COMEY RETURNS: Will He Duck and Hide Again, Or Will Republicans Actually Figure Out How to Do Something?
Patrick Howley
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Fired former FBI director James Comey is testifying Monday to the outgoing Republican majority on two committees: House Oversight and House Judiciary. The testimony will be conducted behind closed doors — which was an effective tactic when Republicans grilled the “lovely” Lisa Page, who reportedly sang like a canary. But Comey is a different story.
The first time Comey testified to the House GOP earlier this month he obscured, ducked, dodged, and avoided the questions Republicans were asking him over the course of six pointless hours. Comey was aided in his dodging by his former Department of Justice (DOJ) legal representation. (READ: Rosenstein Got Cohen Info Days Before Whitaker).
Will Republicans come prepared with a better strategy this time to get Comey to talk? Considering the Republican record in recent years, it’s best not to get one’s hopes up.
But if they actually do manage to play ball, there are tons of questions that the public deserves answers to.
As I reported: Comey is vulnerable to a possible obstruction of justice charge for his conduct in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Comey deleted Barack Obama’s name from the Bureau’s report to conceal Obama’s knowledge of the illegal server, and also deleted evidence that Clinton’s emails were hacked by foreign adversaries.
Comey’s firing by President Donald Trump in 2017 is at the center of Comey’s friend Robert Mueller’s attempt to charge President Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller previously announced that he would try to wrap up an obstruction case by September 11, having found no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. Mueller will try to argue that Trump fired Comey because Comey was investigating General Flynn and the Russia case.
But Comey’s own deletion of important records to protect Obama and Clinton — not to mention his leaking of classified information to the press and his own statement under oath that he does not believe Trump obstructed justice — could be the final nail in the coffin of Mueller’s case.
Inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report reveals Comey’s duplicity.
“A statement that the FBI assessed that it was “reasonably likely” that hostile actors gained access to Clinton’s private email server was changed to “possible,’” according to the report, on page iv.
“A paragraph summarizing the factors that led the FBI to assess that it was possible that hostile actors accessed Clinton’s server was added, and at one point referenced Clinton’s use of her private email for an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary. This reference later was changed to “another senior government official,” and ultimately was omitted,” the report states, on page iv.
Thus, James Comey deleted Barack Obama’s very name in order to conceal the extent to which her emails were breached by foreign actors.
The fact that Clinton and Obama were swapping emails on her non-secure private server in “the territory of a foreign advisory” presents a clear argument to charge both Clinton and Obama with an Espionage Act violation.
Of course, Obama not only knew about Clinton’s server, he even used a FAKE NAME to email with her. Politico was even forced to report that.
James Comey’s brother Peter Comey, meanwhile, works for the law firm that did the Clinton Foundation’s taxes….during the period in which the firm was doing the Clinton Foundation’s taxes. The fact that they conversed during the Clinton investigations presents another major liability for Comey and his defenders on the Mueller team.
James Comey’s brother Peter Comey does not deny speaking with his brother James Comey during his brother’s investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, but he denies talking about Clinton with his brother.
In a defensive interview with Big League Politics, Peter Comey — a top executive at the DLA Piper law firm that did the Clinton Foundation’s taxes and performed the “independent audit” of the Clinton Foundation during the case — would not deny that conversations with his brother took place during the investigation.
“I have never talked to anybody about the Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation ever, and I have no comment for you about conversations with my brother,” Peter Comey told Big League Politics.
“None of which I have anything to do with,” Peter Comey said of DLA Piper’s work for the Clinton Foundation, after first pressing me about the ownership status of Big League Politics. Peter Comey said that he is not a lawyer.
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