balances exist, they're just not being used currently.

 

[Matthew Best]

If checks and balances can just be ignored at the whim of the party in power, then they are not really checks or balances.

 

[snoop_doxie]

Trump tweets "Total and complete vindication."

Gotta check out the tweet now, I just got an alert from the Washington Post.

 

[Meadmaker]

Our Emily has another take upthread IIUC... that because he drafted at least some of the notes on an agency's secure laptop... they're automatically "classified" and cannot be simply removed/copied and disseminated.

That's just weird.

 

[Tony Stark]

If checks and balances can just be ignored at the whim of the party in power, then they are not really checks or balances.

Hell, they can be ignored on the whims of the minority party. The Constitution requires 2/3 of the Senate (so 67/100) to convict an impeachment and remove someone, including the president, from office. I dunno if any party has ever held such a majority besides maybe Civil War era Republicans (back then they were the good guys).

 

[Tony Stark]

Trump tweets "Total and complete vindication."

Gotta check out the tweet now, I just got an alert from the Washington Post.

Got the same alert!

"Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/873120139222306817

A complete and total vindication would be if Comey said the loyalty pledge, the Flynn investigation conversation, ect never happened. Of course, that is not what Comey said.

 

[Meadmaker]

Of course a sitting president was forced to resign the presidency for trying to get the FBI to drop an investigation. And he probably would have faced criminal charges after he left office if he wasn't granted a pardon.

The difference? Republicans are bigger scumbags than they were back then (and Democrats controlled Congress).

That's not the difference.

The difference is that the "smoking gun" tape confirmed what everyone had long suspected. It confirmed that Nixon knew there was criminal activity and that his actions were intended to prevent that criminal activity from being revealed. That's obstruction of justice.

Merely trying to get an investigation stopped is not obstruction of justice.

It is possible that at some time in the future we will learn that Trump's motives were the same, but nothing in Comey's testimony or anything else in the public record lets us say that today. Trump was telling Comey that Flynn had done nothing wrong, and that the investigations were politically damaging to Trump (they created a "cloud") and for those reasons, Trump wanted them to go away. That is not obstruction of justice.

If we ever find out, with evidence, that he was lying, and that his real motive was to cover up something illegal, then we can say Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, but right now, we have no evidence of illegal activity by anyone that I'm aware of, much less evidence that Trump knew about and was trying to conceal that activity.

 

[Jim_MDP]

That's just weird.

Maybe... maybe not.

I can see the policy applied to certain agencies, personnel at certain levels (Director would certainly be included), certain field hardware, and of course... "work product".

That last may be where this falls down, but I had hoped Emily would have returned last night and explained.

In general though, and based on that "feeling", I'm going with the lib media pundit's consensus that... there's absolutely no way his notes were classified and Donnie's expensive mouthpiece was telling porkies.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping for a better answer about the Hillary email thing. It sounds like his October Surprise was indeed because of an intelligence ****up, but a classified intelligence ****up that wasn't the ****up (Russian disinfo) people were speculating about.

He has that authority until he no longer has that authority.

It's not an authority, it's an illegal order. He has the authority to fire anyone who doesn't follow that illegal order, and because of his position, he can't be prosecuted for any crime until he's impeached.

Likewise, if Trump carried out his boast of murdering someone in cold blood on Fifth Avenue, he would not be arrested until he was no longer president. That does not mean he has the authority to murder someone in cold blood.