Comey Looking At Whether FBI Agents Leaked Info To Giuliani During Campaign

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo


By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND Published MAY 3, 2017 11:42 AM

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that he was looking into whether agents at the bureau leaked sensitive information to reporters or public figures, including close Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, during the 2016 election.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked about former FBI official Jim Kallstrom’s and Giuliani’s claims that they had inside information about the bureau’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

“Now either they’re lying or there is a serious problem within the bureau,” Leahy said. “Did anybody in the FBI during this 2016 campaign have contact with Rudy Giuliani about the Clinton investigation?”

“I don’t know yet, but if I find out that people were leaking information about our investigations whether to reporters or private parties, there will be severe consequences,” Comey replied.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/comey-looking-at-whether-fbi-agents-leaked-to-giuliani

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Comey: It Was Appropriate To Comment On Clinton Probe And Not Russia Probe

By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND Published MAY 3, 2017 11:19 AM

The FBI handled its probes into Russia’s meddling to help Donald Trump win the U.S. election and into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in the same way, Director James Comey argued at a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“You said absolutely nothing regarding the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections into Russia’s illegal efforts to help elect Donald Trump,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told Comey during the hearing. “Was it appropriate for you to comment on one investigation repeatedly and not say anything about the other?”

“I think so,” Comey replied.

“I think I treated both investigations consistently under the same principles,” he continued.

Comey noted that the FBI did not confirm the existence of its probe into Clinton’s email server until three months after it began, and then said “not another word, not a peep about it until we were finished.”

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/comey-appropriate-to-discuss-clinton-probe-not-russia-investigation

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. NO, you are wrong, you did NOT treat them the same at ALL. Because of YOU this WORLD

might literally not survive now.

[niyad]

2. hey, comey, YOU may believe that bs, and the puke mouth breathers might, but the rest

of the world knows you are full of it.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. No, the mouth breathers know he's full of shit, too, but they don't care

because they're #winning.

[niyad]

8. you are, of course, correct.

[PoliticAverse]

3. So has Giuliani been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating the matter? n/t

[NewRedDawn]

4. Comey is a traitor

I been saying it from the beginning. Nothing I have seen or heard has changed my opinion.

[StevieM]

11. James Comey completely determined the course of the election from beginning to end.

There was never any basis for an FBI investigation, let alone the July press conference or last-minute intervention.

Comey is a bigger threat to our country than Trump is.

[niyad]

5. rachel covered this last november

Allegations mount against FBI, possible campaign intervention
11/04/16 09:46 AM
By Steve Benen

For much of 2016, the fear was that Russian President Vladimir Putin and officials from his government would interfere in the American presidential election, taking wildly improper steps to boost Donald Trump. More recently, however, related concerns came to the fore – about domestic officials doing the same thing.

A week ago, FBI Director James Comey intervened in the presidential campaign in a highly provocative way, releasing a vague letter to Congress about Hillary Clinton emails that seemed almost designed to generate innuendo. Reuters reported yesterday Comey “was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency” when he decided to release the document. The same Reuters report added that “a faction of investigators” based in the FBI’s New York Field Office is “known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton.”

The Rachel Maddow Show, 11/3/16, 10:34 PM ET
Possibility of FBI leaks to Trump campaign raises alarm

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/new-concerns-fbi-is-leaking-to-trump-campaign-800667203987
(the fbi stuff starts around 9:00 in the video)
As Rachel reported last night, the effects of such anti-Clinton hostility within the bureau are raising the kind of questions the FBI hoped to leave behind in the J. Edgar Hoover era. Consider the report from the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman, who discussed his reporting on the show.
Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
The scope of these concerns helps to reinforce impressions that the FBI has its thumb on the scale when it comes to this year’s presidential election. Comey’s letter to Congress is a problem. Anti-Clinton officials at the bureau taking “Clinton Cash” seriously is a problem. The FBI’s Twitter feed is a problem. Allegations that pro-Trump officials at the FBI are leaking to Rudy Giuliani are a problem.

. . . . .



https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/05/03/stephen-colberts-late-show-monologue-sparks-fire-colbert-backlash/101234342/

[Snake Plissken]

6. Well yeah, that is why Giuliani asked for an immunity deal

I can't to see Giuliani brought in front of a judge in leg irons

[calimary]

9. Seems to me he blew a big hole in his testimony about the "Speak" versus "Conceal" issue.

Need to say straight off the top - I'm NO lawyer or legal expert.

However...

This business about him facing two doors: "Speak" and "Conceal".

How come that applied to the investigation into Hillary's emails - and the investigation ALSO then ongoing about trump/Russia. WHY was it okay for him to choose the "Conceal" door when it came to trump/Russia, and yet choose the "Speak" door for Clinton - PARTICULARLY WHEN THERE WAS NO WAY TO KNOW, WHEN HE CHOSE THE "SPEAK" OPTION, WHAT THEY MIGHT HAVE FOUND OR NOT FOUND IN THOSE EMAILS.

He just (as of this writing) was pounding the table insisting he made the right decision and blah-blah-blah. I'm still having a LOT of trouble reconciling that.

NOT impressed.

I mean, SHIT! Wouldn't it make more sense TO KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE, BEFORE YOU BLAB???

[Turbineguy]

10. It seems he framed his dilema in such a way

that he could "speak" and be justified.

[calimary]

12. Perhaps. But such a justification doesn't hold any water, at least to me.

[FigTree]

13. Further, here is a difference between not speaking and "concealing".

Concealing is wilfully hiding information. Not speaking would have been holding comment until facts are established. Concealing was impossible at that time because there were no facts to hide.
In addition to that, another incoherence: doing the right thing might be difficult but it never hurts because the act contains its own reward. And , in fact, the more difficult it is, the less it hurts. The nausea comes from the awareness that one had to swallow something bad, not something right.

On edit: This just for the sake of normal logic. Which has long since ceased to be of any import in this country's political life.

[calimary]

15. Man, no kidding on your last line there.

Logic? WHAT logic? That's just for those "pointy-headed" "libtards" and "cheese-eating surrender-monkeys", so I hear.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. There is this important distinction about the Comey/hillary thing

Feinstein asked why HE notified the public about a new investigation into Clinton’s emails just eleven days before the election.

Feinstein: “You sent a public letter to Congress.”

Comey: “I sent a private letter to committee chairmen.”

Chaffetz was the House Comm. chairman.
Comey is saying Chaffetz leaked the letter, and indeed Chaffetz did sent a Tweet about it.

[Turbineguy]

16. So it's

"I fucked up, I trusted Chaffetz!"

Maybe that's why Chaffetz is pulling the plug.

[itcfish]

17. And Feinstein responded

The private letter to the committee chairmen was leaked to the public 10 seconds after it was received (or something like that)

[truthisfreedom]

18. Henhouse fox corrupt comey deserves prison now.