He seemed *very* prepared, another antiTrump hallmark.

lol Preet got fired for refusing Cheetos phone call

Where did Comey call himself a coward?

Preet was running 2 or 3 investigations into Trump team members (Ross was one I think. He later became secretary of commerce) and I believe Preet was also given a new investigation into Trump money only 3 days before he got canned.

I also believe Trump got the idea to fire all the AGs from Hannity's show, when he suggested it the night before.

When asked why he didn't tell the president that what he was doing was inappropriate. His response was, he was in shock and perhaps if he was more brave he would have. Pretty sure the FBI head should just let people incriminate themselves when they do something bad and not try and stop them, especially when they're above him and have power over him.

Yea, I thought Comey saying he wasn't brave enough was perfect. It was the GOP's way of trying to attack him for something Trump did, and he flipped that **** over on their asses.

I don't doubt Comey's descriptions of his interactions with Trump are accurate. Two things are hard to accept though.

One is this coward stuff. Comey knew not to trust Trump from the word go. He had to expect he might be fired. I don't see why he would fear that. He should have put Trump in his place. Unless he was giving him rope to hang himself with.

The other thing is that it took the director of the goddamn FBI 3 days from Trump's tweet to realize there might be an actual recording? Come on. Maybe he remembered some detail of the meeting that gave him a good reason to believe it beyond the tweet itself.

How is Comey gonna put Trump in his place? Trump is his boss. And Comey's boss happens to be a guy w/ narcissistic personality disorder that asks for loyalty.

What was Comey wearing? It seems like he was kinda asking for it. Maybe he should have gotten his boss to behave or dressed more professionally. We all know Trump is just like that anyway.

Mr. Comey, what were you wearing that night?

Bharara did it. Trump was his boss too. Comey could have told Trump it wasn't appropriate for him to contact him directly or to discuss investigations. Tell him to follow protocol. "Educate him" as he said he intended to do. That he didn't do that could have been intentional. Anyway, I don't think he's a "coward."

Einbert: I see the power difference. It's understandable how Trump gets his way by bullying people. But I don't think he had much leverage over Comey. Afaict he didn't need the job. He'd demonstrated more than once before he was capable of resisting and even disregarding his bosses.

Trolly, Trump's harrassment of Comey happened over a period of months, and it's clear that he understood how Trump was trying to manipulate him. He documented it and discussed how to handle it with multiple people at the FBI. He knew what was coming and he had a plan. It seems as likely that this was Comey's way of stinging Trump as that Comey was susceptible.

There are a lot of possibilities. One is that Comey knew that confronting Trump in that way would lead to his sacking and he didn't want Trump to replace him with a more compliant Director. Comey would not be able to admit this in testimony for a range of reasons ("oh you thought Trump would appoint lackeys? lolz so biased", "who are these potential Directors you are accusing of being compliant?" etc etc).

Yea, and Bharara got fired. Just like Comey and Yates. It's been clear that either you show loyalty or you get fired. I don't think Comey is a coward at all. He did what he thought was best for the US.

Oh I wasn't trying to criticize your post just making a more general point about the way I see the situation. The article Trolly quoted does a much better job of making the point I was getting at.

1) He'd get fired for running an impartial Russia investigation, which is really bad for America. (see Chris and RV above)

2) Enough rope to hang himself, like you said. There were bigger issues and investigations that could have been compromised by obstructing Trump's obstruction attempt(s).

3) An obstruction charge was worth taking notes about and discussing with top FBI workers, but it was only uncomfortable at that point, and not yet a pattern. It wasn't really confirmed in Comey's mind until he was fired and Trump said he did the firing because of Russia.

4) Trump doesn't listen to advice or learn. There is a very good chance that notifying Trump wouldn't accomplish anything positive. Sure, he would lash out at everyone, relay the info to his lawyers, stop confiding in Comey, and decrease his transparency toward the public. The one thing he's almost guaranteed not to do is accept Comey's denial/correction and carry on in a healthy & honest, presidential relationship with Comey. Trump's voters and administration have been waiting for him to become presidential at every opportunity. How are they making out?

5) This is a stupid Republican talking point. Rip all the credible witnesses apart for doing nothing substantial wrong, if at all, and ignore the really big offenses being committed by the president & company. It also wasn't the only charge or case of obstruction. I've spoken about the others repetitively in previous posts.

If you have been watching these police brutality cases from the last few years, it's eerily similar how much this looks like that. Spoiler alert, those cops almost never get held accountable.

this is such a dumb angle to take on all this. seriously read back what you just said to yourself. like it's the FBI director's job to interject and be like "well actually" to his boss, the president of the united states of america, and give him an impromptu ethics lesson when he's asked to do something questionable. that's not his ****ing responsibility nor is it his place in the chain of command to treat the ****ing president of the united states with kid gloves because he's too much of a dumb child to know what's expected of him on a professional/leadership level. **** that, he's a grown ass man. that trump doesn't know better to begin with is one of countless reasons why he's completely unfit for the office/job.

It's all kinds of dumb from your post ON TOP OF ALL KINDS OF DUMB from the fact that 1) Trump did around 11 similar obstruction type things with Comey 3x, various other people 6x, and investigations 2x, AND 2) Trump knew EXACTLY what obstruction of justice was 9 months ago when he was going after Hillary for months over Loretta and Bill.

So no, he's not even worth kid gloves either.

Maybe he doesn't know what murder, or...say...nuclear genocide is either. I mean, for God's sake, why ever hold him responsible for anything?

Well, they are still defending Sessions' perjury by saying he just didn't remember those (multiple) meetings with the Russian spy master. It's not that far removed from reality that they would take this line.

Poor people, black people, people of color, drug offenders: lock them up and throw away the key.

Rich white men, cops, and politicians: they just didn't know what they were doing.

It's kind of normal* to repeatedly remember crimes one at a time as they come out in the media. It's also quite normal** to have to correct your previously corrected confirmation hearing testimony because you perjured yourself trying to avoid perjury.

*For criminals.
**For white collar criminals.

if liberals actually wanted to get their policies enacted, I think they could easily goad republicans into instituteing them by simply publicly opposing them.

want single payer? campaign against it. want immigration? support the wall and support the ban.

WH aides are going after Comey wherever he used the word "matter", saying that he didn't use "investigation" and he's a criminal for complying with Loretta Lynch.

This stuff is disgraceful. Comey said "investigation" 13 or 14 times in the beginning of his first speech alone.

We have many legit investigations into the POTUS, so POTUS gets to attack and investigate and imprison anyone who even tells the truth about any of it. After a pattern of this nonsense, when the **** does it stop being [excuse A-Z] and start being abuse of power, witness intimidation, and the like?