UPDATED: The Comey Senate Testimony

I've always disagreed with the idea that Senate hearings are the way forward with regard to the Russia Hoax. The only way is giving Barr and his prosecutors and investigators the time to do the job right. Coupled with public declassifications--which have been coming at an increasing rate as the investigations make headway.

Paul Sperry, in a brief series of tweets, illustrates what would foreseeable go wrong with having disgraced former FBI Director Jim Comey testify--it's a waste of time. He's too slippery to provide the soundbites that would light up the news--if the MSM even reported it:

Paul Sperry

@paulsperry_

Comey keeps referring to the Horowitz report -- "I only know what I've read in the Horowitz report" -- even though he ran the investigation the report details. When he's not limiting his testimony to the Horowitz report, he's suffering suspicious bouts of amnesia.

There is corrupt, and then there is pompously corrupt, and Comey is pompously corrupt.

This scandal is too serious to have politicians questioning such a key witness as Comey under oath. He's too slippery. A staff attorney with prosecutorial experience ought to be questioning Comey, pinning him down with documents, following up on his obfuscations and evasions.

BREAKING: Comey swears he doesn't remember hearing anything about Steele's primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, being the subject of an FBI C.I. investigation, as a suspected Russian agent, and doesn't recall his own CrossFire Hurricane team interviewing Danchenko in Jan 2017.

SENATE: When did you learn Steele dossier's primary subsource was a suspected Russian agent?

COMEY: I don't remember ever being informed.

BREAKING: Comey swears he does not remember, despite documentation, receiving intelligence in 2016 that Hillary Clinton was trying to tie Trump to Russia as part of a political strategy: "doesn't ring any bells".

Why do Senate Judiciary Republicans keep referring only to the Horowitz report when they have a guilty plea from FBI lawyer Clinesmith to now refer to?

Republicans are incapable of asking the pointed questions and follow-ups of Comey to draw any blood, to elicit new admissions and details to advance the investigation. They need a hard-nosed staff attorney to take Comey as a hostile witness.

The real answer isn't to have a Senate staff attorney do the questioning. The real answer is to finish the investigation, indict this deeply creepy guy, and see whether he's willing to be cross-examined in front of a jury by experienced prosecutors--and subject to impeachment by other witnesses.

UPDATE: More illustration of the relatively pointless exercise this testimony is--unless you're only just now learning what a snake Comey has always been. Jonathan Turley:

James Comey seems to be offering the Senate today a series of shrugs over troubling evidence of false evidence and possible Russian disinformation in the Russian investigation. Despite his signing off on secret surveillance, Comey is dismissing questions on the basis that he never knew of any of the memos indicating that the information in the investigation was false or even Russian misinformation. He was under a duty to confirm such facts. As someone who has billed himself as a strong leader, he is now portraying himself as a passive player in these decisions. However, while he would not answer questions on the new evidence of possible Russian misinformation used by the FBI, he had no problem discussing new evidence on Trump's debt that might suggest Russian control over him.

After saying that he could not comment on the new evidence on possible Russian misinformation used by the FBI, Comey just had no problem is saying that he has read material on the Flynn case and give his conclusions on their meaning.

Comey did say that, knowing what he knows today, that he would not have signed off on the Page surveillance. That makes it unanimous with Yates and Rosenstein. Nobody now supports the surveillance request but no one takes real responsibility. 

 

All this was entirely predictable. No surprises at all.