So! James Comey testified Thursday morning, and it was just great! And now Donald Trump’s idiot lawyer Marc Kasowitz has released a statement in response, on behalf of his client, and it is … um …
Like, we don’t mean to be unkind, but Trump might have done better just live-tweeting the damn thing, like he reportedly wanted to.
Let’s look at it:
So that is some lawyering! But it’s not good lawyering. Kasowitz says Comey “[made] clear that the President never sought to impede the investigation,” because apparently we are going to split hairs over the EXACT WORDS Trump used. Trump said he “hoped” Comey could find a way to stop investigating Michael Flynn. It wasn’t an order or anything! It’s not like Donald Trump is the president, oh wait he is, at least technically. Comey, of course, testified that he took it as a directive, because ANY SANE PERSON IN A MEETING IN THE OVAL OFFICE would take it that way, ESPECIALLY if the president had just shooed everybody else out of the room so he could grab the FBI director by the pussy in private.
Kasowitz straight up denies that Trump asked for Comey’s loyalty, to which we will just echo Comey’s testimony, when he said, “Lordy I hope there are tapes” of their conversations. Why? Because Donald Trump is a known fucking liar, and there is no reason to believe he’s told his lawyer the truth.
But that’s not the most LOL part. The most LOL part is about how James Comey IS THE REAL LEAKER!!!!!11111ELEVEN!!!1! We’ll transcribe, so we can laugh at it REALLY LOUDLY:
Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President. […] Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to his friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. […] We will leave it the [sic] appropriate authorities to determine whether this [sic] leaks should be investigated …
Oh. My. God.
Comey testified SPECIFICALLY that he wrote certain memos in an unclassified way, so that if they needed to be shared, there wouldn’t be a ton of red tape. Let’s go to the transcript:
WARNER: I found it very interesting that, that in the memo that you wrote after this February 14th pull-aside, you made clear that you wrote that memo in a way that was unclassified. If you affirmatively made the decision to write a memo that was unclassified, was that because you felt at some point, the facts of that meeting would have to come clean and come clear, and actually be able to be cleared in a way that could be shared with the American people?
COMEY: Well, I remember thinking, this is a very disturbing development, really important to our work. I need to document it and preserve it in a way, and this committee gets this but sometimes when things are classified, it tangled them up. […]
If I write it such a way that doesn’t include anything of a classification, that would make it easier for to us discuss within the FBI and the government, and to hold onto it in a way that makes it accessible to us.
In later questioning, sexxxy Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico asked for clarification as to whether all the memos were unclassified. Comey said nah, some were classified. A bit after that, idiot Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt sought clarification, to make sure Comey didn’t leak CLASSIFIED memos to his pal, which then ended up in the New York Times:
COMEY: Not the classified documents. Unclassified. I don’t have any of them anymore. I gave them to the special counsel. My view was that the content of those unclassified memorializations of those conversations was my recollection recorded.
So, since they are UNCLASSIFIED and Trump was Twitter-sharting about “Comey better hope I don’t have tapes,” there was literally NOTHING illegal or untoward about him giving his UNCLASSIFIED memo about his OWN RECOLLECTIONS to his FRIEND. We know lawyers like to speak lawyer-ese, but this is just fucking stupid. Maybe the sorts of “best people” who are willing to represent Donald Trump are impressed by that sort of logic, but not GOOD lawyers, or people with IQ’s over 100. Bad job, Marc Kasowitz!
Are all of the rightwing sausagemakers conflating the “leaked” (not leaked) memo Comey gave a friend to forward to the New York Times, with a different story the New York Times did, which Comey said they fucked up like a common New York Times? THEY ARE.
Here is Alex Jones, being an idiot:
This is beyond a nothingburger. This is a treasonburger, ladies and gentlemen. Comey admits he leaked the memo to The New York Times which they then admit got the story wrong. Oh, so they used a memo, misrepresented what was in it to hurt the president.
Nope. Stop taking John McCain’s trucker speed, Alex Jones!
Here are Wonkette’s other brief takeaways from the Comey hearing, which we literally copy/pasted from our liveblog of the hearing. If you want to know ALL THE HOTTEST MOMENTS, please click over and read that, as we are very ZZZZZZZ.
- Comey didn’t use the words, but he laid out a case for obstruction of justice by Donald Trump, including the fact that Trump definitely fired him over Russia, “because I’ve seen the president say so.”
- There is SOMETHIN’ FUNNY AFOOT about why Attorney General Sessions recused himself when he did. Comey said the FBI had more information on that, but he couldn’t share it in an open session. He also said he couldn’t discuss things like whether Trump colluded with Russia an open session, which is very different from “Nope he did not!”
- John McCain may be in the process of having a stroke.
- Michael Flynn was/is definitely under criminal investigation, and it seems it’s at least partially for lying/making false statements to the FBI.
- Comey definitely absolutely certainly believes Donald Trump is a giant liar, and he thought so WAY BACK the first time he met with Trump.
- LORDY James Comey hopes Trump has tapes of their conversations.
- LORDY Donald Trump hopes Comey doesn’t have the pee tape, not that there is one.
Anyway, we hope you have all had a very nice Comey Day. We sure did! And now since you’ve been so good, you may have an OPEN THREAD.
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[Politico]
