It's almost as if Comey had come to understand why he should have been fired:
"He's right, I was wrong," Comey said about how the FBI used the FISA process, adding, "I was overconfident as director in our procedures," and that what happened "was not acceptable."The Ace commenters are having a field day with the "I was overconfident in our procedures" defense, applying it to General Custer, the captain of the Titanic, the director of the Metropolitan Correction Center, General Pickett. I'm left wondering whether there's a witness out there who can demonstrate that Comey might just possibly have insisted on a little investigation into the most momentous warrant of his career before signing it (even if, as the Ace guys say, he didn't "sign"-sign it), and who might be considering singing like a bird sometime soon.
6 comments:
My alma mater has him teaching an ethics class.
I have a friend who teaches business ethics. I keep telling him it's a contradiction in terms, but perhaps Comey has him beat.
Actually Comey explicitly rejected the idea that, if he were still director, he should resign over this. I actually got the impression his attitude is that if he were still there he'd have to make some heads roll. I wonder how his underlings feel about that? Are they all willing to take the hit for Dear Leader Jim?
The line that really got me was right at the end- "what the FBI is like, human and flawed, but deeply committed to trying to do the right thing". This is exactly what got them in trouble- thinking they could take liberties with the rules to 'do the right thing'. Just more evidence that there's hardly anything more dangerous than 'do-gooders'.
I wish I could see the Crossfire Hurricane staff as human and flawed but trying to do the right thing. The picture I get is more of spite, ambition, and a horrifying willingness to bend the rules for the in-crowd. I try to imagine myself as a powerful staffer in an anti-Clinton FBI office, tempted to put my thumb on the scale and play dirty in a variety of ways to bring her down. If I were working for U.S. Attorney John Durham right now, I imagine that's exactly the kind of temptation I'd be under.
I take Durham for an extremely straight shooter, so much so that if he doesn't prosecute my favorite targets, I'll be bitterly disappointed, but I'll believe that he made the decision on the basis of whether he could put together a case against each person that would truly hold up on appeal under appropriate politics-free constitutional principles. That's what he did when he investigated the CIA and the armed forces for prisoner interrogation abuses a decade or so ago: he cleared some and prosecuted some, but didn't play politics or favorites, despite a super-charged crazy vindictive atmosphere.
Comey, McCabe, Brennan, Strzok, Yates, both Ohrs--these people were not garden-variety flawed human beings trying to do the right thing. They were corrupt. Can they be prosecuted successfully? I don't know, but their public careers should be ended.
But the guy who doctored the FISA supporting document, whether that turns out to be Klinesmith or someone else--he needs to go to jail. That's not some kind of failure of discretion or carelessness or any of the other nonsense that Comey is peddling. I only hope he squeals on whoever else knew perfectly well what he was up to. The facts he was diddling were too central to the probable cause, and too easy to verify, for him to have been the only one to know.
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