I/III. [The fallout from sacking by Donald Trump has gathered pace, with reports Comey asked for more resources to investigate alleged ties between Trump’s election campaign and Russia just days before he was fired.]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/may/10/donald-trump-fires-fbi-director-james-comey-reaction-live Comey farewell letter emerges as Senate subpoenas Michael Flynn – as it happened Keep up to date with all the news as Trump dumps Comey as FBI director Huge skepticism greets president’s decision, taken on Tuesday evening ‘Terrifying, Nixonian’: Comey’s firing takes democracy to new territory Trump dumps Comey: catch up with the shock announcement as it happened [Trump and Comey’s love-hate relationship - (1.49-min.) video explainer] 9h ago 04:00 Summary There has been plenty of movement during another busy day in Washington, so here is a round-up of the main points. We will put this blog on hold pending any fresh developments. Sacked FBI director James Comey has urged the organisation to continue to protect the American people and uphold the constitution in a farewell letter obtained by CNN. He says he has “long believed that a president can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all”. ***The fallout from sacking by Donald Trump has gathered pace, with reports Comey asked for more resources to investigate alleged ties between Trump’s election campaign and Russia just days before he was fired.*** [Emphasis added.] The reasoning behind the dismissal remains the subject of much scrutiny. The White House has said Trump’s frustration with Comey had been building for months. Media reports have pointed to a range of motivations, including personal antagonism, the progress of the FBI’s inquiry into alleged Russian electoral interference and a refusal to provide Trump aides with an advance copy of his planned testimony to a Senate panel last week. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has been issued with a subpoena by the Senate intelligence committee for documents relevant to its Russia inquiry. Flynn last month declined to provide his records. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, has asked the justice department to expand its review of the FBI’s actions during the election campaign to include the “facts and circumstances surrounding” the firing of Comey. The sacking has attracted scant vocal support among Republicans, while Democrats have drawn comparisons with Watergate. Former FBI agents have reacted with shock and no small amount of trepidation about the bureau’s independence. Trump has continued to attack Democrats for their apparent change of heart on Comey and tied it to his “drain the swamp” slogan. Updated at 4.04am BST Facebook Twitter Google plus 10h ago 03:22 The last US president to fire an FBI director was Bill Clinton, who dismissed William Sessions in 1993 over financial irregularities. Time magazine has more detail on Sessions’ downfall. It makes the point that the reaction of FBI agents to the news in both cases was very different, with “no love lost between Sessions and his subordinates”. Facebook Twitter Google plus 10h ago 03:08 The reasoning behind Trump’s swift dismissal of Comey – assuming the people should be given more detail than simply that he was ‘not doing a good job’ – remains the focus at the moment. Reuters has it from White House officials that Trump had been frustrated with Comey for months – which supports what White House deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says – but also that the turning point came when Comey refused to hand Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel. Trump, his attorney general Jeff Sessions and deputy Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a hearing on May 3 about his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts for the decision, the officials told Reuters. “It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties,” one official said. Previews of congressional testimony to superiors are generally considered courteous. Snipped II/III. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-decision-idUSKBN1862WP Wed May 10, 2017 | 9:29pm EDT Comey infuriated Trump with refusal to preview Senate testimony: aides By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason | WASHINGTON The anger behind Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said. Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said. "It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties," one official said. Previews of congressional testimony to superiors are generally considered courteous. Comey, who testified for four hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it made him feel "mildly nauseous" that his decision to make public his reopening of a probe into Clinton's handling of classified information might have affected the outcome of the Nov. 8 presidential election. But he said he had no regrets and would make the same decision again. Trump's sudden firing of Comey shocked Washington and plunged Trump deeper into a controversy over his campaign's alleged ties with Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency. Democrats accused the Republican president of firing Comey to try to undermine the FBI's probe into Russia's alleged efforts to meddle in the 2016 election and possible collusion with members of the Trump campaign, and demanded an independent investigation. Some of Trump's fellow Republicans called his dismissal of Comey troubling. The Trump administration said on Tuesday Comey was fired because of his handling of the Clinton email probe. Before he axed Comey, Trump had publicly expressed frustration with the FBI and congressional probes into the Russia matter. Moscow has denied meddling in the election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia. A former Trump adviser said Trump was also angry because Comey had never offered a public exoneration of Trump in the FBI probe into contacts between the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Sergei Kislyak, and Trump campaign advisers last year. According to this former adviser, Comey's Senate testimony on the Clinton emails likely reinforced in Trump's mind that "Comey was against him." "He regretted what he did to Hillary but not what he did to Trump," the former Trump adviser said of Comey. Clinton has said that the Comey decision to announce the renewed inquiry days before the election was a likely factor in her loss to Trump. Aides said Trump moved quickly after receiving a recommendation on Monday to terminate Comey from Rosenstein, who began reviewing the situation at the FBI shortly after taking office two weeks ago. Trump's move was so sudden that his White House staff, accustomed to his impromptu style, was caught off guard. Stunned aides scrambled to put together a plan to explain what happened. White House spokesman Sean Spicer ended up briefing reporters about the move in the dark on Tuesday night near a patch of bushes steps away from the West Wing. Comey, who was in Los Angeles meeting with FBI employees on Tuesday and returned later to Washington, has made no public comment on his firing. 'FIG LEAF' ALSO IN POLITICS Comey had pushed for more resources for Russia probe before being fired by Trump: source Trump tells Russia to 'rein in' Syria's Assad during meeting with minister Many questions remained about what caused Trump to move so quickly. Two former senior Justice Department officials said it made little sense to fire Comey while the Justice Department Inspector General was still doing a review of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation. “I take Rod (Rosenstein) at his word that be believed everything in that memo but he must know that it’s going to be used as a fig leaf to fire Comey,” one former official said. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters it was her “understanding” Comey had been seeking more resources for his investigation into the tangled Russia controversy. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had pondered dumping Comey as soon as he took office on Jan. 20, but decided to stick with him. Trump shrugged off the political firestorm he created with Comey's dismissal as he met with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office on Wednesday. Asked by reporters why he fired Comey, Trump said, "He wasn't doing a good job, very simply. He wasn't doing a good job." (This verison of the story has been refiled to adds missing word in final paragraph) (Additional reporting by Joel Shectman, Julia Edwards Ainsley and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Caren Bohan and Frances Kerry) III. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/10/15611522/comey-trump-obstruction-justice-impeachment By firing James Comey, Trump has put impeachment on the table A whiff of obstruction of justice is in the air. Updated by Matthew Yglesias@[email protected] May 10, 2017, 2:10pm EDT The old saw that the cover-up is worse than the crime often obscures more than it reveals. But in the case of President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, it carries an important element of truth. It escalates the administration’s Russia scandal, and, for the first time, provides indications of impeachable offenses. Nothing we’ve seen credibly reported thus far about Trump and Russia would amount to an impeachable offense, and indeed, it’s not really clear what allegations of “collusion” on the campaign trail would really amount to even if proven. Firing the FBI director in order to obstruct an ongoing investigation would be different. That obstruction charge is, of course, unproven as of Wednesday afternoon. But the probable cause is everywhere. And it makes a sham of the notion that replacing Comey with a well-qualified director or continuing with existing congressional inquiries is a sufficient remedy. There needs to be a separate investigation — featuring sworn testimony from the key players and subpoenas of documents — into why Comey was fired. Was it because Trump suddenly decided in mid-May that Comey’s handling of the Clinton emails was unforgivable, or was it because Trump was trying to obstruct justice? The answer makes a huge difference. Media reports suggest obstruction of justice Anonymously sourced journalism is not the same thing as sworn testimony or hard evidence. But it’s also indispensable to uncovering official wrongdoing. And Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning already brought forth plenty of evidence of wrongdoing: The New York Times reports that “days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in money and personnel for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.” NBC News says it can confirm that story, as have several other outlets. CNN reports that grand jury subpoenas were “issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia,” targeting business associates of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. A separate New York Times report states that Attorney General Jeff Sessions “had been working to come up with reasons” to fire Comey since at least last week, which partially explains why he eventually settled on reasons that contradict all of his previous statements about Comey. Trump himself contradicted the stated reasons for the firing on Wednesday morning when he said Comey wasn’t “doing a good job” running the FBI. A CNN report that Trump has since disputed says that Trump discussed firing Comey with Roger Stone, a longtime Trump political adviser with whom Trump has officially cut ties, and that Stone urged him to fire Comey. Josh Dawsey of Politico reports that Trump “had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia.” Some or all of this reporting may prove to be false. But it has all been published by credible journalists in credible publications. And it adds up to a very clear picture of a president deciding to fire an FBI director to obstruct an ongoing investigation and then stitching together a shaky rationalization for doing so. Impeachable, if true Impeachment is, of course, a political process rather than a judicial one. Trump will be impeached and removed from office if a critical mass of members of Congress want him to be, and not otherwise. There are no formal criteria. But obstruction of justice featured heavily in the articles of impeachment that drove Richard Nixon from office, and also in the articles of impeachment that passed the House only to see Bill Clinton narrowly acquitted in the Senate. In short, it lies firmly in the American political tradition to regard possible obstruction of justice as a serious issue worthy of investigation in an impeachment context. RELATED Why the Comey firing could be Trump’s Watergate moment It is possible, of course, that a thorough investigation would either exonerate Trump on this score or else at least fail to produce an adequate quantity of hard evidence — documents and sworn testimony — to consider the case truly proven. To do that, however, someone would need to take a serious look. Journalists can do a lot, but we can’t compel testimony or force the disclosure of documents. A special prosecutor and congressional committees could. We ought to have both. But thus far, it looks more likely that we will have neither. Republicans have their heads in the sand The key leaders of the Republican Party are, once again, protecting and defending Donald Trump. And once again, there is a small thread of dissent, with various more vulnerable members of Congress suggesting that they find the timing suspicious or otherwise troubling. John McCain is even back to making trouble about the need for a more serious independent inquiry into Russia matters. But while the Russia matter is, of course, important, at this point, to simply focus on Russia is to miss the elephant in the room: Trump and obstruction of justice. Congress ought to investigate what really happened here. Did Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein really write a memo about Comey’s handling of the emails that was so persuasive it convinced Sessions and Trump to both change their minds and fire Comey? Or, as seems much more plausible, was he tasked with writing up a memo that would validate an already-made decision on the theory that if the Trump administration aligned themselves with earlier Democratic criticism of Comey, they would be unable to knock him for the firing? And if so, what was the real reason Comey was fired — and how did it relate to the president’s anger over the Russia investigation and its forward progress? The odds that a Congress under continued GOP control will pursue such questions seem slim. During the 2016 presidential campaign, few Republicans in Congress were under the delusion that Trump’s rise to prominence was a good thing for the conservative movement. They worried, overwhelmingly, that his erratic ways were going to drag them down with him. Ever since Election Day, they have operated in a strange moral and intellectual miasma that’s led them to forget all that and invest their energy in defending him, believing that to be the best path forward for American conservatism. One can only hope at this point that they’ll reconsider before it’s too late. If not, America is going to need a different group of Congress members. Watch: How to impeach a president [Video] -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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