What Comey Left Out About Probe Should Trouble Trump

[DonViejo]

BY JEFF STEIN ON 6/10/17 AT 11:51 AM

In the new abnormal that defines the Donald Trump era, FBI officials sit around debating whether they should tell the president of the United States whether he’s part of an investigation into Russian subversion.

Think about that. The story arc of the June 8 hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee may have been as simple to understand as the courtroom climax of any Law and Order episode: Who are you going to believe, the witness or the defendant? And make no mistake: Donald Trump was the off-stage defendant on Capitol Hill, while star witness James Comey all but pronounced the president a suspected accomplice of Moscow.

In the former FBI director’s telling, watched by nearly 20 million people, top bureau officials debated what to tell Trump about the progress of their multiple investigations into contacts between Russian intelligence and the president-elect’s associates. “One of the members of the [FBI] leadership team had a view that, although it was technically true [that] we did not have a counter-intelligence file case open on then-President-elect Trump...his behavior, his conduct will fall within the scope of that work.”

Translation: FBI counterintelligence agents sniffed a Russian mole heading into the Oval Office.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a lawyer and one of the president’s most ardent apologists, asked Comey, “Do you think Donald Trump colluded with Russia?”

Cotton surely hoped to get a narrow legal response that would generate a headline exonerating the president. Comey, coldly seething over the “ lies ” Trump had told about an FBI supposedly in disarray under his stewardship, refused the bait. Instead, he responded with a bazooka shot into the Oval Office. “That's a question I don't think I should answer in an opening setting,” he told Cotton, intimating he would have plenty more to say behind closed doors, armed with classified information gathered via U.S. spies and electronic intercepts of Russian communications. “As I said, when I left [the FBI], we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump. But that's a question that will be answered by the investigation, I think. “

more
http://www.newsweek.com/comey-testimony-trump-worry-russia-probe-623993

[tblue37]

1. Important point: "when I left , we did not have an investigation focused on President TruMP."

WHEN I LEFT is not the same as NOW.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Noticed a very limited

Rah rah from the GOP Senators on that committee. So the Closed Door Intel had to be a damn big bomb that went off.

[C_U_L8R]

4. That was so artful.

And Cotton did all he could to keep composure as he pee'd a little in his pants.

[Goodheart]

5. I think Senator Manchin came out of the closed session and blabbed

that Comey testified he had seen no personal involvement by Trump in collusion.

I hope I'm wrong about that.

[Stand and Fight]

6. Right...