Politics

James Comey may have violated the law

As of this writing, the media’s Get-Trump campaign is focused on a Comey memo. By the time you read this, they may have moved on to something else but this is the third “oh no he didn’t!” scandal of the week.

So what’s this about? FBI director James Comey was talking to the president one day and, he claimed, Trump allegedly asked him to end an investigation of NSA director Mike Flynn and “Russian influence,” and while the president was asking/telling/ordering (?) him to do this, Comey was writing it all down.

Okay so that’s a crime right? Right. Trump is obstructing justice by attempting to stop an investigation of Secretary Flynn who is suspect of another earlier scandal-of-the-week where Russians colluded with the Trump campaign on and on and on and on.

The Comey memo is reported by The New York Times and the way they got it is from “two people” who have names I’m sure, but we can’t know who they are. The Times says:

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

They go on to say: “The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.”

Okay let’s give this hearsay the benefit of a doubt. Did Trump commit a crime? Let’s just say for the sake of argument he did. Was Comey a witness to it? Of course, he wrote it down. Yea, and? And what? Well, if Comey is witness to a crime and does nothing about it, isn’t he obstructing justice? Didn’t he conceal the crime? Isn’t that a crime? There’s another crime too, where acting director McCabe testified before a Senate committee that there was no attempt to impede the investigation. Isn’t that perjury? Well, not if Comey concealed the crime to top the highest of “senior officials” under him. Alright, Comey concealed the information to some agents but not others who also concealed the crime. Isn’t that a conspiracy to conceal a crime?

The Times is relying on the oh so familiar unnamed “senior officials” with a sprinkle of “associates” who saw the letter and are made privy to a crime and apparently did nothing about it.  Why? The Times reports:

After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Mr. Comey shared it with senior F.B.I. officials. Mr. Comey and his aides perceived Mr. Trump’s comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret — even from the F.B.I. agents working on the Russia investigation — so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.

How about now? Will it “affect the investigation” now, or is that important anymore? We have agents working on an investigation who are intentionally put in the dark by a subject in the investigation (Trump) who allegedly tried to obstruct it and this crime is not persecuted but kept a secret by another set of FBI agents. Does this make sense to you?

Another important question is, are these leaks coming from Comey himself? Did he have close associates talk to the Times? If he did, why to the Times and not to the FBI since they handle crimes, or even a Congressional committee? And why use surrogates? Comey is sitting on a crime, he’s concealing it from law enforcement, but leaks it to the media through other people. If he isn’t behind the leak, then his associates are leaking and Comey is still in concealing-a-crime mode. Pick a likely scenario here — which sounds more favorable to Comey?

Yeah, this isn’t good for Comey. Or it isn’t good for the New York Times. But what about Trump — it can’t be good for him, right? “I hope you can let this go” is what the Times says Trump said according to an associate who said Comey said it in a written document. If accurate, Comey can argue that Trump is not ordering the investigation to end, or threatening him if he doesn’t let it go. He’s just “hoping” he would let it go, which he can argue “is not a crime” therefore Comey wasn’t concealing a crime therefore Comey and his “senior officials” are off the hook therefore…what are we talking about anyway?

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett explains:

Under the law, Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States.  Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey.  (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361)  He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law. 

So, if Comey believed Trump attempted to obstruct justice, did he comply with the law by reporting it to the DOJ?  If not, it calls into question whether the events occurred as the Times reported it. 

Obstruction requires what’s called “specific intent” to interfere with a criminal case.  If Comey concluded, however, that Trump’s language was vague, ambiguous or elliptical, then he has no duty under the law to report it because it does not rise to the level of specific intent.  Thus, no crime.  

At least on the part of Pres. Trump…  Which means, no impeachment.  At least until the next time the organized left gets offended by something.  You know, like Trup eating two scoops of ice cream

On a final note, we’d like to hear from you.  Will you abandon the GOP if Republicans support or vote for Trump’s impeachment?  Please go here and take our poll.

Related:

If you haven’t checked out and liked our Facebook page, please go here and do so.

And if you’re as concerned about Facebook censorship as we are, go here and order this new book:

Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad
Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad – Source: Author (used with permission)

 

Related Articles

Our Privacy Policy has been updated to support the latest regulations.Click to learn more.×