Trump to FBI Director James Comey: You’re Fired

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Family Security Matters

by MELANIE HUNTER ARTER

The White House announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey, saying that the president “acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”

“The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer  said in a statement.

Spicer did not mention the firing at the White House press briefing Tuesday, which started later than usual. Spicer said he had some “business” to attend to but did not give specifics.

James Comey makes the government safe for corruption

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Family Security Matters

by LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD

 

It is times like this that words almost fail me, but, thinking about FBI Director James Comey, “coward,” “disgrace” and “cheap political hack” come to mind.

Other words like “hypocrite” and “double standard” are, in this case, equally appropriate.

The FBI investigated Hillary Clinton for alleged violations of U.S. Code Title 18 § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, subsection (f):

“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer- Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”

On national television, Comey, describing his reasons for not charging Hillary Clinton with a crime, said:

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. ”

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Comey’s FBI Helped Convict Navy Reservist who “Handled Classified Materials Inappropriately”

Judicial Watch

Illustrating that FBI Director James Comey is a liar and a fraud, his agency helped convict a Navy reservist last summer of the same crime that he just cleared Hillary Clinton of committing. In that case the reservist from northern California got criminally charged—as per FBI recommendation—for having classified material on personal electronic devices that weren’t authorized by the government to contain such information. The FBI investigation didn’t reveal evidence that the reservist intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel, so he was just being “extremely careless” like Clinton and her top aides.

Similar offenses, vastly different outcome. The key factor, of course, is that one subject is a regular Joe without Clinton-like political connections. His name is Bryan H. Nishimura and last July he pleaded guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials after the FBI found such materials were copied and stored in at least one “unauthorized and unclassified system.” Clinton had droves of classified and top secret materials in an “unauthorized and unclassified system.” Nishimura had been deployed to Afghanistan as a regional engineer for the U.S. military and had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers, according to the FBI announcement, which defines the reservist’s crime in the following manner; “handled classified materials inappropriately.” So did Clinton on a much larger scale.

Last July Nishimura pleaded guilty to “unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials” and was sentenced to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. He was further ordered to permanently surrender all government security clearance. Hillary Clinton could soon have the highest security clearance available if she gets elected president making Comey’s inconceivable recommendation that “no charges are appropriate in this case” all the more outrageous. Incredibly, during his 15-minute press conference this week Comey provided details of how Clinton violated the law by exchanging dozens of email chains containing classified and top secret information and how she mishandled national defense information on her outlaw email server. The FBI director even outlined how Clinton compromised the country’s national defense to “hostile actors” yet he asserts Clinton and her cohorts didn’t intend to break the law. “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” Comey said, “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Enough to be criminally charged like the Navy reservist from northern California.

When Comey, the federal prosecutor in the Martha Stewart case, put the television celebrity in jail for participating in an insider trading scheme, he acknowledged the importance of not granting special treatment to a rich and famous person. Stewart went to prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a sudden stock sale that helped her avoid losing thousands of dollars. In an interview with his college newspaper a few years after Stewart’s conviction Comey, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that if Stewart were Jane Doe she would have been prosecuted. “I thought of my hesitation about the case due to someone being rich and famous, and how it shouldn’t be that way,” Comey said. “I decided we had to do it.”

Here’s Why FBI Director Comey Can’t Give Hillary A Free Pass

 

Investors.com

When FBI Director James Comey laid his hand on the Bible and recited his oath of office on September 4, 2013, swearing to “faithfully discharge the duties of the office … without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion,” he probably didn’t expect he might have to move against the heir apparent leader of the party under which he would serve.

The facts known about actions taken by Hillary Clinton while secretary of state surrounding the use of an unsecure private email server for conducting government business show that she violated 10 federal statutes. Several are national-security-related felonies, just three of which include: 1. disclosure of classified information (22 documents were Top Secret), 2. unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents, and 3. destruction of evidence (erasure of the hard drive and deletion of some 30,000 emails by Secretary Clinton) after a government investigation had commenced (Benghazi hearings began Oct. 10, 2012).

Comey knows of a related but lesser law violation in handling classified material by General David Petraeus that was recently adjudicated. Petraeus was fined $100,000 and sentenced to two years’ probation for providing his personal notebooks containing classified information to his biographer, although no classified information was ever exposed. Hillary Clinton’s email server containing more voluminous classified and Top Secret information was reportedly breached and exposed by notorious Romanian hacker “Guccifer” and by the Russians (who have 20,000 Clinton server emails in their possession). So Comey can’t easily give Secretary Clinton a pass and at the same time be true to his oath of office.

The fact that the administration under which Mr. Comey serves has conducted itself with unprecedented partisanship and lawlessness makes it even more important for him to uphold the law and recommend indictment. The American people need to see that both lawlessness and dereliction of duty are not given a pass and that no one is above the law.