Christopher Wray’s Days Are Numbered

Now that the IG has absolved the FBI of any wrongdoing, look for Trump to fire Chris Wray as a way to reinforce his view that nobody — not even the facts — can disagree with him.

If he does it before the Senate impeachment vote in January, it could be impactful.

Otherwise it’s just more Trump chaos.

If not Trump, maybe Barr will fire him (for doing his job).

William Barr wrote:

“I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,” Barr said. “I think there were gross abuses … and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI.”

He laid blame on Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who released the report after reviewing a million documents and interviewing 100 people.

Russians, excuse me Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee are trying to make the case that the Trump campaign should have been briefed that there were as many as four moles for the Russian government in the Trump campaign.

“Hey Trump! You’re compromised.” Yeah, nothing could go wrong there.

Ted Cruz is questioning Horowitz.

Should be interesting, since it was HIS campaign that initiated the Steele dossier.

Ted, Ted, Ted.

There’s a reason Trump calls you “Lyin’ Ted Cruz.”

Amy Klobuchar followed Lyin’ Ted. She used her time to bring out the facts. She sounded ... actually ... presidential.

Jesus Fucking Christ. The Republicans have really gotten ahold of the wrong end of the stick.

They want to contend that the FBI inserted agents into the Trump campaign to spy on it.

What actually happened, according to the public record, is that Carter Page and Paul Manafort were ALREADY under FBI surveillance for suspicious contacts with suspicious Russians, BEFORE Trump hired them for his campaign. In fact, they were recommended to his campaign by the Kremlin.

They were, in fact, moles (Russian spies) for Putin, inserted into the Trump campaign by Putin.

Yes, spying occurred — Russian spying. Trump invited them in.

So far, the key finding is that James Comey contravened FBI rules by announcing the investigation into Hillary’s emails, on the eve of the 2016 election. Everyone agrees this may have cost Hillary the election.

So... by that logic, should the election be overturned?

Hearing is wrapping up. GOP is summing up by saying the FISA warrant against Carter Page was issued with some issues of clarity.

Not the Mueller report.

Not disputing any of the facts.

Astonishing.

Louie Gohmert has voiced the Republican conflation of the Page FISA application with the Mueller investigation and Ukraine bribe.

Astonishing that they cannot distinguish the two.

Or more likely, choose not to, to try to confuse the American people.

Here's the other elephant in the room that is going unmentioned. The Republicans are shouting over and over that the Mueller report vindicated Trump, that it found no evidence of collusion and no evidence of wrongdoing.

That's not true at all.

What Bob Mueller said was that if he'd been able to clear Trump of any wrongdoing he would have done so. However, because of the OLC opinion, he could not charge a sitting president with any felonies, and rather than accuse him of any crimes when he could not enter a court of law to defend himself, he left the charging decision to Congress, either as an impeachment or as federal charges once Trump is out of office.

I fully expect the latter in 2021.

I wish somebody on the committee had the brass to bring this up.

Louie Gohmert — gawd I love saying his name — is decrying the changing focus of Democratic impeachment efforts.   Two responses:

1. Why do we have so many impeachable actions to choose from?
   
   
2. Whitewater. Paula Jones. Travel-gate. Vince Foster. Monica Lewinsky. All of which fizzled completely — except when Bill perjured himself about the blowjobs.
   

Corruption in politics is endemic. Hillary and her damn emails. Biden and his damn son. Trump and his whole organization. Devin Nunes. All the rest of it.

If anything, maybe -- MAYBE -- what'll come out of this impeachment debacle is a progressive Democratic candidate with no history of corruption. Is that too much to ask?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Corruption in politics is endemic.  Hillary and her damn emails.  Biden and his damn son.  Trump and his whole organization. Devin Nunes.  All the rest of it.

If anything, maybe -- MAYBE -- what'll come out of this impeachment debacle is a progressive Democratic candidate with no history of corruption.  Is that too much to ask?

I feel obliged to point out that Hillary didn't really do anything very wrong, in that both her predecessor and her successor (Republicans) as Secretary of State both did pretty much the same thing and nobody thought it was a problem. And both Trump and the rest of his family do shit that's even worse. Especially Trump.

And Hunter Biden hasn't done anything wrong that I've heard about, and neither has his dad.

Which doesn't stop the Republicans yelling, of course. But my point is, they are going to keep yelling about made-up bullshit, even if their target is indeed squeaky-clean.

Yeah you're right, nothing really wrong -- but a lot of stuff that still didn't smell right.

Hillary used a private server in the basement of her townhouse instead of State Department servers, for official business -- for a variety of logical reasons. When she quit being SOS, she directed her office manager to delete everything that wasn't State business (and thus had to be archived). Her office manager "forgot" to do so. When her records got subpoenaed -- by an overzealous House -- her office manager realized she hadn't deleted the 30,000 personal, non-State emails (Chelsea's wedding plans et al) and deleted them, using a professional weapons-grade program to make sure they were unrecoverable.

That looked bad.

Hunter Biden got paid $50k/mo by a corrupt company to sit on the board and do nothing but prop up the reputation of the company. This was two years AFTER the company started cleaning up its act -- but a year BEFORE his father got the prosecutor in the case fired. Granted, the new prosecutor was tougher on Burisma, not easier -- but the conflict-of-interest looked bad.

Barack Obama didn't close Guantanemo, for a variety of reasons. He detained and deported more immigrants than Bush. He involved the military in some shady operations.

I know, I know. Trump does more shit before breakfast than any Democrat has in the last 3 decades.

But I want a clean administration for a change. Somebody with some ideals and the stones to expose any countervailing forces.

James Comey was on Fox News Sunday just now -- tuned in to check on the football game in a couple hours -- Chris Wallace asked him several questions about the IG's report.

Wallace said the Steele dossier was the main reason Carter Page got a FISA warrant to be surveilled.  Comey corrected him, said it was just ONE of the sources leading to the warrant.

Wallace said the Steele dossier was proven to be "bunk" by the IG.  Comey corrected him, said there are PARTS that have not been confirmed -- yet.

Wallace said the IG found either "significant errors" or "intentionality" in the warrant.  Comey corrected him, said he could not find ANY evidence of bias in the FBI.  Although the FISA warrant had errors in it, the Mueller investigation showed absolutely zero anti-Trump bias.

Wallace said the FBI surveiled the Trump campaign.  Comey corrected him, said four individuals with known Russian ties, two of whom were later hired by the Trump campaign, were granted FISA warrants.  Not Trump.  Not his campaign.

Comey made the point, over and over, that Trump and Fox News have been saying for two years that the FBI performed illegal acts and would be subject to prosecution once the IG report came out.  The IG found nothing illegal, no bias, nothing prosecutable.  Just some sloppiness -- which Christopher Wray is following up on.  He said, "I want your viewers to know they WERE LIED TO by this president and this network."

Chris Wallace was a little put back on his heels by this.

Quote :

News of Wallace’s interviews with Comey and Schiff drew outrage from the president, who enjoys Fox News’ often friendly coverage of his presidency. He accused the network of “trying sooo hard to be politically correct” by inviting the two on “Fox News Sunday.”

Because, uh, the LAST thing a news organization wants is to be politically correct.