Slate - The White House Is Lying About Comey - that's one thing we know for sure

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/the_white_house_story_on_comey_s_firing_is_falling_apart.html

by William Saletan

Why did President Trump fire FBI Director James Comey? There is plenty of informed speculation, but we don’t know yet, and the answer will require further investigation. We do know two things: The explanations given by the White House are false, and the evidence points toward friction over the FBI’s Russia investigation.

The White House is pinning the decision to fire Comey on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In interviews Tuesday night, White House spokespersons Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Kellyanne Conway claimed that Trump had “no choice” but to act on Rosenstein’s memo, issued earlier in the day, which criticized Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. They emphasized that Rosenstein had been confirmed on a 94-6 Senate vote, that Democrats had praised him in the past, and that he had also served under President Obama. In Conway’s words, a respected “nonpartisan figure” made the decision, and Trump simply administered it. Spicer said of Rosenstein: “It was all him.”

But that story is falling apart. Here’s why you should be suspicious of what the White House is saying.

1. The White House’s story has changed. On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Conway and Sanders said Rosenstein’s memo was so powerful and well-substantiated that it moved Trump to action. But in her press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Sanders revised her account, acknowledging that Trump had requested the memo after receiving an oral briefing from Justice Department officials on Monday. To downplay the appearance of orchestration, Sanders implied that Comey only came up serendipitously. She said Sessions and Rosenstein had gone to the White House for “other business, not specifically to meet with the president on that. The topic came up, and they asked to speak with the president, and that’s how it moved forward.”


2. The story doesn’t fit the time frame the White House is presenting. Rosenstein’s memo says Comey is unfit because Comey persecuted Hillary Clinton by publicly disparaging her and publicly reopening her email investigation, in both cases exceeding the FBI director’s legal role. On its face, the argument is plausible. But the White House’s use of this argument to rationalize Comey’s firing is fraudulent. The memo focuses on Comey’s behavior from July 2016, when he announced the results of the Clinton probe, to October and November 2016, when he reopened it. That doesn’t square with Conway’s statement to CNN Tuesday night that the firing “has nothing to do with the campaign from six months ago. This has everything to do with the performance of the FBI director since the president has been in the White House.” Nor does it square with Sanders’ statement, from the White House podium on Wednesday, that Trump lost confidence in Comey “over the last several months.”

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[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. A big, fat K&R!