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The new, temporary FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe says that employees loved Comey:
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe Thursday rejected assertions by the White House that FBI employees had lost faith in James Comey and that the bureau's probe into Russian election meddling was one of its most minor concerns. "I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard. I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity," McCabe told members of the Senate intelligence committee. He said Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, enjoyed "broad support within the FBI and still does to this day." He added, "The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey."
Furthermore, he will inform the Senate of any interference with the Russia investigation:
Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe vowed Thursday that he would tell the Senate Intelligence Committee if the White House tried to interfere with the bureau's probe of possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election — though he asserted that there had "been no effort to impede our investigation to date."
Meanwhile, President Trump has undermined the White House's messaging on Comey's firing, saying that he planned to fire "showboat" and "grandstander" James Comey regardless of any recommendation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein. The President also insists that he is not under FBI investigation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @04:28PM (20 children)
The guy refused to prosecute Hillary because the polls and media showed her cruising to an easy victory.
Which explains why he announced he was re-opening the investigation again 10 days before the election. He was just going with the polls!
::rolleyes::
They say the extreme left are just as conspiracy-susceptible as the extreme right.
You validate that on a regular basis.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 12 2017, @04:57PM (13 children)
Hedging his bets, is how it seemed to me. It sort of worked. He got several more months in the job, and now he has a great future with a tell-all book and as a wonk on the talk-show circuit.
Interesting, though, that you would characterize me as extreme left or extreme right. It rather says your label-o-meter is quite broken. Extreme leftists are characterized by Marxism or anarchism or syndicalism, and I am not remotely any of those. Extreme rightists believe in racial ideology and fascist notions of nation, and I am not remotely any of those, either.
I do, however, see deep patterns that have persisted across complete sea changes in our nominal governments, and as a trained sociologist I cannot dismiss that as mere happenstance; as somebody who's had the opportunity to peek behind the curtains of power, I have personal observations of how those deep patterns form and act. Of course those same dynamics are on open display in every drama ever written on kings or politics or empire ("I, Claudius," to name one) but you won't see them if you choose not to. There is of course also the endless stream of revelations about what our governments and corporations have been up to the past 40 years, so at this point I'd say it's rather you who is the silly one for not seeing those conspiracies and the many others that surround you, large and small (from NSA spying on everybody to Subway sandwich's chicken sub being less than 50% chicken).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @05:05PM (9 children)
Hedging his bets, is how it seemed to me.
That's about as straightforward demonstration of conspiracy logic as it gets.
The narrative is expanded to incorporate each new contradictory fact in way that still arrives at the predetermined conclusion.
Interesting, though, that you would characterize me as extreme left or extreme right.
You are extreme left in the way the alt-right are extreme right. Hyper-capitalism isn't of interest to them just as marxism and anarchism isn't of interest to you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 12 2017, @06:29PM (3 children)
Go ahead, mock conspiracy theories. While you're mocking, you seem to fail to see an obvious conspiracy that was exposed. The Clinton "dynasty" had it's woman installed as the head of the DNC. Ultimately, their woman was forced to resign in disgrace, because the conspiracy was exposed. You use the term "conspiracy theory" as if it is some kind of proof that the theorist is crazy. Granted, there are crazies who are conspiracy theorists, but there are real conspiracies as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @08:15PM
The Clinton "dynasty" had it's woman installed as the head of the DNC. Ultimately, their woman was forced to resign in disgrace, because the conspiracy was exposed.
Or, critically thinking - she resigned because the DNC knows how to manage PR and all the hysteria over office-gossip email was getting in the way of the DNC running a national campaign.
All that happened was that she transferred to the clinton campaign staff. If there was an actual scandal there she would have been too toxic to bring on.
You use the term "conspiracy theory" as if it is some kind of proof that the theorist is crazy.
No, I use it to describe a mode of thinking where people start with a per-determined conclusion and back-fit confirming facts while ignoring contradicting facts.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday May 13 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
The DNC preferring the Democrat candidate is about as much of a "conspiracy" as a bunch of postal workers colluding to deliver the mail.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:59AM
Except there was not "THE" Dem candidate. There were several. The scandal is they colluded to support a particular one in violation of their own rules.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 12 2017, @09:54PM
That's about as straightforward demonstration of conspiracy logic as it gets. The narrative is expanded to incorporate each new contradictory fact in way that still arrives at the predetermined conclusion.
Don't the facts have to be contradictory first in order to be contradictory? And what's the rival explanation for Comey's behavior?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @12:30AM (3 children)
? Cease, troll. Your slights and mischaracterizations are tedious. It's not a conspiracy that Comey did what he did, nor did I construe it as such. What I wrote was what I read from the situation. It's called "reading the tea leaves," and everyone does it.
As for my response to your point, you were raising a different aspect of the situation you believe disproves my interpretation, but which I do not.
Ah, so clearly words and labels have no meaning for you, as you re-define them or contort them to fit your conception when others refute them or challenge them. Sounds quite like you accuse others of what you are guilty of.
You have no idea what the set of my political beliefs comprises. Even if you were a regular reader here and had formed an impression of the same from my posts you would not have the whole, because I have never expounded the whole here. That's not what this site is for, and nobody cares what Phoenix666's beliefs are or how he comes down on any given issue anyway.
So what you're really doing, in a sophomoric and churlish fashion, is slinging around random slurs that have no connection whatsoever to your targets but are purely, solely selected to get a rise out of them.
In short, you're a troll.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:31AM (1 child)
>That's not what this site is for,
hmmm on the contrary, sn is people etc and you sir are most certainly one of them! :)
so now to this...
>Even if you were a regular reader here and had formed an impression of the same from my posts you
>would not have the whole, because I have never expounded the whole here.
and this...
>and nobody cares what Phoenix666's beliefs are or how he comes down on any given issue anyway.
i have been here since the start (posting anon to spare my blushes) and i deeply appreciate your
contributions, and comments. we seem to agree on a lot but then every now and again we dont
and i've never quite figured out what part of the jig saw i'm missing, which is a long winded way
of saying that for the record, i for one would like to "have the whole" if you'd care to. maybe a journal post?
live long and prosper.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @03:23AM
I don't know if you're the same AC I was responding to. That's the tricky thing about ACs, really. If you have been on the site from the beginning, I encourage you to pick a handle and stick with it. Nobody will know you from Adam, still, but it brings a certain useful degree of rhetorical discipline that keeps you from shooting from the hip. That in turn, I believe, makes for a better, more productive discussion we can all get more out of. If you're gonna disclose state secrets or confess some deep, dark, shameful secret, sure, play the AC to the nines. That's not most cases. But if it's to avoid blushes, well, then rise to the occasion and compose the strongest arguments you can on matters you believe in.
If you're not the same AC and that's sincere, thanks. I would say that while it's nice to agree with someone it's never a good to agree with someone completely. If that happens, each of us must understand that as the alarm it is, because it says we've stumbled into the dead pocket of air inside an echo chamber and don't have long to live.
I would also say that I appreciate the sentiment about a journal, but I don't have the answer. I don't have a perfect ideology; Marx, Nietzsche, Kant, and many other deep thinkers couldn't do it, and I don't even want to try. Besides, manifestos are dull.
Peace, and long life.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 13 2017, @04:12AM
Even if you were a regular reader here and had formed an impression of the same from my posts you would not have the whole, because I have never expounded the whole here.
You don't know me!
Ignore that words that come out of my mouth, look into my heart!
Its like you've been taking lessons from Kelly-Anne Conlady. [politico.com]
Every time you think you are proving yourself, you are. You just don't know yourself enough to realize what you are really saying.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 12 2017, @05:06PM (2 children)
Which deep patterns have you observed to have persisted?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @12:14AM (1 child)
An 40-yr uninterrupted slide in real incomes for the American middle class. An erosion of the difference in policy outcomes between the political parties. Those are a couple off the top of my head.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 13 2017, @06:12AM
Seems all the signs says the whole corporate-government-sphere is thoroughly corrupt. At least that seems to be where the convergence of all indicators concludes. Next questions is of course what to do about it short term.
Would you consider an master of science engineer, middle class? or lower, higher, upper?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday May 12 2017, @05:41PM (5 children)
I have trouble making any sense of his actions. The report on the re-opening of investigations of Hillary seems to have been fabricated to grab headlines (which it did). It's quite possible that he did it because he was in political sympathy with Trump, but then had a personal falling out with him. He certainly didn't do it from honesty or duty, or he would also have reported the investigation of Trump's ties with Russia.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @06:18PM (1 child)
If you want to understand Comey you have to break out from the simplistic 2-party theory of washington.
In washington there are more than two power centers. It isn't just democrats and republicans. There is also the CIA, the FBI, the Army, the IRS, the CDC, the DEA, etc.
They are all jostling for power and influence. It isn't just about naked power. It is about really believing in themselves - that their mission is more important than any other group's mission and their reputation is a big part of that.
Comey's actions all make sense when you see them as putting the FBI first. In his initial recommendation not to prosecute Clinton he exaggerated her actions hoping to make it clear he was not playing favorites, that he really didn't like her but that when it came to the matter of the law the evidence was not there. It kind of backfired, people so inclined to hate clinton took it the other way - that he knew she was a criminal, that he admitted it on tv and he still covered for her because of her status. When the weiner laptop emails were discovered and he decided to again do everything he could to make sure it did not look like he was protecting her. So he broke with FBI guidelines about not making public statements that could influence an election, hoping to show again that he was not giving her special treatment. It was about avoiding even the appearance of corruption at the FBI, not helping trump or hurting clinton.
As for Trump's ties with Russia, since the FBI had made no previous public comments about them, the technically correct approach was not to say anything just as the FBI routinely avoids public comment on any ongoing investigation. Was it the best choice for the country? Probably not. Was it the best (available) choice for the FBI? Probably.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @12:44AM
That sounds plausible, too, but his erratic behavior and departure from FBI norms inclines me to think that he was worried about his own neck, not the FBI's, and as such, panicked. It's perfectly understandable for a person to vacillate under such intense pressure. It also seems understandable to me that a career bureaucrat, who puts his own career's survival above all else, would try to play both sides to enhance his chances.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @07:54PM (2 children)
Have you ever asked yourself who leaked Comey's letter to the press? Or thought about it for more than one second?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @08:18PM (1 child)
The letter was sent to the entire congress. It was not a secret document.
So which of the 500+ congress members and their thousands of support staff do you think "leaked" it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 12 2017, @09:56PM
So which of the 500+ congress members and their thousands of support staff do you think "leaked" it?
At that point, it's more how many leaked it rather than who.