We learned a lot about James Comey during his testimony today – particularly that he had a certain disdain for Trump.
As you’re all aware, last month the New York Times published an explosive report alleging that President Donald Trump had asked Comey to cease the FBI’s investigation into Michael Flynn back in February (which they have not done). The source for the claim was a memo by Comey, which the Times attributed to a “culture of note-taking” in the FBI.
Comey said in his prepared statement that he didn’t keep detailed memos on his conversations with Obama like he did with Donald Trump. His excuse was that he took notes in the case of Trump because he didn’t trust Trump to tell the truth. Comey also didn’t take any notes during his three-hour interview with Hillary Clinton the weekend before letting her off the hook in the initial investigation into her private email server.
As it turns out, Comey had asked a friend to leak his memo to the public, and it wasn’t even true.
But if it was, even that wouldn’t have revealed any wrongdoing on Trump’s part, as the liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz is reminding the more hysterical figures on the Left.
According to Comey’s memo, Trump said to him that he, Trump, hoped that Comey would be “able to let Flynn go” seemingly indicating he hoped that there would be no prosecution.
But such language does not meet obstruction of justice parameters.
The language could just as well be Trump’s hope that Comey would be able to, fairly, find Flynn innocent of any problem. Moreover there was no action or pressure made to have Comey actually drop the investigation of Flynn, which continues apace. Indeed, during one conversation between Trump and Flynn, Trump even suggested that Comey should look at some more tangential associates just to make sure there was nothing that could be compromising. Hardly something he would suggest he was trying to stop an investigation.
But Alan Dershowitz makes an even more salient point.
He said that effectively since the President can pardon anyone, it can’t be obstruction.
H/T YoungCons
The key point is that “constitutionally, a president may direct an intelligence agent to stop an investigation.” According to Dershowitz, the “best proof” of that fact “is that Trump could’ve easily pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the entire investigation would have been over anyway.”
Without Comey being called to testify today, we would’ve never known that it was him responsible for leaking his memos, and that they contained bogus information to smear Trump.
And remember, this is the guy who liberals think tried to influence the election by turning public opinion against Hillary Clinton for investigating her private email server. Yeah, right.
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