Wednesday, May 02, 2018

Questions for Comey

I doubt that I'll ever get to ask former FBI Directory Comey any questions but there are a few I'd love to ask:

1) You said that you announced that the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server was reopened because you feared that it would cast aspersions on her presidency if people found out after the election that an active investigation had been kept secret. You believed the polls showing that Clinton was going to win and worried that the news would affect the legitimacy of her presidency.

However, informing President-elect Trump about the Pee Tape provided a "news hook" and allowed the media to report on the Steele Dossier. This undercut the legitimacy of Trump's presidency. If you were dispassionately serving the office of the President then why didn't you find some way to brief Trump on the dossier without undercutting his legitimacy? Or were you hoping to undercut him?

2) You said that you didn't want the FBI to investigate the Pee Tape because you didn't want it to go on record that the President was being investigated. However, the press was reporting that the President was being investigated for collusion with Russia. One of the reasons that the President fired you was that you refused to publicly state that the President was not under investigation.

Given that you were willing to let the press claim that the President was under investigation when he was not, why were you so worried about the harm it would do him if an actual investigation was opened? If it is harmful to the country for people to hear that the President is under investigation then why didn't you shoot down the various rumors? And if it is alright then why not open an investigation as the President asked you to do several times?

3) Given that the FBI was using the Steele Dossier to spy on the President Elect's staff, why were you so uninterested in the origins of the information? To this day you seem to be surprisingly ignorant about who paid for what. Specifically, Republicans paid Fusion for opposition research but Steele was not involved until the Clinton campaign was paying the bills.

4) As soon as you met Donald Trump for the first time you decided that you needed to memorialize all meetings with him. What was the reason for this? Your first meeting was when you briefed him on the Pee Tape. You say that he praised you earlier and asked you to stay on and that he seemed shocked by the tape. Outside of passing judgement on the state of his marriage, what happened that made you decide to memorialize this meeting? Or are you rationalizing partisan dislike for the President-Elect? Had you already judged him based on campaign material and the Access Hollywood tape?

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