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Official James Comey testimony thread

Tommy Jeppesen said:
Since you seem to enjoy doing philosophy, you should be able to understand the following - the word "real" has no real external referent and it is itself a social construct. In every day words - you can't see real nor hold, touch, smell or taste it. It is all in the head just like legal.
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The word real has no real external referent? Sounds contradictory, or paradoxical - can't quite put my finger on it.
 
rdwight said:
This is another view where Comey is dropped to puppy dog status. Guy is not bait. He is a shark. Don't cloud your judgement. He viewed Trump's interactions as bordering on legally questionable, and was awaiting him to cross that line. There is nothing about his comments that has pushed him past that point.

His mind wasn't changed. He gained some relevant quote to use to push the narrative he believed to begin with. He still lacks proof to charge with a crime, which is why none of his comments during the session pushed beyond a generic tone.
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Now you have supernatural powers.

Also Comey wouldn't be the one to charge anyone with a crime given that he no longer has that power (well even when he was the FBI director he only had the power to recommend it). It now lies with Robert Mueller. Comey would just be a witness.
 
Tony/Skeptic - I will address questions to my position with the relevant testimony tomorrow as I have to sleep. Mostly the questions you have in regards to Comey's positions are apart of his testimony. What you position as fact he puts forward as possibles.

As to partisanship, understand I have no side. My view is not even on what is most believable, but what is actionable. Legally. Not politically.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
OMG where does CNN get these idiot Trump supporter pundits? They go through incredible contortions with authoritative confidence spouting absurd POVs.

Who is paying these people to spout this nonsense?
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The Trump voters are horrible to watch but I all but took CNN out of the rotation a month or so ago because they're giving Jeffrey Lord more and more airtime... and listening to his apologetics/justifications makes me want to puke.

Perhaps I'll go back to watching after the current investigations, or Don Lemon pops him in the nose (I think he's been close a time or three).
 
Has Comey's friend who made the memos available been identified yet? I'm assuming it would have been Ben Wittes.

Paul Ryan's response to the testimony was quite interesting, I paraphrase "Trump doesn't understand how things work yet", and that's probably going to irritate Trump.

Still no tweets from the Predisent. Presumably he will comment shortly that he eventually agreed with the msm about twittering too much.
 
This was too perfect... Colbert just had a 'shoped image of the Trump Boys (and Pa) in front of a legal firm style building sign with Comey's quote from today "... lies, plain and simple".
(Donald, Don Jr. and Eric)
:D


Someone please post the pic. :p
 
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I'm no legal expert. But if my boss tells me that a lot of people want my job and that she hopes I can find a way to increase my utilization, that's clearly direction. I can only imagine that direction would seem far more significant if my boss were the president. And if she kicked everyone out of her office to covertly talk with me one on one.

We need to see this for what it is. This is Trump being Trump. This is who he is. He has never expressed anything kinder than annoyance for the rule of law. If we excuse this behavior, we will excuse ourselves into authoritarianism.
 
Tony Stark said:
Presumably this is referencing this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html

That story didn't say anything about memos.

But if you believe that Comey perjured himself surely you believe the Sessions Justice Department will prosecute him for that being such a strong upholder of the law that he is. When this doesn't happen, what will be your excuse?
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my excuse? why woulid i need an excuse? if the ny times article fits in with Trump's lawyer time line, then i don't see your point? that Comey has been caught lying?

Comey has presented himself as this angel of truth, incapable of lying. we're all supposed to believe exactly what he wrote down in his memos, like a modern day Mohammed. I'm sure Trump's lawyers will exploit any opportunity to poke holes in his testimony.

Certainly, Comey has admitted leaking to the media, questionable behaviour from an FBI director, ex or otherwise.

Rubio had an interesting line of questioning which called into question Comey's impartiality:


“Do you ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that’s never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?” Rubio asked Comey.

Comey responded “I don’t know.”
 
TheRealnz said:
my excuse? why woulid i need an excuse? if the ny times article fits in with Trump's lawyer time line, then i don't see your point? that Comey has been caught lying?

Comey has presented himself as this angel of truth, incapable of lying. we're all supposed to believe exactly what he wrote down in his memos, like a modern day Mohammed. I'm sure Trump's lawyers will exploit any opportunity to poke holes in his testimony.

Certainly, Comey has admitted leaking to the media, questionable behaviour from an FBI director, ex or otherwise.

Rubio had an interesting line of questioning which called into question Comey's impartiality:

“Do you ever wonder why, of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that’s never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the fact that both Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of Congress knew that and have known that for weeks?” Rubio asked Comey.

Comey responded “I don’t know.”
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Prove that Comey had people leak memos to the NY Times for their May 11th article. The article doesn't even mention memos.

And if Comey lied during his testimony that is criminal. What will your excuse be when he isn't prosecuted by Jeff Sessions (you know the guy that works for Dear Leader Trump)?
 
OMGturt1es said:
I'm no legal expert. But if my boss tells me that a lot of people want my job and that she hopes I can find a way to increase my utilization, that's clearly direction. I can only imagine that direction would seem far more significant if my boss were the president. And if she kicked everyone out of her office to covertly talk with me one on one.

We need to see this for what it is. This is Trump being Trump. This is who he is. He has never expressed anything kinder than annoyance for the rule of law. If we excuse this behavior, we will excuse ourselves into authoritarianism.
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I don't know if it's been mentioned before in the thread (i haven't been able to cover the entire surge of posts since yesterday's hearings yet) but it wasn't just Trump speaking about his 'hopes'. As I understood it from the testimony, Trump deliberately cleared the room of people like Kushner and Sessions to relay his 'hopes' to Comey. That suggests to me that it was more than just a simple conveying of feeling.
 
TheRealnz said:
Comey has presented himself as this angel of truth, incapable of lying. we're all supposed to believe exactly what he wrote down in his memos, like a modern day Mohammed. I'm sure Trump's lawyers will exploit any opportunity to poke holes in his testimony.
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I think it's fair to question Comey's judgement. But by all accounts, he's generally described as completely lacking pretext. Asked why he communicated the substance of his memos, he responded, "I thought it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." That's pretty straight forward.
 
TofuFighter said:
I don't know if it's been mentioned before in the thread (i haven't been able to cover the entire surge of posts since yesterday's hearings yet) but it wasn't just Trump speaking about his 'hopes'. As I understood it from the testimony, Trump deliberately cleared the room of people like Kushner and Sessions to relay his 'hopes' to Comey. That suggests to me that it was more than just a simple conveying of feeling.
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It is also evidence that he knew what he was doing was wrong. Why else would he have his son in law/senior advisor and Attorney General (who was his first supporter in the Senate) leave the room?
 
Emily's Cat said:
Okay, but we've got Comey repeatedly indicating that there is no investigation of Trump, and suggesting that there is no reason to investigate Trump. If there were reasonable evidence to suggest that Trump were being manipulated by Putin... wouldn't there be an investigation into it?
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I really don't know. Because the power to initiate so many of the checks and balances seems to reside in the hands of those with a vested interest in the status quo?

I just think Donald just looks like a mark waiting to happen.
 
If Republicans in Congress want to set the precedent that there is nothing impeachable or even really wrong about what Trump did, they will have exactly zero room to complain if a future Democratic president does the same thing.

Of course, they would because they are hypocritical scum.
 
OMGturt1es said:
I'm no legal expert. But if my boss tells me that a lot of people want my job and that she hopes I can find a way to increase my utilization, that's clearly direction. I can only imagine that direction would seem far more significant if my boss were the president. And if she kicked everyone out of her office to covertly talk with me one on one.

We need to see this for what it is. This is Trump being Trump. This is who he is. He has never expressed anything kinder than annoyance for the rule of law. If we excuse this behavior, we will excuse ourselves into authoritarianism.
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100% correct. How can Trump's approach be seen as anything but a direction?
 
TofuFighter said:
I don't know if it's been mentioned before in the thread (i haven't been able to cover the entire surge of posts since yesterday's hearings yet) but it wasn't just Trump speaking about his 'hopes'. As I understood it from the testimony, Trump deliberately cleared the room of people like Kushner and Sessions to relay his 'hopes' to Comey. That suggests to me that it was more than just a simple conveying of feeling.
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That is correct. Not only did he kick everyone out of the room, but some appeared to attempt to linger. And after the conversation, they were still waiting in the hallway. That context is very important. Also important is Trump's decades of working with the mafia. His language is the language of mobsters for a reason. And this all occurred after Trump had demanded Comey pledge loyalty. And it ended with Trump firing Comey admittedly to relieve pressure from the Russian investigation.

But there's more important context. The Flynn investigation concerns the potential that the Trump Administration placed a paid foreign agent into the highest levels of federal government. And was then provided top secret intelligence, despite the fact that he should have never been provided adequate clearance. And then made decisions that impacted US military operations in ways that were beneficial to the foreign government for which he was a paid agent. It also necessarily therefore concerns the fact that the Trump team was warned numerous times about Flynn by our intelligence community. And even by President Obama himself. And that when Yates alerted Trump to the fact that Flynn's improper communications with the Russians were intercepted, Trump fired Yates. And declined to fire Flynn. And continued to lie about Flynn's conversations with the Russians. Flynn was only fired after his improper communications were leaked to the press.

And this is only one, small, isolated part of the overall Russian investigation.

I can empathize with the fact that there's just so much going on that it's easy to lose sight of the big picture and just focus on each interaction on its own. The scope of potential corruption here is just honestly extremely difficult to fully grasp or even believe. But grasp we must, and belief should follow where substantiated by credible evidence.

Again, this is simply who Trump is. Read his biographies. If we excuse his behavior, we excuse out way into kleptocratic, oligarchic authoritarianism.
 
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OMGturt1es said:
Again, this is simply who Trump is. Read his biographies. If we excuse his behavior, we excuse out way into kleptocratic, oligarchic authoritarianism.
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In other words, we turn into Russia. I think Putin would be very pleased if that happens.
 
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