NY Times Looking Into Story Comey Agreed Was 'Almost Completely Wrong'

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo



By ESME CRIBB Published JUNE 8, 2017 2:02 PM

The New York Times on Thursday said it is “looking into” reporting that fired FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee is inaccurate.

Link to tweet

Sen. James Risch (R-ID) on Thursday cited a February report by the New York Times that members of President Donald Trump’s campaign had “repeated contacts” with Russian intelligence officials before the 2016 election.

“That report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?” he asked.

“In the main, it was not true,” Comey replied. “The challenge, and I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information, is that people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on and those of us who actually know what’s going on are not talking about it.”



Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-story-comey-wrong

[pnwmom]

1. What did the story say exactly? Because we know that Kushner, Sessions,

Page and Flynn had repeated contacts with the Russians during the campaign.

[Hortensis]

2. I found this one. Apparently only Manafort was actually named

by the officials interviewed.

Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZOFEB. 14, 2017

WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation. But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the government outside of the intelligence services, they said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified. The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Ukraine. The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?mcubz=2

[pnwmom]

3. Then it seems like an odd thing for Comey to say. I wish a Democrat had responded

later by mentioning the now-acknowledged contacts -- but maybe none of the the Dems knew what NYT article was being referred to, either.

[Hortensis]

6. Umhmm. They're all playing games, and this is for public consumption.

I personally appreciated Feinstein's fulsome praise of Comey's good character. Guess we get to wait for testimony under oath.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Depends on meaning of "Intelligence Agent". Ambassador counts? Putin inner circle banker counts?

[OhNo-Really]

5. Did Comey say no? No, imo

He qualified the "no" by saying "In the main"

Therefore, Comey left the door open without specificity. Sadly, his response can be interpreted to discredit the NYTimes and the media for those promoting "media bigly bad"

My takeaway is that Comey could have meant that at least one or more of the NYT reporting fact(s) was/were either wrong or missing from the NYT article which is outlined here:

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/The-New-York-Times-election-intelligence-hacks/2017/02/14/id/773650/

On the bright side, McCain undermined his own credibility hugely!

[tomp]

8. I dont trust comey, period.

I don't trust the investigating committees.

I dont trust the government at all. too many secrets behind too many closed doors. too much manipulation.

I sure don't trust the new york times.

I don't know why anyone would trust any of the usual suspects at this point.