President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

Ari Meermans

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I have said before, and I still believe, that ultimately nothing will come of the Trump connection to the Russian election hacking. But the Russian investigation is spreading out into Trump's financial dealings.

And what may ultimately bring him down, if anything, is his financial dealings with Russia, the Russian banks, the oligarchs and money laundering, etc. some of which may simply be ethically questionable, but some may prove to be the type of transactions that people actually go to jail for.

The Feds aren't good at everything – I know from personal experience that the average vaunted FBI agent is far less capable than the average city detective when it comes to investigating street level crime – murder, for example.

But tracing complex organizations, and complex financial dealings across the globe – the feds are very, very good at that. If there's something going on involving money laundering, shell corporations, and hidden transactions, they will find it and be able to prove it.

I agree. I've always thought Trump's business dealings—the apparent source of his hubris—would be his downfall.
 

buz

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So you guys are calling your congresspeople right? :D

* annoys people forever until I throw up and go live in a hole *

* maybe the time is now *

* at least for the hole *

* wheeeeee *
 

mccardey

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So you guys are calling your congresspeople right? :D

* annoys people forever until I throw up and go live in a hole *

* maybe the time is now *

* at least for the hole *

* wheeeeee *

:e2flowers

Do call your Congress, people - don't let shyness or I-haven't-done-that-before put you off. It's a numbers game. It doesn't matter if you're fluent and impressive or a stuttering wreck like I was the first few times I called my reps. Put them on speed dial and use them to practice your calling-up-Congress skills. You can make a difference. At the very least, you'll know you tried and didn't just whinge.
 

rugcat

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Trump will appoint Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie to be the next director of the FBI, and that's the last anyone will hear of this investigation.
I don't think so.

I did for a while, but upon reflection, neither one of those guys would want the ethical scrutiny that would come with such an appointment. Both of them are lucky to not be in jail in the first place.
 

MaeZe

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I don't think so.

I did for a while, but upon reflection, neither one of those guys would want the ethical scrutiny that would come with such an appointment. Both of them are lucky to not be in jail in the first place.

I imagine there are more than a few Democrats who would love to ask Giuliani under oath about those NY FBI office leaks.
 

MaeZe

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Unimportant

No COVID yet. Still masking.
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FWIW, those of us outside the US are following this with interest, as we find the whole Trump thing truly globally terrifying.

I'm an ex-pat, and I'm not just never-going-backto-the-US-no-matter-who-dies, I'm also really freaked about how this will impact my new home-country and the world.
 

nighttimer

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It's possible Trump moves in and out of his alt-reality where his wishful thinking becomes real even if only briefly. Or what he perceives doesn't match what other people perceive.

Trump believes he was wire tapped. He thinks he's being spied on. So I can see Trump referencing the tapes talking about the imaginary NSA wiretapping. That's a false belief he can hold despite what responses he gets refuting that he was wiretapped.

Now consider Trump imagines Comey really did tell Trump he wasn't under investigation. Trump believes a lot of things that aren't true like the inaugural crowd size.

When you have no money and no power and you move in and out of reality on a regular basis, it's a safe assumption they have a hole in their bag of marbles. When you have lots of money and plenty of power and you move in and out of reality as Trump does, you call him the 45th President of the United States.

There's nothing the Democrats can do besides work up a good sweat flexing their outrage muscles, preach to the choir of the already converted and wait for the video of Trump with a live boy or a dead girl rolling around in a tub full of baked beans to hit You Tube. Nothing much less than that is going to move the Republican Congress to do anything but slow-walk their "investigations" until the next terror attack or NFL training camps open, whichever comes first.

Mitch McConnell cannot be shamed and will not be moved by anything less than the threat of him losing control of the Senate and being cast back down into Senate Minority Leader, which is a place he found a place he could survive and thrive in. It remains to see if Chuck Schumer can.

Trump may fall later than sooner, but reluctantly I must agree with rugcat. As long as the GOP is in control, the Russian/Trump campaign story is more than a few empty shell-casings away from a smoking gun.


Bolding mine, because I believe this bears repeating.

I'm thinking of the 45 supporters (both voting citizens and members of Congress) who've been swearing they aren't racist, aren't homophobic, aren't misogynist, etc--they say/said they supported him because of corruption, because of wanting a fresh slate, clean the swamp, etc--and maybe they even said they wanted the tax breaks.

Here's their chance to prove it, because if they really bought into 45 because of these things, they should be screaming right along with the Dems at the possibility (probability) of corruption like we've never seen before, Russian interference with our democratic process, and the absolute dregs he's brought into the White House with him. And yet I hear nothing but the occasional hemming and hawing, no actual interest in democracy or justice, and it's quite clear that no one other than him and his cronies will benefit from his policies.

Or in short: same as it ever was. :e2shrug:
 
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MaeZe

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...Mitch McConnell cannot be shamed and will not be moved by anything less than the threat of him losing control of the Senate and being cast back down into Senate Minority Leader, which is a place he found a place he could survive and thrive in. It remains to see if Chuck Schumer can.

Trump may fall later than sooner, but reluctantly I must agree with rugcat. As long as the GOP is in control, the Russian/Trump campaign story is more than a few empty shell-casings away from a smoking gun.
I'm just going to post an alternative ;) view here.

McConnell must know he can lose his position as Senate calendar dictator in 2018. So it's not like the Democrats and other assorted liberals have no power.

There are a few Republicans in the Senate who have stood up to the Trump loyalty machine and the GOP margin is slim. There are even more members in both the House and the Senate who are facing re-election trouble in 2018. This is the activism forum, and we are at least seeing momentum around the country.

As for the investigation going away, The FBI is not the only investigation going on as I posted in #184 above.
 
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MaeZe

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One of the many, many things that worries me is who is he going to bomb to draw attention away from this?

That would require Trump to be smarter and less self-absorbed. He seems to react more than he's proactive. I see little evidence he thinks anything through.

He appears to spend a lot of time watching the news cycle about himself. He got worked up over Comey and acted out. You can expect he'll react to the next thing that threatens his ego and now that the ball is rolling, ... stay tuned, according to his pattern so far that shouldn't be long..
:popcorn:
 

Helix

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That would require Trump to be smarter and less self-absorbed. He seems to react more than he's proactive. I see little evidence he thinks anything through.

He appears to spend a lot of time watching the news cycle about himself. He got worked up over Comey and acted out. You can expect he'll react to the next thing that threatens his ego and now that the ball is rolling, ... stay tuned, according to his pattern so far that shouldn't be long..
:popcorn:

But he did it once and it worked -- briefly.
 

Brightdreamer

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One of the many, many things that worries me is who is he going to bomb to draw attention away from this?

+1, because...

But he did it once and it worked -- briefly.

I'm not convinced he has the capacity for long-term strategy here, especially not with so many shiny, addictive short-term power trip options spread out before him... and so few people willing or able to say "stop." A brief win is still a win, and winning is what he's about.
 

Catherine

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I'm just going to post an alternative ;) view here.

McConnell must know he can lose his position as Senate calendar dictator in 2018. So it's not like the Democrats and other assorted liberals have no power.

There are a few Republicans in the Senate who have stood up to the Trump loyalty machine and the GOP margin is slim. There are even more members in both the House and the Senate who are facing re-election trouble in 2018. This is the activism forum, and we are at least seeing momentum around the country.

As for the investigation going away, The FBI is not the only investigation going on as I posted in #184 above.

The map of the senate seats up for re-election in 2018 is not promising for democrats as noted by the Washington Post. It seems the only hope for the dems winning back the senate in 2018 is if older republican senators do not run. I think the democrats winning the house back is likely, as long as people get out and vote.

The firing of Director Comey makes me wonder how long it will take moderate Trump supporters to stop supporting him. Something tells me they will be okay with his antics as long as the conservative agenda is being advanced.

As for the die-hard Trump supporters, it's ironic they chanted Benghazi for so long, but don't care if the Russian connections to the Trump campaign are investigated to completion.

Then there is a true "fake news" cycle. I've had people I respect tell me the Obama's are getting divorced and Michelle is living in the Bahamas. They were not joking and believed this 100% If otherwise rational people are going to believe this sort of thing, how can we reason with them? Facts are irrelevant in the face of such cognitive dissonance.
 

blacbird

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The firing of Director Comey makes me wonder how long it will take moderate Trump supporters to stop supporting him. Something tells me they will be okay with his antics as long as the conservative agenda is being advanced.

What it will take is for those who like to call themselves "conservatives" to recognize that we are no longer in a conservative v. liberal debate about political issues. We are now in a personal-competency v. sanity debate, that really has little to do with political policies. It would be nice to get back to the familiar conservative v. liberal discussion, but that just doesn't seem possible in the toxic environment that has enveloped the White House (and Trump Tower, and Mar-a-Lago, and wherever else that man goes). His increasingly paranoid insecurity has now enwrapped him in a tight blanket where the only people he really trusts seem to be his enormously talented and experienced daughter and son-in-law. Even Steve Bannon was left out of the loop on the decision to fire Comey.

caw
 

Brightdreamer

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What it will take is for those who like to call themselves "conservatives" to recognize that we are no longer in a conservative v. liberal debate about political issues. We are now in a personal-competency v. sanity debate, that really has little to do with political policies.

Thus far, I'd say it doesn't appear that anything will make them recognize this. They're telling themselves they're winning, so they don't care about details.

There's an opinion piece at Washington Post that about sums it up... (warning to arachnophobes: large spider picture.)
 

MaeZe

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Interview with a Trump supporter yesterday on the TV news, (sorry, I channel surf too much to remember if it was CNN or MSNBC): She was still overlooking Trump's actual behavior/work/accomplishments.

Said she voted for Trump because because he gave her hope. In my opinion, magical thinking.

Said she wasn't ready to give that hope up yet. Purely my opinion: denial.

But if nothing changed in a couple of years she would no longer support Trump.
 

MaeZe

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Get ready for the next act.

The Spotlight Shifts to the DOJ Inspector General
How might Attorney General Sessions and his Deputy Rosenstein react if Horowitz discerns facts or reaches conclusions about Comey’s behavior that are contrary to or in tension with Rosenstein’s memorandum? Might they try to shut down the investigation or prevent the release of its conclusions? The IG Act provides that “[n]either the head of the establishment nor the officer next in rank below such head shall prevent or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or completing an audit or investigation, or from issuing any subpoena during the course of any audit or investigation.” But 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E also says that the Attorney General can assert supervision and control over DOJ IG “audits or investigations, or the issuance of subpoenas, which require access to sensitive information concerning,” among others, “ongoing civil or criminal investigations or proceedings,” “intelligence or counterintelligence matters,” or “other matters the disclosure of which would constitute a serious threat to national security.” Will Sessions or Rosenstein invoke these provisions to shut down Horowitz?

How will President Trump react once he realizes that the reasons for his decision to fire Comey will potentially be second-guessed by an Obama appointee? Will he fire Horowitz as he did Obama appointees Sally Yates and James Comey? Three months ago Jeffrey Toobin worried that Trump might shut down the IG investigation. But now the stakes of the investigation, and the potential downsides of allowing it to reach completion, are much larger.

If Trump decides to fire Horowitz, will he abide by the IG statute’s requirement that he give Congress 30 days’ notice before doing so, during which period Horowitz could continue to gather facts on the matter? Or will he follow the 1977 OLC opinion that concluded that the restriction was unconstitutional?

Will Horowitz accept House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz’s request to investigate the firing of James Comey? If he does, will Trump and Sessions allow it to continue? The Inspector General Statute authorizes the IG to investigate at least the DOJ side of the firing, which could reveal a lot of truthful detail about the President’s decision. Sessions, Rosenstein, or Trump might not like that.

Senator Grassley counseled critics of the Comey firing to “suck it up and move on.” But Senator Grassley is also a famous supporter of inspectors general. And indeed, on November 2, he wrote a letter to Horowitz calling on him to intercede in the investigation into Hillary Clinton. Grassley wrote: “The public’s lack of confidence in the Justice Department’s ability to handle investigations related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton impartially ought to be of grave concern for its leadership. The entire matter is in desperate need of independent, objective, non-partisan oversight. As the Inspector General, that is your statutory duty.” Will Senator Grassley stand by this position, or will he now counsel Horowitz to suck it up and move on?
The IG investigation was supposed to look into how the Clinton investigation was conducted. No doubt Republican legislators are still trying to convict Clinton for a criminal act that were it anyone else, would have been workplace errors. Then Comey doubled down and against FBI tradition, interfered with the election. Now that is expanding to Trump's firing of Comey and Sessions not sticking with his recusal.

Is Trump stupid enough to keep firing people?

:popcorn:
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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If you can't call, as I cannot during office hours, then e-mail.

Here is the US Senate page. Pick your senators and e-mail them. It counts the same as a phone call.
https://www.senate.gov

US House of Representatives. Enter your ZIP code.
http://www.house.gov

Calling is important, but e-mailing works, too. Faxing less so (it takes forever to catalogue the faxes).
 

shakeysix

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I don't see his support growing. Maybe the core still stands behind him but everyone else seems to be peeling off. The people who wanted change will realize that is not going to happen because they think change means change back to when things always went my way. That, of course, is never going to happen. When enough peel off the Republicans will declare that Trump was a closet liberal all along and fish up another morally upright conservative. --s6
 
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