Crooks and Liars

AM Joy opened this morning with a live call from the outgoing Minority Leader in the Senate.

The charges are alarming. This is foreign interference in our election, folks.

HARRY REID: ...I did not believe, that James Comey was the new J. Edgar Hoover. I thought that he would do the right thing for the country. The FBI had this material for a long time. Comey, who is of course a Republican, refused to divulge this information regarding Russia and the Presidential election. He violated the orders of the Attorney General.

Everyone knows Wikileaks was involved from the very beginning. They ran the information as if it was released by one of the great political operatives in America, when in fact it was run out of the clique offices in Russia.

Russia has a pretty good way of cheating. Look at what they did with their athletes....

I am so happy that the administration is going to ask that the work is being done before he leaves. And notice he didn't ask the FBI to do it.

JOY REID: Just to be clear, Senator Reid, you contend that Jim Comey, the FBI director, had this information, and deliberately withheld it before the election. Is that your contention, sir?

HARRY REID: Yes, that is true.

JOY REID: And Senator, you had Senator Lindsey Graham, who is to my knowledge, is the only Republican, who is sounding even a hint of outrage about Russia's deliberate interference in our election. Do you have confidence, that Senate Republicans will investigate this intervention in our election after January, or do you believe the administration's investigation is all we're going to get?

HARRY REID: I believe Lindsey Graham is a voice of concern. He's an accomplished trial lawyer. He's one of the people who led the impeachment of President Clinton, he's a good lawyer. And I think he should get involved in this, and if he did, I think he would bring in some of the Republican moderates. There aren't many of them. But this is really important. And we've talked about it for months now. We've heard about the cheating they do with their athletes. Now let's hear about the cheating they're doing affecting presidential elections.

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You have heard my voice. I am so disappointed with James Comey. That is why I call him the new J.Edgar Hoover.

JOY REID: Do you think James Comey should resign, sir?

HARRY REID: Of course. Yes. He won't. He's got his term. And I'm sure the new administration ..they should like him, he helped them get elected.

JOY REID: Do you think the Justice Department should get involved and investigate him? After all, he works for the Justice Department, should Loretta Lynch. Should she try to get him removed?

HARRY REID: No, there's not enough time to do that. That would be a gesture in futility.

JOY REID: And finally sir, do you think that James Comey should be investigated by the Senate?

HARRY REID: I think he should be investigated by the Senate, I think he should be investigated by other agencies of government, including the security agencies, because if there was ever a matter of security it is this. It's clear, it's so clear, you look at the accounts we have, just in the press, in the last few days. It's just stunning, stunning, the conclusions reached in the press. Thank goodness, we still have them around, in spite of a lot of people, this is not fake news, okay?

JOY REID: Yeah.

HARRY REID: ...intelligence officials have been fighting individuals with connections to the Russian Government. There is no question about that.

JOY REID: And so, I believe, your deputy Chief of Staff, tweeted yesterday, speaking of the press, you were interviewed by the New York Times, about these issues, that you discussed these very issues, and your interview was not included in the story that the New York Times published saying that the Russians were simply interferring in the election, and not specifically to help Trump. Do you believe the New York Times deliberately left your comments on the cutting room floor.
So why do you think they did that?

HARRY REID: I think they did not want to make this story political. I think they believed that Comey would do a good job. And of course that was a terrible lack of judgement. I'm sorry they felt that way. I don't think any of us knew how partisan Comey was, including the New York Times.

JOY REID: Before I let you go, do you believe these revelations about Russia's intervention in our election, undermine the legitimacy of the next administration?

HARRy REID: Well, Trump's the president. He was elected. This is the hanging chad a thousand times over. He lost the election actually by about 3 million votes. But we have the system we have here, which, by the way, should change very soon.

JOY REID: Thank you very much.

The US Senate cares about nothing but their own butts. Their top priority this week was to get started on their six-week vacation on Friday rather than Saturday.

There's much more on this story on AM Joy this morning. If I could, I'd run the whole show here at C&L. Go watch.