UPDATED: Comey And The Obama White House--Bombshells To Come?

The last we heard from disgraced former FBI Director Jim Comey, he was wracking his memory for the Senate Judiciary Committee and coming up empty. The famous note taker couldn't remember anything that would have interested anyone, even regarding matters that are now pretty much public knowledge. For example, the referral the CIA sent to the FBI in which the FBI was informed that "the Russians" might be aware of Hillary's Russia Hoax caper--even before it went into full swing.

Fortunately, Comey's 'Huh?' responses are unlikely to be the last word on some of those matters.

For example.

Jay Sekulow's American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has been doing some digging with the help of FOIA and just got back some very interesting results. What they show, among other things, is James Comey in direct communication with Neil Eggleston, Obama's White House Counsel (and long time Clintonista). Those direct communications began in September, 2016, and continued up until the afternoon of January 19, 2017. Yes, January 19 was the day before Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. That's a pretty admirable example of the good old American work ethic, and one assumes that the only reason Eggleston didn't send more emails to Comey on the very day of Trump's inauguration was because ... he was busy coaching (or writing?) Susan Rice's email-to-self that morning--Susan Rice: The WH Counsel Told Me To Write It.

Sekulow wants you to know something else about the results of his FOIA work--which isn't complete yet. These results came as a result of a FOIA request for documents regarding FBI spies in the Trump White House. Uh, that makes those results even more suggestive than they already are.

What did Comey do with Eggleston's January 19, 2017, email (which included Andy McCabe and two redacted names on the address list)? Comey thought this email--and the attached, totally redacted, TOP SECRET letter from Eggleston--was the kind of thing that his (Comey's) General Counsel, James Baker, should also see--so Comey forwarded it to Baker. I point this out in particular because Shipwreckedcrew has claimed that the FBI's Office of General Counsel is mostly concerned with very boring stuff like Bureau car accidents. On the contrary, James Baker--long reported to be cooperating with John Durham--was very much Comey's right hand guy.

Who else knows about all this, has seen the redacted letter and any other relevant documents? I'm betting AG Bill Barr has. Uh oh!

Did Obama Try To Throw Comey Under The Bus

As if we needed confirmation, yesterday's developments in the Flynn case--both the Court of Appeals' decision but especially the bombshell Strzok notes disclosure--demonstrate that the Establishment media has failed with Fake News and has adopted the tactic of News Suppression. It was still stunning to realize that virtually nothing was said in the Establishment media about Obama's statements in the Oval Office meeting with disgraced FBI Director Jim Comey and Acting AG Sally Yates--as well as Joe Biden. Those statements were recorded in notes taken by disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok, probably as briefed by Comey after the meeting. Obama clearly urged the FBI Director to take official actions that the FBI Director had stated were unwarranted, because the matter under discussion "appeared legit."

Imagine if it had become known that Trump--or any Republican president you care to name--had said in similar circumstances:

Make sure you look at things, have the right people on it.

The collective howl from the Establishment media would have been heard around the globe. We would have had a mob descend upon the White House, probably including multiple GOP senators.

It seems clear to me that at this stage in the transition the Obama administration still had hopes of preventing Trump's inauguration. The lengths to which they were willing to go in that effort are revealed by Strzok's notes. It's worth taking another look at Susan Rice's email-to-self in light of these new revelations.

The Rice email has always been suspicious. For starters, the email was patently an exercise in ass covering: the "by the book" admonition attributed to Obama is really the main point of the email. This becomes apparent when we recollect several facts:

UPDATED: Susan Rice: The WH Counsel Told Me To Write It

So Senator Ron Johnson's earlier speculation in the course of a Fox News interview turned out to be well informed speculation. Johnson stated that the Susan Rice email-to-self read like something she was told to write by--Johnson suggested--the White Counsel. That is confirmed by Gillian Turner, citing Rice's "team":

Gillian Turner
@GillianHTurner

#BREAKING: 

@AmbassadorRice’s team confirms to #FoxNews that she was directed by White House Counsel to write the Jan 20, 2017 memorandum documenting an Oval Office meeting in which President Obama & National Security officials discussed #MichaelFlynn.

12:08 PM · May 20, 2020

The White House Counsel at that point would have been long time Clintonista Neil Eggleston.

Remember the FBI's Flynn FD-302? It took weeks to write and turned out to be a team effort. Maybe the Rice email-to-self was like that. We know it took weeks to write, and now Senator Johnson's suggestion that it was a team effort may turn out to be right on the money. And after all, if you wanted to CYA, wouldn't you prefer to have a legal operative like Eggleston do it rather than a Susan Rice?

No doubt John Durham will want to discuss this with Eggleston. In front of a Grand Jury.

UPDATE 1: shipwreckedcrew has an article at RedState that parses the Rice email-to-self--and related correspondence--in excruciating detail. Based on that parsing he poses the question: Has Susan Rice Made Herself a “Target” for Durham Probe With Langauge in Her CYA Memo? His answer is: Yes.

Shipwreckedcrew argues that the email actually represents Obama's own self serving version of his meeting with Comey and Yates. He concludes, based on that understanding (which I agree with):

Andy McCarthy has posited — convincingly in my view — that the true purpose of the Memorandum written by Rice was to allow Pres. Obama to point the finger of blame at Comey for whatever might happen in the aftermath of the transition into power of the Trump Administration.  According to Rice’s Memorandum, Pres. Obama told Comey to do everything “by the book”, and if Comey did not do so then Comey — and only Comey — was to blame. 

Did Rice put herself present in the room just so she could avoid setting forth in the Memorandum that the details she memorialized had come from Pres. Obama? Was she playing the “loyal soldier” by creating the impression that Obama’s version of the conversation had at least one supporting witness — herself — rather than have it as a “He said, He said” between Pres. Obama and Jim Comey at some future point in time? 

Whichever answer is true, neither is a defense to the crime of violating Section 1001.

UPDATE 2: Brett Tolman nails it:

This is what a President or VP instructs Wh counsel to do so they can try and control a problematic narrative. This is not what you do when it is a legitimate national security investigation. https://t.co/bZ1QjqiBJA

— Brett L. Tolman (@tolmanbrett) May 20, 2020