Listening to Comey's excuses regarding those emails I am now fully committed.

[Baitball Blogger]

I hate him with the heat of a thousand suns. What a pinhead. What a weeny. Whatever he feared about blowback if something did get revealed after the fact, we now know that there was also reservations and an investigation that could have tripped up Trump.

There was no balance with Comey. He had a conflict of interest from the get go.

Oh, and that lame apologetic comment about how he felt bad IF that could have altered the results of the election.

OF COURSE IT DID. And with it, your reputation, buddy.

[Wounded Bear]

1. It started back in July...

when he announced "Investigation closed, no recommendation for prosecution" and then launched into a long editorial dissertation on "how carelessly intelligence info was handled."

[world wide wally]

11. Nailed it

[deurbano]

13. That was so unfair and unprecedented, and difficult for Clinton to address, given that he had also

"cleared" her... that he had been appointed by President Obama... and that he would continue to be the head of the FBI if she became president.

The overwhelming and infuriating amount of absolute shit she had to deal with at every turn....

[Botany]

2. mother fucker

So it was OK to release a big nothing burger on HRC but @ the same time
you (Comey) hid Trump's work with the Russians?

[L. Coyote]

51. Schiff: I think Comey caused the same damage to the FBI that he was hoping to avoid

Link to tweet

[nikibatts]

3. It is clear no that we will never get to the bottom of the Russian investigation ever!

They are ALL complicit either by omission or commission.

America just doesn't want to know the truth and the GOP knows it.

[CousinIT]

8. Next time Republicans collude w/ a hostile foreign power & their money to "win" it will be

MUCH worse.

If they get away with this, the US is liable to be under foreign control sooner than later - if the American people lay down and let this happen - what's next? One shudders to think.

[CentralMass]

56. They will get away with this.

[OKNancy]

4. I don't understand why he couldn't have waited 2 weeks

I just don't see the harm in that.

[herding cats]

10. Right?

Instead he announced it at a time when it was obvious it would harm Hillary in the polls, and were all stuck with a corrupt Russian backed Trump as president.

[jalan48]

14. I have read that the info would have been leaked by agents in the NYC office anyway.

It was going to come out one way or another. I believe Giuliani had a hand in it as well.

[njhoneybadger]

5. That is why a democratic President shouldn't appoint a rethug as FBI director

[deurbano]

16. When will they learn?

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/31/so-much-for-the-upstanding-james-comey-the-fbi-directors-long-career-as-preening-partisan-hack/

So much for the “upstanding” James Comey: The FBI director’s long career as preening partisan hack
Beltway insiders swooned over Comey's "nonpartisan" reputation — but his career tells a very different story
HEATHER DIGBY PARTON (OCT 31, 2016)

<<Liberals who lived through the ’90s and the endless Whitewater probe that went nowhere met President Barack Obama’s appointment of James Comey as director of the FBI with a primal scream of “Are you kidding me?” It was inconceivable that, just as former president Bill Clinton had foolishly appointed a Republican FBI director, Louis Freeh, who saw it as his primary duty to investigate a president he did not respect, a Democratic president was appointing a GOP lawyer to the same job 20 years later in an even more toxic political environment.

At the time, everyone in Washington seemed to be very pleased with the choice, seeing Comey as a “straight shooter” without a political agenda. That was largely based on his dramatic congressional testimony about the night in 2004 that he and then-FBI director Robert Mueller raced to former attorney general John Ashcroft’s sick bed to stop the White House counsel Alberto Gonzales from coercing the ailing AG into signing an illegal domestic spying order.

A lot of civil libertarians understood that to signify that the heroic Comey had been arguing the constitutional point, but he wasn’t. His concerns had been over a technical problem with the program’s legal basis. They fixed a few little details and Comey signed the order that month to keep the secret domestic surveillance program going for many years. A civil liberties hero he is not...

...It’s not as if the Democrats were unaware that Comey’s reputation for being nonpartisan was bunk before the White House inexplicably tapped him for FBI director. He first came to public attention as the deputy special counsel for the Senate committee investigating Whitewater. In a foreshadowing of his testimony last summer, he and his committee were unable to find any criminal wrongdoing by Bill and Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater matter but nonetheless decided to issue a public report filled with aspersions and innuendo accusing the Clintons of hiding secrets and engaging in misconduct. That’s par for the GOP course with its congressional witch hunts, but beyond the pale for an FBI director...>>

[Baitball Blogger]

20. +1000

[ffr]

57. Bam!

Which is why while we keep fighting and resisting this occupational coup of The People's House of Government, it is imperative that we get democrats elected. At least when we yell at them, they listen.

[L. Coyote]

54. Dingh, ding, ding, we have a winner.

Link to tweet

[Skittles]

62. was that during his KISS REPUKE ASS phase

gawd

[JanetLovesObama]

6. Looking at and listening to

Comey makes me NAUSEOUS !!!!!!

[JTFrog]

7. Been there since the day he fucking did it.

I've been livid with his apologists here who try to claim he did what he had to do and that he is an honorable and fair man. FUCK THAT. FUCK HIM.

He should rot in jail with Trump. Yeah, just my opinion, but it's a very strong opinion.

[Sancho]

9. Comey is an intelligent, educated Archie Bunker...and a moral, ethical disaster.

he is the ultimate conservative idiot...and he knowingly interfered with the election in many ways....

He allowed FBI leaks to Gullianni
He sabotaged Hillary with "the letter"
He hid information of Trump's Russian connections

and on and on and on....

Comey is motived by isolationism, exceptionalism, guns, and money (he is a multi-millionaire) with a 3 million dollar house in Westport (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/08/fbi-nominee-reports-net-worth-tops-11-million/).

Comey used to work for a big defense contractor (Lockeed Martin). He wrote a college thesis about Jerry Falwell! He is a religious conservative.

Comey simply does whatever he wants, and rationalizes his own behavior to fit whatever he did!!

[not fooled]

15. Thanks

Good information--explains a lot. Comey had his self-righteous agenda which in his mind justified his actions. Especially if there is a jeebus component, these aholes feel that they can do anything and it's OK.

When the Federal law enforcement types are politicized to this degree, we're in trouble. Big trouble. I thought this sh*t ended with J. Edgar and his shameful conduct. Obviously not.

[Snake Plissken]

12. Looking back at it, blaming Comey is convenient, but lets be honest with ourselves

Sure the outcome sucks worse than I ever imagined, and yes what Comey did most definitely influenced the election and allowed Trump to win, but WTF was Huma Abedin thinking? if she worked for Trump, I would demanding she be prosecuted right now.

Nobody forced Hillary to choose the worst campaign manager in the history of politics, and nobody forced her to keep Weiner's wife on as her vice chairwoman and personal assistant .

It's time to accept reality, Huma Abedin's and John Podesta's incompetence did far, far, far, more damage to Hillary's campaign than Comey did.

If Hillary spent even 10% of the time campaigning in the Midwest as she was forced into defending the incompetence of Huma Abedin and John Podesta, she would have won in a landslide.

Focusing on Hillary's loss is a distraction we do not need right now , 100% of the focus should be on Trump's collusion with Russia and his turning the White House into a Pay for Play Casino for dictators of foreign governments to benefit his family's personal businesses.

[bettyellen]

17. Oh bullshit. They investigated crap they don't care about at all to manipulate voters, period. It

Was the sole reason for Benghazi as well. You can fall for their double standards and waste of tax payers money and time at your own peril. It was all partisan bullshit and we're suckers for going along with it. Especially with all they want to ignore and cover up right now.

[mvd]

21. You make good points.

Certainly Comey's action had an impact, but there were so many factors. I can't believe such a joke in Trump was even close.

[StevieM]

32. I disagree. I don't think Comey tipped a close election. I think he completely redefined the race

in the last 11 days. Hillary was headed towards a decisive history. He obliterated her candidacy.

And not for the first time either. He also decimated her with his July press conference. And before that he devastated her simply by placing her under FBI investigation for absolutely no legitimate reason.

The 2016 election was all about an email server and the FBI setting out to destroy the Democratic candidate. If Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley had been the early favorite, or the ultimate nominee, I am quite certain they would have found themselves under FBI investigation.

[mvd]

36. I guess we'll agree to disagree

I don't think it was a blow out at any point. I believe Hillary had the same negatives before Comey. I do think there is a good chance she would have won without Comey though.

[StevieM]

39. I think that without the last minute Comey intervention Clinton would have won by 6 points

nationally, and 333 electoral votes. And that represents a comedown from her polling numbers with two weeks to go.

There is no evidence that people were ashamed to tell pollsters they were voting for Trump. I think there was a lot more vitriol associated with Clinton.

HRC wasn't always the source of venom that she was by the election. She left office as Secretary of State with 69 percent job approval and 65 percent favorability. She was not a lightning rod. Then the GOP acted in an evil manner after Benghazi and decided to capitalize on a tragedy to tear her down. And then came the fake email scandal, which dominated the election from beginning to end.

Clinton's numbers before the final Comey intervention would have been even higher had it not been for Comey's July press conference. And they would have also been higher had it not been for a pointless investigation into her email server. Comey completely redefined Clinton to a lot of voters.

Had he simply refrained from launching a bogus investigation she would have obliterated Trump, even with all the other attacks on her, including a GOP Congress moaning about some email server.

[mvd]

40. I just don't think we can blame Comey for all her negatives like that

Her team was too slow to respond effectively to the e-mail controversy. Also she had high unfavorables from the beginning of the campaign. No doubt about that. I do agree that Comey was a factor, but there were a lot of things that went wrong. Comey is definitely a weasel and we agree there.

[StevieM]

49. Let me put it like this. Hillary had once been known as a rebounder.

She took serious hits, but she got up and came back. She recovered from high negatives.

She had low poll numbers coming out of the 2008 primaries, but was popular again by 2009, enjoyed great poll numbers throughout her time as Secretary of State and left office with sky high numbers.

She was the only Democrat leading the Republican candidates in the polls in 2013 and 2014. All the other Democrats, including Joe Biden, were trailing them.

And she even rebounded on Benghazi after the GOP hearings.

Comey shattered her ability to rebound.

Here is an article from 2008 in which Obama alludes to that. Maybe you will remember this amusing anecdote from back in the day.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2008/05/02/4432653-obama-plays-metaphor-filled-game?lite

[deurbano]

43. Totally agree.

Kevin McCarthy lost the speakership when he bragged about what the Republicans had "accomplished" in bringing down her approval ratings. (He wasn't supposed to actually come out and admit it!) But Comey legitimized that partisan witch hunt with the FBI investigation, then continued to inflict more damage with his unprecedented July news conference, followed by the final coup de grace in late October. Clinton was amazingly resilient, in spite of the overwhelming amount of bullshit thrown out her... but she ran out of time to overcome that last barrage.

Just want to add, though, that I believe she still could have triumphed without a complicit media. They let the Republicans define her as "crooked"... and seemed to look for any evidence to support that narrative... and with the FBI investigation, everything worked together to reinforce the emerging (created) "conventional wisdom" that she was somehow "corrupt." And how often did any journalist mention Comey's role in the Whitewater (etc.) persecution (and I mean persecution) of both Clintons? Even given an unjustified FBI investigation, with that history Comey should have been pressured to recuse himself... or at the very least, that history should have been prominently highlighted in any articles about the investigation. Instead, the NYT and Washington Post chose to feature excerpts from "Clinton Cash," a spurious Breitbart product that helped negatively shape coverage of her campaign from the very beginning, maliciously strengthening the completely unfounded corruption narrative. And the media, in general, were shameless in their lack of skepticism regarding Comey's partisanship, helping him tip the scales of our election when they should have been challenging the Republican narrative, providing historical context and playing the robust media role a successful democracy requires.

[Baitball Blogger]

22. This is wrong thinking.

There will be human vulnerabilities in politics and that goes for both parties. The way the private information was extracted and used against the politician is the main issue. Especially when the right had to fabricate crimes against children originating in that Pizza Parlor because there was nothing to those emails.

Though I think you do make good points for politicians in general. A cautionary tale, indeed.

And we should talk about Comey's omission at this time because talking about how harshly he treated Hillary only accentuates how he gave Trump a free pass.

[L. Coyote]

55. Total bullshit.

[Tatiana]

64. Hillary was definitely poorly served by her inner circle.

I'm especially disappointed with Huma. Hillary is loyal, but out of respect for the campaign and to not add to the candidate's negative headlines, Huma should have resigned. Period. She should not have put Hillary in a position of firing her. But that being said, Hillary should have had the guts to remove the people who were damaging the campaign, like she finally did with Patti Solis Doyle in 2008.

And Podesta... wow. Just unbelievably stupid mistakes for someone with his experience. Hillary should have just purchased the OFA crew. She probably would have had better advice and better results than she did with her team. And lets not forget Mark Penn from the 2008 effort. Just all around a poor choice of staff, in terms of the candidate.

[world wide wally]

18. Comey kept saying it could have been "catastrophic" if he didn't report this new "information" to

Congress. I am wondering what he considers "catastrophic", but I know he would never answer that. Just WTF is the absolute worst thing Hillary could have been doing? ... Colluding with Putin?

[Baitball Blogger]

23. Really. This Russian connection seems to be more catastrophic.

[VWolf]

24. To Comey,

"catastrophic" would have meant Pres Clinton.

[njhoneybadger]

60. Comey is full of shit

Comey had plenty of time before Election Day to check the emails on weiner's computer. If he found anything then he could have reported that new "information" to congress.

[Butterflylady]

19. He fully knew

what he was doing. He is a traitor to fullest extent. I'm not critizing Obama, but by appointing him Director of the FBI was a huge, huge blunder.

[NunnesBuznat]

28. Obama trying to "reach across the aisle" was a huge blunder in its entirety

All it did was force out the republicans willing to work with him, and have them primaried by lunatics that never learned to share as children.

[calimary]

37. Welcome to DU, Butterflylady!

I CANNOT forgive Comey for this. Aw gee, what a shame for him and his "mild case of nausea" that he MIGHT ("might"??? Are you freakin' KIDDING ME????) have influenced the election?

Hey, Comey: take two of these and don't bother calling me, EVER. Shoving them straight up your ass would be my advice if I was compelled to give you any.

[pscot]

25. Comey is a loser

He's a man with no honor.

[NunnesBuznat]

26. Hopefully the more negative press he gets, and the more he realizes he'll get an extremely

negative footnote in the history books, the more he'll want to be known as "the man who took down a president" instead.

[Baitball Blogger]

27. It's a good way to look at it.

[calimary]

38. Welcome to DU, NunnesBuznat!

One could certainly hope. But I have VERY little confidence in Director Comey at this point. That would be about the only way he could rehabilitate himself and his reputation (or what's left of it), in my opinion.

[standingtall]

29. Fuck Comey

I firmly believe he did what he did to save his job and because he is a partisan hack. If Hilary would've won,he would've been fired. He knew good and well his actions would have an impact on the election. If Trump won he knew he would have leverage on Trump,because of the on going Russian investigation. Technically Trump could still fire Comey, but the optics would look terrible.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

30. Look at all of us doing Trump a favour right now.

He'd love it if Comey got fired. He even tweeted about it last night. He's afraid of him.

[tavernier]

34. Comey won't get fired.

He knows where the bodies are buried.

[cheyanne]

31. Is what is bad for the FBI also bad for the US? Comey's blindness.

Comey has supported his case by saying it would have been catastrophic FOR THE FBI if the public had found out that he had not released the information about the Weiner emails.

So let's look at what happened when he didn't release information about Trump's Russian connection. A connection that was not just maybe in some new found emails but had been investigated for months on actual evidence of impeachable offenses.

The upshot is now that we now have an Executive branch that is totally compromised and the suspects are running the investigations.

[Baitball Blogger]

35. I know. They would throw a baby in front of them in order to deflect a direct blow.

Old trick by scoundrels.

[calimary]

33. Take a number.

Take a number, my friend. I bet there's quite a long line there. He didn't assuage ANY of my fears or concerns or suspicions. Not at all.

This whole argument about "Speak" or "Conceal." How come it only applied to Hillary and not to the then-ongoing investigation of trump/Russia? If he was so damned interested in fair play and doing the right thing, why didn't he try to make sure the playing field stayed level? Why did he choose "Speak" for Clinton and "Conceal" for trump?

Better yet: WHY DIDN'T HE WAIT TIL HE KNEW WHAT HE HAD - BEFORE HE BLABBED? Wouldn't it raise fewer suspicions if one simply waited to see what there was, before making some premature public pronouncement with all kinds of ominous undertones that he HAD TO understand would be there? Why amputate the limb before you confirmed whether it was actually cancerous or not?

He hasn't eased my suspicion ONE BIT. He hasn't convinced me otherwise - AT ALL. Just cements my latest impression of him.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

42. Remember: Comey wanted to go public with

The fact that there was a TrumpRussia investigation, AND OBAMA STOPPED HIM. Nobody thought Cheeto would win.

There are a lot of people responsible for this fiasco, but to smear Comey as the antichrist is not helpful at this point. It only helps Trump.

[LaydeeBug]

45. I didn't know Obama stopped him...really? nt

[Sculpin Beauregard]

46. Yes! Link to Newsweek article below.

There is so much misinformation and assumptions around this. It's dangerous, because Trump wants him gone!

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.newsweek.com/fbi-director-james-comey-russian-tampering-election-576417%3Famp%3D1

[Baitball Blogger]

48. I may be getting my scandals confused, but...

Didn't Obama look for bipartisan agreement on the decision to go public and it was Mitch, the Turtle, who told him he would accuse him of being partisan if he brought that information out before the election.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

50. I think you're right. Mitch is a slimeball.

[kentuck]

41. Only "mildly nauseous"..

He said.

[Gothmog]

44. Comey is pond scum and lacks any professional or other ethics

[Snake Plissken]

47. James Comey Goes Off: Loretta Lynchs Meeting with Bill Clinton Was the Capper for Me

http://www.mediaite.com/online/james-comey-goes-off-loretta-lynchs-meeting-with-bill-clinton-was-the-capper-for-me/

“And then the capper was — and I’m not picking on the Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who I like very much — but her meeting with President Clinton on that airplane was the capper for me,” he exclaimed.

Comey added that the “best chance” for the system was if he stepped away and told the American public this is “what the FBI did” and “here’s what we found and think.”

I don't see how Comey can claim he was being objective after hearing that statement, but what I think about Comey and his motives, doesn't matter, what matters is that asinine meeting on the runway of an airport alone cost Hillary more votes in the swing states than Hillary ended up losing by in those swing states.

It was an unforced error by Bill Clinton simply because he was tone deaf to what undecided swing voters were feeling. People who were undecided already felt the Clintons were Washington insiders who believed they were above the law and could not be trusted, and a stupid meeting like that just added to their concerns.

The more I look back at all the stupid mistakes Hillary's campaign made, the more it pisses me to see how easily a lowlife like Trump could have been defeated if they just effort into listening to the concerns of voters they needed to convince ... but here we are stuck with a pile of shit like Trump.

[StevieM]

53. Comey is a liar. He was always going to hold that press conference.

In fact, if Clinton hadn't chatted with Lynch he probably would have said all the same things but not even recommended against indicting her. He would have trashed her and then said "it's up to the Justice Department as to what they want to do now." That would have made her look even worse.

If Clinton had been on the same runway with Loretta Lynch and not met with her, like he had with Ted Cruz a little while earlier, the GOP would have claimed that this validated that indeed she was under criminal investigation, and even her own husband knew it.

Maybe Bill Clinton didn't see it as being a big deal since there was obviously never a basis for indicting her for anything. The whole story was utter nonsense from the beginning. She was never in danger of being indicted. The claim that she was was all make believe.

Comey was always going to find a way to destroy her. That's what the whole bogus investigation was about--there was never a legitimate reason for an FBI investigation.

I disagree that HRC made a bunch of stupid mistakes. I think it was a well-run campaign that just wasn't winnable. And if Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley had been the nominee, or early favorite, I think they would also have found themselves under FBI investigation for some reason.

I disagree that HRC didn't listen to the concerns of the voters. She tried to focus on economic issues and had elaborate plans to make the country better. The voters just weren't listening--they were focused on an email server instead.

[Snake Plissken]

59. This is why Republicans will probably continue to control Congress and the White House

Unless Trump goes to prison, which I am still holding out hope for.

Telling voters they are wrong instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, will yield the same exact result.

It was a terribly run campaign, this election could have been easily won and should have been easily won.

Voters were sick of Washington not listening to them, so they picked a pile of shit con man like Trump over arguably the most qualified candidate to ever run for President in United States history ... and why? because Trump told them what they wanted to hear, and Hillary's campaign didn't, in fact she didn't even bother showing up, take Wisconsin for instance , Hillary never even stepped foot in Wisconsin the entire campaign.

[StevieM]

61. I disagree with everything you wrote. I think it was a very well-run campaign.

We didn't hear anything about this badly run campaign until she lost. And, yes, we would have heard about it during the campaign season before the vote happened. People regularly comment on things that are being done wrong by candidates during the course of the election.

After HRC lost the media immediately announced that she ran a bad campaign and then started looking for various reasons.

Hillary talked at length to the voters about the issues affecting their lives. They didn't want to hear it--they were obsessed with an email server. I don't know how anyone can remember the campaign as being anything other than a relentless effort to tear HRC down on a personal level, and convince the voters that she was corrupt.

There is no evidence that the voters reacted favorably to the Trump economic argument. The exit polls, which I admit were flawed, showed that voters favored Hillary on the economy.

Hillary didn't go to Wisconsin like the way that she didn't go to Minnesota--neither was considered in play. Donald Trump CANCELED an appearance in Wisconsin with a few days to go.

Also, she did campaign in Wisconsin, through phone banking, canvassing and television commercials.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

52. Read thread linked below. Comey tried to go public with TrumpRussia

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029011379

[joeybee12]

58. He's a lying fuckwad. Knr

[moondust]

63. I agree with Rep. Schiff.

Comey exercised poor judgment--at best.

ONLY if he had some indisputably incriminating information on a Presidential candidate might he then be correct in releasing anything about it during an election campaign. Even then maybe not. With nothing indisputably incriminating, he should have erred on the side of non-interference. It's not that difficult--and I still suspect he deliberately tried to influence the election outcome.