Title : Let's read the Comey transcript.
link : Let's read the Comey transcript.
Let's read the Comey transcript.
I watched about an hour or so live on TV, skipped some, and heard the end on the car radio, but I didn't want to write anything without the transcript. I can't bear to read the news analysis, which I have good reason to assume will be slanted. I could spend my time parsing the slantedness, but I've got the transcript, and I want to live-blog my reading o f the transcript. Ready?SEN. RICHARD BURR [Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]: There are several outstanding issues not addressed in your statement...Here's where we discussed Comey's 7-page statement. I said I wanted to hear "what Comey and Trump meant by their shared silent gazing into each other's eyes, by their coming to rest upon the slippery phrase 'honest loyalty,' and the mystery of 'that thing' in 'we had that thing, you know.'"
The questions Burr stated at the outset were:
Did the president's request for loyalty, your impression, let the one-on-one dinner of January 27th was and I quote “at least in part” an effort to create some patronage relationship and March 30th phone call asking what you could do to lift the cloud of Russia investigation in any way alter your approach of the FBI's investigation into general Flynn or the broader investigation into Russia, and possible links to the campaign? In your opinion did potential Russian efforts to establish a link with individuals in the Trump orbit rise to the level we could define as collusion or was it a counter-intelligence concern? There's been a significant public speculation about your decision-making related to the Clinton email investigation. Why did you decide publicly, to publicly announce, FBI's recommendations that the Department of Justice not pursue criminal charges?...Comey didn't read the already-released opening statement. Instead he offered what he called "some very brief introductory remarks." Comey concentrates on how he wanted to keep his job as FBI Director, and since Trump had "had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job," he was "confused " to hear he'd been fired. He knew the President could fire him for "no reason at all," it was disturbing that "the administration... chose to defame me" and to say the FBI "was in disarray" — "lies, plain and simple." That is, he let us see that he was angry about losing the job he dearly wanted to keep.
BURR: Director, when the president requested that you, and I quote "Let Flynn go"... do you sense that the president was trying to obstruct justice or just seek for a way for Mike Flynn to save face...?He says it's for the special counsel "to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense." With the Hillary email matter, Comey went deeply into intent, but I think that was because there was no special prosecutor and the Attorney General had withdrawn herself from the decisionmaking and left it to Comey. That at least shows Comey can make decisions like that. Burr brings up that subject:
COMEY: ... I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct.
BURR: Director, Comey, you have been criticized publicly for the decision to present your findings on the email investigation directly to the American people. Have you learned anything since that time that would have changed what you said or how you chose to inform the American people?Protecting "the justice institution, including the FBI" is the only value he cites. It affected the presidential election, but I guess his position about that needs to be that he couldn't take that factor into account one way or the other. The protection for "both the FBI and the justice department" was needed largely because of Bill Clinton's "tarmac meeting" with Loretta Lynch. There were some other factors that he couldn't speak of openly, but he could say that he was "confused" and "concerned" when Lynch "directed" him to use the term "matter" instead of "investigation," when speaking of Hillary Clinton's email problem.
COMEY: Honestly, no. It caused a whole lot of personal pain for me but as I look back, given what I knew at the time and even what I've learned since, I think it was the best way to try to protect the justice institution, including the FBI.
Comey says there were "all kinds of cyber intrusions going on all the time... a massive effort to target government and nongovernmental, near governmental agencies like nonprofits." Burr wants to know what the Obama administration tried to do about that. All Comey says is that the FBI notified victims of phishing. (Is phishing a "massive effort"? It may reach a lot of email inboxes, but it's piddling within the category "cyber intrusions." I wished they'd be clear when they're talking about anything other than phishing.)
The Vice Chairman Mark Warner went next and took a noticeably more partisan tone, pointedly underscoring and amplifying Comey's answers. First, he asked about Comey's decision to write a memo documenting his January 6th conversation with Trump. Comey's reasons were: 1. He was alone with Trump, 2. The subject matter ("the FBI's core responsibility"), 3. He believed that it might be in Trump's "nature" to "lie" about the conversation.
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