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Monday, September 2, 2019

Nunes: Evidence Is There For Conspiracy Charges

Breitbart interviewed Devin Nunes on Sunday, and Nunes talked turkey on the type of charges he wants to see. I'm sure he's got an earful from people who are disgusted by Comey's juvenile--and probably very ill-advised--gloating at not being charged. Yet.

Here's a transcript of the most relevant parts of Nunes' remarks, including some commentary from Breitbart. I'm pleased that Nunes is thinking along the lines that I've outlined because, with all his dealings with people both in the Intel Community and at DoJ, Nunes must surely have a feel for where things are headed. That's grounds for optimism.

Nunes said in his exclusive interview on Breitbart News Sunday ... that despite the DOJ’s decision not to bring charges against Comey now, if the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut—who has been charged with investigating the origins of the Russia hoax investigation—follows a criminal referral made by House Intelligence Committee Republicans on the lines of a criminal conspiracy, Comey could face charges in that lane. 
“I always remind people that the Inspector General does not have a lot of power because they cannot—they don’t have subpoena power. They can only interview people who work for the actual agency, unless people will voluntarily be interviewed, which is not likely. So, I think the Inspector General did us a favor here because the House Intelligence Committee Republicans—we sent over referrals to the Department of Justice based on conspiracy. So now there is no question, one thing the Inspector General made clear by all the interviews and evidence that he gathered is that Comey is definitely part of the conspiracy.” 
Nunes continued by noting that Comey was not cooperative with congressional investigators digging into his leaking.
“You know, when Comey came before the Congress last year when Republicans controlled it, he refused to answer. For a guy that pontificates on Twitter and that wrote a book and goes on the news quite often, quite frequently, when it got behind closed doors and he had to tell the truth, his number one answer was, ‘Oh, I just don’t remember that’ or ‘I don’t recall.’” 
...
“So this is a guy who is definitely not telling the truth, and the good thing about the IG report is he’s now made himself, the IG has now made him eligible for a larger conspiracy charge—a criminal conspiracy charge—which is what we really hope the attorney general [U.S. attorney] out of Connecticut is able to do. That’s the big thing that we need. We need real charges brought. And I think a lot of people are frustrated because they feel like Comey leaked classified information. But the question is would a panel of jurors in Washington, D.C., [convict]? There would be so much ambiguity because he claims—I forget the exact numbers, but like 1, 4, and 7 contained classified information but those weren’t the memos that he gave to his professor friend that went to the media. It would be almost impossible to prove and he would probably skate. And probably the worst thing to happen would be for him to skate. So I think that in the end, the Attorney General made the right decision as long as they continue to press on the larger issue which is: How did this whole investigation begin in the first place with zero evidence, zero evidence that Trump had any involvement with Russia?” 
...
“I’ve been very careful. I shouldn’t be this way, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I like to not name names until there’s been a fair process and we’ve given the U.S. Attorney time to do his work. However, with that said, the one thing that is clear is if the U.S. Attorney decides to take our complaint—I’m not saying he’s going to do exactly what we’ve asked him to do but he’s clearly looking at all this. If he looks at conspiracy, on the FISA courts and the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes, it is now impossible—there is so much evidence that puts Comey right in the middle of this—so that’s my point. If they’re going to go down that road, Comey has got to be involved in it. The evidence is there.”

11 comments:

  1. How did this whole investigation begin in the first place with zero evidence?

    I add a second question:

    How did this whole investigation continue for many months with zero evidence?

    By the time Comey was fired in May 2017, the FBI had most of Steele's Dossier for more than a half-year.

    During that interval, the FBI had

    * not identified Steele's sources

    * had found some of Steele's allegations to be wrong

    * had disassociated itself from Steele.

    Sometime well before May 2017, the FBI could -- should -- have simply terminated the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

    Nevertheless, the FBI was continuing its "investigation" without any end in sight -- and still with zero evidence.

    ----

    We were waist deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on.

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    1. Yes. There were a lot of people complicit in this to keep it going--not just one "big fool." A whole Deep State full of them.

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  2. FBI Director Comey might make a plausible argument that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was initially justified.

    However, Donald Trump won the Presidential election on November 8, and the Electoral College confirmed his election on December 19, 2016.

    After either of those two dates, Comey should have reviewed the investigation and then terminated it.

    Why didn't he do so?

    What good evidence compelled him to continue his investigation of the elected President?

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    1. Of course, my position is that Comey--and everyone else--knew all along that it was NEVER justified.

      Nevertheless, your scenario is the sensible CYA dodge that Comey should have taken. If not common decency, then a basic sense of self preservation should have led him to that. Ideology and hubristic ambition blind people.

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  3. Ego, hubris, arrogance are the common features among Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Strzok, Mueller, Weissman, et al. Rosenstein looks like the Peter Principal at work. Prudence, honesty and integrity were long ago dispatched to the dust bin.

    Instead of supervising field agents performing investigations and managing the agency's caseload and processes, Comey, et al., took it upon themselves to run investigations of Hillary and Trump in order to influence outcomes.

    That alone indicates the system is broken.

    Lavrentiy Beria-style, they knew they would get their man if they looked long enough and hard enough. Fourth amendment civil protections are anachronisms from an earlier period that merely require procedural work-arounds. If "they" are running the system, they can't get caught up in the system...

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    1. There's a lot about our system that's broken. That's one of the great merits of Trump. We can't kid ourselves anymore.

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  4. How can Barr continue to countenance a broken FBI which stonewalls Congressional disclosure demands and private FOIAs that routinely demonstrate that the FBI is deliberately hiding it's complicity in criminal activity? Effective leaders generally begin new assignments by cleaning house and appointing competent XOs that share their vision and help to restore integrity as quickly as possible. Wray is a festering wound that Barr ignores at his own peril.

    Why didn't the FBI raid all of the Epstein properties in the immediate aftermath of his arrest? Why has there been no official report of the investigation of his death? Why hasn't the full autopsy report been made public yet?

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  5. "How can Barr continue to countenance a broken FBI"

    OK, I'll bite--what's the punch line?

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  6. Either Barr recognizes the serious problems plaguing the FBI and acquiesces to it's continuation, or he is oblivious to the severity of these problems and the ongoing loss of public confidence, or he thinks the FBI is hunky-dory and all the fuss is unjustified. None of the above speak well of his intelligence or leadership ability. And if he is doing something about these problems behind the scenes, then why on Earth hide that from the public?

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    1. "if he is doing something about these problems behind the scenes, then why on Earth hide that from the public?"

      He may believe that no purpose is served by adding his voice to trashing an organization that still does much excellent work. He can do essentially nothing without Trump's approval and active decisions. He also has his hands full at DoJ itself. It's not possible to simply make a clean sweep--that would be irresponsible without competent and ethical replacements. You clearly have no clue regarding the structure of DoJ.

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    2. One might well ask why, since Trump knew where the declass roadblocks in the ONI were, Trump waited so long to remove Coats and Gordon and has yet to nominate a replacement? If Barr tries to act unilaterally he'll one cabinet level officer against another or head of DoJ against presidentially appointed head of agencies he'll probably end up in court. And nothin he says in public will change that without concrete steps from Trump.

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