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  1. #1
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    James Comey, FBI director fired.

    Now I wonder why he would do that.
    I suppose if you have the power to fire those who are invetigating you why not.
    more and more like a fascist dictatorship.

    Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, sweeping away the man who is responsible for the bureau's investigation into whether members of his campaign team colluded with Russia in its interference in last year's election.

    The bombshell announcement that sent shock and surprise ricocheting through Washington ends the career of the man who was once seen as the unimpeachable and nonpartisan ideal of how a law enforcement officer should behave. But Comey saw his reputation tarnished when he was dragged into the toxic politics of the 2016 campaign.
    In recent days, he again came under fire for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. Many Democrats believe that his announcement that he was re-opening the probe 11 days before the election cost the former secretary of state the presidency.
    The Trump administration said his dismissal was the direct result of his handling of the Clinton probe.
    But Democrats rejected that notion, immediately raising comparisons to the Watergate era and claiming that the FBI chief was fired because his investigation got too close to the White House.
    Clinton aides react to Comey firing with concern, not joy
    Clinton aides react to Comey firing with concern, not joy
    The Trump administration, however, said Comey was fired based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigation since he was a member of Trump's campaign team.
    In a signed letter, Trump informed Comey that he was "hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately," explaining that he reached the conclusion that Comey is "not able to effectively lead the bureau."
    "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump told Comey in the letter. "I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors."
    In a separate letter, rich in irony, Rosenstein laid out the reasons for Comey's firing, arguing that it was his transgressions over the Clinton email investigation that were the cause of his dismissal.
    Senior White House officials did not think the firing would be a big political explosion, a source with knowledge of discussions inside the White House told CNN's Dana Bash. The thinking was that because Democrats were saying precisely what Rosenstein said in his letter and that there wouldn't be a backlash.
    What was not thought through, apparently, was finding an answer to why now.
    At the center of Rosenstein's rationale for recommending Comey's firing was the director's handling of the investigation into Clinton's private server, namely his decision to recommend no charges be filed and the news conference he held to explain his reasoning.
    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/09/po...out/index.html
    Last edited by Cujo; 10-05-2017 at 07:41 AM.

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    [QUOTEWASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, abruptly terminating the leader of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s advisers colluded with the Russian government to steer the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

    The stunning development in Mr. Trump’s nascent presidency drew comparisons to President Richard M. Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre,” in which Nixon purged the Justice Department in the middle of the Watergate investigation. Mr. Trump’s move immediately ignited Democratic calls for an independent prosecutor to lead the Russia probe.

    Mr. Trump explained the firing by citing Mr. Comey’s controversial handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, even though the president was widely seen to have benefited from that inquiry. Mr. Trump had also once praised Mr. Comey for being “gutsy” in pursuit of Mrs. Clinton during the campaign.

    “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Mr. Trump said in a letter to Mr. Comey dated Tuesday.

    Mr. Comey, who is three years into a 10-year term at the helm of the F.B.I., learned from news reports that he had been fired while addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles. While Mr. Comey spoke, television screens in the background began flashing the news. Shortly after, a letter was delivered to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington.

    The abrupt firing raised questions over whether Mr. Trump was trying to influence the Russia investigation. But the president said he was following recommendations from the Justice Department, which criticized how Mr. Comey concluded the investigation into Mrs. Clinton.

    “It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission,” Mr. Trump wrote.

    Mr. Comey’s firing came hours after the F.B.I. corrected his testimony last week about how classified information ended up on the laptop of the disgraced former congressman Anthony D. Weiner.


    Document: White House Announces Firing of James Comey
    Mr. Comey had told the Senate Judiciary Committee that during the F.B.I.’s investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, officers uncovered evidence that her aide, Huma Abedin, had “forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information” to Mr. Weiner, her husband.

    But the F.B.I. told Congress that only a few of the emails had been forwarded and that the vast majority were simply backed up to Mr. Weiner’s laptop.

    Mr. Comey broke with longstanding tradition and policies by publicly discussing the Clinton case last July and chastising her “careless” handling of classified information. Then, in the campaign’s final days, Mr. Comey announced that the F.B.I. was reopening the investigation, a move that earned him widespread criticism.

    Yet many of the facts cited as evidence for Mr. Comey’s dismissal were well known when Mr. Trump kept him on the job. And both Mr. Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had praised Mr. Comey back then as “gutsy.”

    The president has the authority to fire the F.B.I. director for any reason. Officials at the F.B.I. said they learned through news reports of Mr. Comey’s dismissal, which Mr. Trump described as effective immediately.

    Under the F.B.I.’s normal rules of succession, Mr. Comey’s deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, a career F.B.I. officer, becomes acting director. The White House said the search for a new director will begin immediately.

    The firing puts Democrats in a difficult position. Many had hoped that Mrs. Clinton would fire Mr. Comey soon after taking office, and blamed him as costing her the election. But under Mr. Trump, the outspoken and independent-minded Mr. Comey was seen as an important check on the new administration.

    “Any attempt to stop or undermine this F.B.I. investigation would raise grave constitutional issues,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. “We await clarification by the White House as soon as possible as to whether this investigation will continue and whether it will have a credible lead so that we know that it’ll have a just outcome.”

    Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.

    As the F.B.I. investigated Hillary Clinton and the Trump campaign, James B. Comey tried to keep the bureau out of politics but plunged it into the center of a bitter election.
    Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, praised Mr. Comey’s service but said new leadership at the F.B.I. “will restore confidence in the organization.”


    “Many, including myself, have questioned his actions more than once over the last year,” Mr. Blunt, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

    Mr. Trump’s decision to fire Mr. Comey marks the second time since taking office that the president has fired a top law enforcement official. In early February, Mr. Trump fired Sally Q. Yates, who had worked in the Obama administration but was serving as acting attorney general.

    But the president’s firing of Mr. Comey was far more consequential. Ms. Yates was a holdover, and would only have served in the Trump administration for a matter of days or weeks. By contrast, Mr. Comey was in the midst of his term as director of the bureau.

    The White House said Mr. Sessions and the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, pushed for Mr. Comey’s dismissal.

    “I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails,” Mr. Rosenstein wrote in another letter that was released by the White House, “and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”

    A longtime prosecutor who served as the deputy attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, Mr. Comey came into office in 2013 with widespread bipartisan support. He has essentially been in a public feud with Mr. Trump since long before the presidential election.

    In a Twitter message this week, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Comey of being “the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton,” accusing him of giving her “a free pass for many bad deeds.”


    Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.”

    Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, offered a veiled hint of the bombshell earlier in the day on Tuesday, though no reporters picked up on it.

    During his daily briefing, Mr. Spicer was asked — as he frequently is — whether Mr. Comey still has the confidence of the president. Instead of saying yes, Mr. Spicer danced around the question.

    “I have no reason to believe — I haven’t asked him,” Mr. Spicer said. “I have not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this.”

    A reporter noted that Mr. Spicer had previously indicated that the president did have confidence in Mr. Comey, but asked whether recent revelations about Mr. Comey’s misstatement during testimony on Capitol Hill would change that.

    “In light of what you’re telling me, I don’t want to start speaking on behalf of the president without speaking to him first,” Mr. Spicer said.

    The president’s decision to fire Mr. Comey appeared to be the culmination of the bad will between the men that intensified in early March, when the president posted Twitter messages accusing former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his office.

    The next morning, word spread quickly that Mr. Comey wanted the Justice Department to issue a statement saying that he had no evidence to support the president’s accusation. The department did not issue such a statement.

    For weeks after, Mr. Trump insisted that his accusation was correct. In dramatic testimony later in March, Mr. Comey said that he had no information to back up the president’s allegations.][/QUOTE]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/u...-fbi.html?_r=0

  3. #3
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    The only time anything remotely close to this happened was in 1973 aka watergate. He just fired the guy who is investigating him and tried to pass it off that it was because of the blundering of Hillarys emails. Something he knew about months ago.

    Now he can put one of his stooges as FBI director. I bet he nomitates someone like Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie. He is definitely scared.
    Last edited by bsnub; 10-05-2017 at 08:00 AM.

  4. #4
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    Has Trump just shot himself in the foot?

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    The Apprentice has gone to his head...The dour cnut...Heh...

  6. #6
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    He's a tyrant. Exonerating himself from guilt in his letter explaining the firing. He thinks he is above the law.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo
    Has Trump just shot himself in the foot?
    Definitely! This is blowing up all over the news. You just don't fire FBI directors.

  8. #8
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    Stunning.

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    It coincides with the Federal grand jury issuing subpoenas in the FBI investigation.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo
    Has Trump just shot himself in the foot?
    Definitely! This is blowing up all over the news. You just don't fire FBI directors.
    Yeah, it's supposed to be a 10 year gig. We kinda talked about this several weeks ago.

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    White House deputy press sec: 'Time to move' on from Russian investigation. (now that Comey's been fired) The barefaced cheek of these assholes.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ite-house-live

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    ^^ Exactly and the reason for that is because the FBI director is not supposed to switch with every election. The office is not supposed to be politicized like it most likely will be now.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    ^^ Exactly and the reason for that is because the FBI director is not supposed to switch with every election. The office is not supposed to be politicized like it most likely will be now.
    Publicly I'm sure HRC will express her shock at Comey's firing but behind closed doors she's probably ecstatic.

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    I've forgotten the details.

    To have a Special Prosecutor (such as Ken Star) does Congress have to authorize it?

    If so, with the Repubs in power, I doubt that will happen (unless they can garner enough support for an 'Independent Prosecutor' or Special Prosecutor.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza
    To have a Special Prosecutor (such as Ken Star) does Congress have to authorize it?
    The Attorney general appoints.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cold Pizza
    If so, with the Repubs in power, I doubt that will happen
    Several Republicans Senators have already came out and said they are shocked by this. I am watching this go down right now and it is a shit storm.

    Apparently Drumpf and the WH are saying they are completely caught off guard by the reaction. Clearly those idiots are not students of basic American history. Only one FBI directer has ever been fired before today btw.

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    ^ Thanks for the info.

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    ^^ What are you watching? My live CNN feed is MSNBC with Maddow for some reason.

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    ^ It's screwed up, I tells ya. Can't get CNN now. MSNBC is in it's place on youtube.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit
    My live CNN feed is MSNBC with Maddow for some reason.
    Is it terrifying?

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    ^No, just confusing. I've got CNN's live stream now.

  22. #22
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    ^ After Don Lemon they are going to do another live special report.

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    Does anyone have any links to this blog spot:




    "If confirmed, the news that a grand jury has been convened and has started issuing subpoenas suggests that the investigation into the Trump camp’s links with Moscow has entered a new phase."

  24. #24
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    CNN exclusive: Grand jury subpoenas issued in FBI's Russia investigation

    ^CNN exclusive: Grand jury subpoenas issued in FBI's Russia investigation - CNNPolitics.com

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    CNN just said Trump is meeting with the Russian foreign minister tomorrow.

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