In the last post we determined that Comey has probably been set up as the fall guy in the phony counterintelligence operation against Trump, and only has a limited amount of time to act before both sides are calling for his head. We note that Comey has certainly been duped already by intelligence officers both above and below him in the hierarchy (namely, Clapper and McCabe) and wonder to what extent he was led around by his associates. Comey's time is limited. He should specify who made the suggestions to stand up the counterintelligence operation, that he document his interactions with Trump, and that he release those memos to prompt a special counsel. The answers to those questions point to the puppet master of the whole ordeal. So how has Comey been posturing himself?
He seems to be playing the moron defense. Maybe not a bad idea. This guy has been incredibly difficult to peg down ever since July 2016 when he made the bizarre press conference exonerating Clinton, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced he's really an honest moron. He has portrayed integrity very well. Now he's portraying moron very well. He could just be a super slick actor (an over actor at that). I'm not certain, but I'm leaning more and more towards him being an authentic dunce. Your best evidence may be simply that he was appointed by Obama. From a large field of potential lawmen, Obama would almost certainly pick the one most afflicted by the Dunning-Kreuger effect. Birds of a feather...
The interesting thing about this interview is that it's a fairly soft interview, at least compared to what he encountered with Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper. Can you imagine that? Comey gets an easier interview at Fox News than he did on CNN? The reason isn't for lack of effort, but has more to do with Bret Baier. Baier isn't all that bright, or at least isn't very quick on his feet. Look at how he operates. He has all his questions written out in front of him. Typically he has a question and a follow-up ready. Once the follow-up is used, Baier moves on to the next line of questioning. They are good questions, but predicable. All you have to do is shake off the follow-up question and you're free. It's amazing how often Comey leaves an opening large enough to drive a truck through and Baier just moves on to the next question. He should not be the one giving interviews of this sort of significance. Anderson Cooper was actually far more aggressive in following up, and Jake Tapper followed up and did so intelligently. It should be concerning that Comey was more aggressively and more intelligently interviewed on CNN than he was on Fox News.
Let's take on some of the more stunning revelations from the interview, which are roughly in the order they appear in the interview.
- Comey believes the dossier was funded by Republicans, and doesn't know it was funded by DNC and Clinton campaign besides media reports. The story that the dossier was initially funded by Republicans was fake news. It was aired on the premise that there was a conservative publication that had also done business with FusionGPS. That was it. That was the entirety of the story. Even Baier was able to dispute this without referring to his notes. Nunes has tried chasing this down, has even attempted to obtain FusionGPSs internal records to verify this allegation, and last I knew it was still held up in court by FusionGPS. It's an absolute farce of a story, and it's what Comey believed. In other words, the Director of the FBI was getting most of his information about a counterintelligence operation against an elected president in his own department...from the news. It's unavoidable: Comey is either an extreme moron or portrays one very well.
- Comey said he had written exoneration memos of Clinton before her interview because the feeling of his team was that it was going nowhere. His team being, who? The Deputy Director who lied to him about leaking, or the ranking agent who's leaked texts displayed incredible politicization? We're already working the idea that Comey was duped by his underlings, and his account that he was following his team's lead - and doesn't seem to know many particulars about the investigations - lends a lot of substance to that notion.
- He thought there was plenty of evidence in the FISA warrant and that the dossier played a minor role. That contradicts testimony McCabe gave before Congress, and contradicts the overview given by members of Congress who reviewed the warrant application.
- He says he was present when the Director of National Intelligence (Clapper) briefed President Obama on the dossier. He says Obama and the Gang of 8 were briefed to the same level as Trump...that is, just on the peeing hooker stuff. (This is the first evidence that Obama was duped as well, as opposed to being the driver of the operation.) He then states that it was Clapper who suggested that he brief the President-Elect on the salacious parts of the dossier, in congruence with his memo. He says the DNI "explained the logic of why it made since for me to do it, which I agreed with." God dammit Bret you retard why couldn't you follow this up? What was that logic? Did Comey know it was to substantiate a CNN scoop on the leaked dossier, or was he fed a bunch of baloney? It was probably the latter. These questions need to be asked, but the newscaster didn't have it in front of his face in plain English. His questions were clearly written with the intention of triangulating Clapper, and yet the interviewer doesn't actually understand the situation well enough to press this home. Fox News fail.
- When asked if he knew who leaked about his meeting with Trump almost immediately after it happened [newsflash: it was Clapper], Comey says he was not concerned with who leaked an "unclassified public document." Baier, not specifically prepped for this answer, does not follow it up! Beyond incredible. Comey is saying the dossier was public? By what definition? The FBI funded counterintelligence document was really unclassified? Comey doesn't seem to have a good grip on what classified means. So many questions to ask here....
- He didn't know Steele had been fired or leaked. View at around 12:45. He's almost smug in his answer (yay, he gets to honestly answer he didn't know!) and goes into memory recall. He's telling the truth. He honestly did not know that Steele had been fired as a source. What the hell was Comey doing while running the FBI? I'm becoming quite certain he was being duped by his team in both the Clinton and Trump investigations.
- At around 14:20 he describes what he gave to Richman as a single unclassified memo. He is lying. Note the downward glances and pursing of the lips.
- At 14:50, when he describes Richman's FBI role as including "law enforcement data" he looks down and licks the inside of his lips. He's concealing something. [We suspect Richman is one of the outside contractors thumbed for FISA 702 abuses by the NSA review. That is, he was spying on Trump before there was a warrant.]
- He really doesn't want to talk about his leaked memo, and insists it wasn't really a leak. He has to play mental gymnastics on that one.
From the second video:
- Admits he had dinner with Clapper two nights before. Holy hell. I don't know what more you need to believe he is being controlled by Clapper. If Comey was actively engaged as a conspirator, there's no way he'd freely offer up this information, just as he never would have put it in the memo. Clapper is probably also the one pushing Comey to do these interviews.
- Says he didn't see bias from his team as suggested by the texts. Well duh, they were working around him. Says he didn't read the texts, then about ten seconds later talks about what was hard about reading the texts. Obviously he read them, and they are seditious as hell. He says they were "such poor judgment." In the sense that it was dumb to be so political on an official channel. But he says none of the things an FBI Director should say about his department being transformed into a political weapon. Frankly, even if this guy is a total moron, he's still deflecting accountability for transgressions that are right in his face. His defense is that lots of people were disparaged, and that "I'm probably badmouthed in those texts." Well, actually, he wasn't. And it's a strange expectation to have of the lead agent in two of the biggest cases of the century.
- Comey quotes: "Lady Justice has a blindfold, it should stay on." This just tickles my sense of irony. The whole point is the Justice Department was politicized to the point of being a rogue agency attempting a coup against the elected president. The only one left wearing a blindfold is Comey.
The major question remaining around Comey is whether he's actually as big a moron as he seems, or if he's just playing the moron role as a defense. Maintaining plausible deniability is always the goal for these people. It is quite certain he is intentionally playing the role of the moron, and seems likely that he is also a genuine moron to boot.
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