Trump: Comey should have never exonerated Clinton

[TomCADem]

Source: MSN/The Hill

President Trump says that former FBI Director James Comey "should have never exonerated" Hillary Clinton.

"No, what happened, he had a lot of pressure put on and he exonerated her," he said Friday on "NBC Nightly News." "Should have never exonerated her."

Comey was the public face of the FBI's investigation into Clinton last year. Once he took office, Trump kept Comey on as head of the FBI but fired him earlier this week.

Trump added that the FBI's probe of Clinton's private email server helped him during the 2016 presidential election.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-comey-%E2%80%98should-have-never-exonerated%E2%80%99-clinton/ar-BBB4GRQ

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Doesn't this contradict the written rationale for firing Comey that he did not treat Hillary as a candidate fairly?

[randr]

1. Lsos is just barking at his hounds

[onit2day]

37. Exonerated cause she's not guilty of anything goober

[SergeStorms]

38. In Trumpland........

that makes no difference. When he surrounds himself with yes men/women he creates his own reality. There's no basis in fact, but that doesn't concern him. Only HIS rules apply in Trumpland, and in Trumpland, Hillary is guilty of breaking numerous Trumpland laws.

When Trumpland and reality collide, that's when the problems start. Problems have been starting quite regularly lately, and Little Donnie's little mind is having a shitload of trouble processing the disconnect between Trump-reality and actual reality. He's used to getting his own way, but in reality that's not happening. He's discovering that Presidentin' is hard work, especially when people insist he dwell in the real world, and not in Trumpland.

Welcome to DU, by the way!

[Mrs. Overall]

2. This does contradict the rationale for firing Comey. WTF is going on.

[Honeycombe8]

8. He already contradicted himself in interview with Lester Holt.

He said he was going to fire Comey, anyway, before the AG and Deputy AG sent their "recommendations," because he needed the Russian thing to stop.

Yes, that's what he said, believe it or not.

[jberryhill]

54. "rationale" - Did you know that Trump invented that word a few weeks ago?

[Eliot Rosewater]

55. I Hope that is rhetorical, what is going on is he is a pathological liar and international criminal.

[Solly Mack]

3. Just keep digging.

[spiderpig]

4. 25th Amendment time

(should have been 100 days ago, but whatever...)

[cstanleytech]

14. Aye but what sucks is we get Pence as President then

[spiderpig]

15. Yeah. Pence is Trump's kevlar vest (speaking metaphorically, Agent Mike).

If Pence is complicit in all this, could we have a twofer?

Incompetent and crooked.

Oh, that's right - that leaves Ryan.

[cstanleytech]

20. Almost the entire list of who would become President if Trump is removed is a whos who of vomit. nt

[spiderpig]

21. How do you spell eye-yi-yi?

We are so screwn. At least on the TV show Designated Survivor they ended up with Jack Bauer.

[cstanleytech]

26. Actually they ended up with Tom Kirkman who isnt anything like Jack Bauer

except that they are both played by the same actor.

[spiderpig]

34. I originally typed in Kiefer Sutherland, but in our house he's always Jack Bauer.

Even if he plays Santa Claus!

[NewRedDawn]

39. The whole line of succesion is involved.

[WePurrsevere]

5. You're right that it contradicts one of the excuses he tossed out.

When you lie as much as he does and you have memory issues on top of it, it's almost impossible to keep track of all the crap you spew.

[Chemisse]

6. He just can't stop himself, can he?

He's floundering about in childish rage because this story is just persisting.

[Lithos]

9. Distraction

Very purposeful, not a mistake (in his mind)

[Wellstone ruled]

7. So Dipstick Donnie still wants to lock her up.

[cstanleytech]

18. That will be difficult to achieve since her defense would have some big guns like

Comeys video taped press briefing not to mention they can then play it up as political persecution egged on by the President (which it clearly would be) and that should sink any case against her faster than Dennis Hastert sunk to his knees in those shower stalls.

[Wellstone ruled]

24. Trump wants his ten pounds of flesh.

This Guy always screws his opponents ten times over. He will push this issue in order to take the focus of himself.

[cstanleytech]

27. What we want in life is not necessarily what we will get and the

President has zero control over the judiciary other than in nominating some of the justices for some of the courts.

[WheelWalker]

28. Or Putin feels cheated and is still looking for his 10 pounds of Clinton flesh.

[Wellstone ruled]

32. Understand the Fake News people over at the Fake News Channel,

are demanding Hillary Clinton be tried and locked up. Trump and Murdoch are on the same page. This will not go away watch and see,Trump keeps wanting to go there,and if it captures the News Cycle for him like the Comey threats today,you just know he will go there.

[Eliot Rosewater]

56. This is his way of signaling the depolrables that if the law wont take out hillary and the liberals

all 60 million of us, they need to.

[Wellstone ruled]

59. Trump will make a run at Hillary.

He promised and we know he does his best to carry through. This is not going away. Sessions will be the first to move. Never count out Stupid.

[Eliot Rosewater]

64. It is part of the misdirection they have planned. Now the PROPER

response from the American people would be

No, you will not do that, if you do that, there will be a problem...

[Wellstone ruled]

65. We are still seeing the after effects of

Jerry Ford doing his pardon of Nixon. During the Carter Campaign,a Republican State Senator made this statement during his Campaign for reelection in front of our Teamster State Convention,the Democrats took one of our Guy's out,and we will take one of theirs. Never ever forget that statement,and it has shown to be so true since.

[moonscape]

58. Naw, I think he just wants to keep his base riled up n/t

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Double messages are a propaganda technique of abuse and control

Something big is coming down the pike at some point.

[Warpy]

11. I wouldnt believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized.

This is attributed to various people in NYC in the 80s so it was probably one of those things said by all who knew him.

Truer words were never spoken. He lies. He lies when telling the truth would be more advantageous. He lies because it's pathological--he has to. It makes him feel like he's smarter than the people he lies to.

Also remember he didn't write the written rationale and probably didn't read it, either.

The only story that rings at all true is that Comey wasn't considered sufficiently loyal.

[cstanleytech]

22. I think the truer story though is that Trump is batshit delusional and needs to be in

a nice padded room pronto with lots of medication before he really manages to hurt someone.

[RKP5637]

57. Yep! I read all of this as he's really losing it. The man is not well, and it's getting worse! n/t

[NewRedDawn]

12. When everyone was interpreting that narrative

I didn't. I knew the vindictive fuck was mad at Comey for not" locking her up" and that Comey did not suck his little dick hard enough. Plus he knew the heat was coming from the investigation against him & his traitor collaborators. And this owl eyed little fucker Rosenstein that Dems were singing the praises of and voted almost lockstep with the Putin Publikkkans. I saw him as a bootlicking opportunist traitor. Rosenstein's actions since the firing have proven me right. I don't trust this McCabe snake either. He was involved in the Nunes shit about the fake shit of unmasking by Susan Rice. You just watch.

[Grassy Knoll]

13. Washing The Smell

[Snake Plissken]

16. Trump will never get over the fact that Hillary recieved 3,000,000 more votes than him

He brings up the electoral vote every day.

[librechik]

40. Trump will never get over the fact that a chick kicked his ass.

He keeps making excuses for himself. "The dog ate my popular vote!"

[Snake Plissken]

41. It literally consumes him, not a day goes by when he doesn't bring it up.

He knows most people do not consider him to be a legitimate President, because he himself would never consider someone who lost the popular vote to be legitimate

[moonscape]

17. All about feeding his base. He could

not care less about Hillary's emails.

[forgotmylogin]

33. True. Flash back to December 2016

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Friday he doesn't care about prosecuting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, after attendees at his rally chanted "lock her up."

After the chants started at the President-elect's post-election "thank you" rally in Michigan, he responded, "That plays great before the election -- now we don't care, right?"

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-lock-her-up-chant/

Trump is just absolutely stupid and a frond that bends with the breeze that doesn't care to tactfully shut up and move on, or he seriously doesn't remember the last version of what he said due to some kind of willful or unconscious mental problem.

Veritophobia is a word for fear of the truth. Likely he's just learned to tell the particular person in front of him at any given time what they want to hear to best get what he wants. In his advanced age, he's not very good at it anymore.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Mostly contradicts earlier versions of rationale. Certainly skips true reason & muddies the waters.

The firing rationale (before the script got rewritten twice) was that Comey never should have sent the letter stating he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton. As we know, that was unfair (to say the least) to her. tRump was glad (and remains glad) that it was reopened.

Here tRump is stating that Comey should never have closed the investigation without charging her. By claiming here that he exonerated her because of caving to pressure (a ridiculous assertion) he is strongly implying that the exoneration was the rationale for firing Comey.

It mostly contradicts the pre-rewrite rationale version 1.0 (Rosenstein's letter) and tries to muddy the water for those not following closely and give Fox news something to push (like a drug pusher): "but but but the emails!". No mention of Pence and Bannon's email issues.

This would be rationale 4.0. Huckabee pushed 2.0 and Spicer pushed 2.5 and tRump earlier in the day (or Thursday?) pushed 3.0.

It's all a crock.

[font size = "+1"]Rationale 0.0 remains the true rationale which is that Comey was getting too close[/font] and the heat in the kitchen was getting too hot for tRump. So rather than tRump getting out of the kitchen (resigning) he kicked Comey out of the kitchen. Unfortunately for tRump there are lots of other chefs working in the kitchen and they are keeping the heat on.

[font size = "+2"]Keeping the heat on means framing the issue as Obstruction of Justice and supporting a Special Prosecutor and persisting[/font] with the investigations.

[StevieM]

23. Actually, he's right on this one. There was nothing to exonerate her of.

The whole story was a fraud, from beginning to end.

[cstanleytech]

29. Exactly, frankly I think Comey saved the Repugnants from a hell of alot of embarrassment

because the entire Repugnant party hooked their wagons to going after her over the email issue and Benghazi and it was clear they were hell bent on continuing had she won but now it serves no purpose as it wont be a useful as a tool to rally their base around since she did not win.
Should Trump force it though and try to go after her over the entire bogus issue it could damage the Repugnants instead since the Democrats could seize upon it to rally around instead and considering how many people are already pissed at the Repugnants the next election for the House would be a slaughter.

[sinkingfeeling]

25. So now the talking yam.is also a lawyer, a prosecutor, and a judge. He knows

more than anybody else in the world on everything in the world. Idiot.

[Thinkingabout]

30. Trump can not remember from one statement to the next of what he says or gives

to his staff to tell. I agree, he claimed he fired Comey for his treatment of Clinton, now he is not treating Clinton fairly, let's fire Trump.

[erpowers]

31. More projection

This is just another case of Donald Trump projecting his actions on to other people. Trump put a great deal of pressure on James Comey to exonerate him, now Trump is claiming there was large amount of pressure on Comey to exonerate Hillary Clinton.

[Eko]

35. No reason to spend time

trying to figure out the motivations of an idiot. He is an idiot, even he doesn't know why he does stuff.

[mr_lebowski]

36. I'm not sure where people got the idea that the 'exoneration' of Clinton wasn't part of the ...

'Recommendation of Firing Memo' ... because it VERY clearly was.

We may want to pretend that it was all about 'the 11th hour letter', but that's not what the Assistant AG's memo said.

A far larger part of it is directed towards the 'exoneration', vs. the 'letter to Congress'. It's MOST OF IT, really.

Are we really that deep our own bullshit that we now believe Trumps whole 'argument' was about Comeys letter to Congress 'hurting Hillary'?

READ THE DAMN FIRING MEMO YOURSELF, that's my advice.

I only say that because 'we' don't have to twist the facts to make this all 'sound worse'. They're bad enough all on their own.

[TomCADem]

62. You Must Be Reading The Wrong Memo. Memo Criticizes Comey's Disclosures...

...it does not focus on Comey's alleged failure to charge Hillary Clinton:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/09/us/politics/document-White-House-Fires-James-Comey.html

It criticizes Mr. Comey for overstepping his role.

“The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the F.B.I. had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors.”

It criticizes Mr. Comey’s disclosures about Mrs. Clinton’s conduct.

“Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. … The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”

It portrays Mr. Comey’s late-October letter as a mistake.

“Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would ‘speak’ about the decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or ‘conceal’ it. ‘Conceal’ is a loaded term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment.”

[briv1016]

42. Don't be surprised if the new FBI director's first two acts are shutting down the Russia

investigation and re-opening the email investigation.

[WinkyDink]

44. He will then oversee mass resignations, or else an insurrection. TREASON

has been uncovered.

[briv1016]

45. You really think Donald cares if some "Obama spies" leave?

What do you mean by insurrection?

[WinkyDink]

46. "He" refers to the new FBI Director in the post I replied to. By "insurrection" I mean a refusal by

the FBI agents who have uncovered deep threads of treason, collusion, money-laundering, and other crimes of the Trump Administration to "shut down" their investigations and go quietly into that good night.

Some one of them, I think many, would go rogue and go public. Or at least leak like a sieve.

Patriots still exist.

[briv1016]

47. Well that "he" is going to be a Trump appointee that has sure as hell taken his loyalty pledge

and has been assured that they will follow Comey out the door if they don't follow orders. And as far as FBI agents going rogue, they've been keeping their mouths shut thus far. What makes you think that's suddenly going change?

[WinkyDink]

48. They've been mum because they've had no reason yet not to be. As for the other: You've heard of

Thomas Becket?

"Becket was nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, several months after the death of Theobald. His election was confirmed on 23 May 1162 by a royal council of bishops and noblemen.[1] Henry may have hoped that Becket would continue to put the royal government first, rather than the church. However, the famous transformation of Becket into an ascetic occurred at this time."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket#Primacy

Perhaps more to the point: My prognostications have no more---AND NO LESS---value than those of you or any others.

[briv1016]

49. Yes but Henry didn't have the power to fire Becket and had not just fired his predecessor.

[WinkyDink]

43. Trump started out knowing he was lying about HRC, but now I think he believes the lies.

[Vinca]

50. And the New Jersey gaming commission should never have allowed Trump to only pay a

multimillion dollar fine for not adhering to money laundering regulations.

[Squinch]

51. This is him trying for support from his base. He still doesn't get the math of the presidency.

[BeyondGeography]

52. For the (always changing) record, he said he didn't care anymore

after the election:

[Eliot Rosewater]

53. This is his dog whistle to the deplorables that she has to be indicted or they

need to take matters into their own hands, he hopes this will start a civil war, I say lets not give him that satisfaction.

Also definitive proof he lied about why he fired comey

[Corey_Baker08]

60. A Distraction As To Why Comey Was Really Fired

[madokie]

61. Hey look over there

nothing to see here is all all this brouhaha from orange foolius is about

[yurbud]

63. like Hannibal Lecter saying someone should be prosecuted for spitting on the sidewalk.