If you know Comey's history, he's always been the same guy. Independent to a fault, and a bit too self-important. Him and Mueller almost quit during the Bush administration because they thought the Stellar Wind program was illegal. And then there's the Ashcroft hospital incident. He's a guy who wouldn't stay quiet in the face of corruption, so naturally it could've never worked out with Trump.

Why are you inanely focusing on whether they are technically legal or prosecutable rather than the prudence and ethics of the actions themselves?
You don't get to handwave Comey's motives here by saying its a 'minor' infraction or a 'retroactive' labeling. For one, it was neither: IG Horowitz laid that out. But for two: That's not particularly relevant.
The greater issue isn't whether Comey committed a crime or should be locked up, what I'm talking about is the very fact he was acting like a corrupt idiot.
It was Comey who was given the job of informing and serving the president-elect and instead set about a dumb conspiracy to undermine him and tried to entrap and ambush him under the guise of routine briefings. He consciously tried to set up Trump and roleplay a spy thriller
And that was corrupt and moronic.



There was no FBI investigation into Trump at the time. Comey had no official justification for his conspiracy against Trump. He was going out of his way to try to provoke exactly that special counsel, and his leaking played a large role in enabling the eventual investigation, both the mad rush by McCabe and the appointment. It was Comey being fired that was the proximate cause, remember? And yet here we see that Comey deserved being fired 100x times over.
Comey was lying to his president's face, trying to set him up and undermine his administration, spying on him, breaking intelligence quarantines, leaking to the media and overseeing an entire department culture of leaks and basically being the #1 case of TDS in the whole country even by contemporary standards.


There was a bad faith actor in this story, someone who did everything wrong, someone who interfered in the election illegitimately and broke the law wantonly and acted lawlessly and abused their official powers. And it wasn't Donald Trump.
But despite you professing time and time again how leadership must be virtuous and respectable, James Comey gets a free pass from you for being the world's biggest skunk. Because you hate Trump more.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Aug 31 2019 01:13pm

Whether an IG is being anal about relatively minor infractions doesn't matter to me. Comey's actions exist in a world with context, where the POTUS is asking for loyalty pledges, and flirting with obstruction of justice. That's what I care about, the leader of the free world acting like a criminal. Not some minor infraction.

It's kind of hilarious to see you pretending to care about classified information. It's totally cool and justified when Wikileaks or Trump releases shit, but since you don't like Comey, suddenly it's a big deal that some low level confidential information gets out.



Comey didn't hold Trump down and force him to act like a guilty man. He didn't force Trump to suck Putin's balls rhetorically, or to hire a bunch of Russia-connected lackeys, or to act like a paranoid buffoon who was trying to cover up crimes. Comey's actions don't exist in a vacuum, as much as you would like them to. He was faced with extraordinary circumstances, and for the most part acted in an appropriate way.

Also weird how this reasoning works. Trump flirts with obstruction of justice... but Comey is the one responsible for the appointment of a Special Counsel because he revealed the president's corruption? Trump chose to act like a criminal, and he chose to fire Comey. It's on him.

This post was edited by IceMage on Sep 1 2019 08:12am

The major difference being it's LEGAL for Trump to declassify and release information. It NOT legal for people in the Army or the FBI to do that.



/e It's not legal for the Secretary of State to do it either.

This post was edited by Ghot on Sep 1 2019 11:31am

Trump has the right to declassify information as he sees fit.
Wikileaks was a nonpartisan organization with no affiliation or pledge of allegiance to the United States and its government, making real crimes and issues known to the public.
By contrast, Comey was a partisan actor trying to smear and undermine the president, and he broak various laws and rules and probably his oath of office by leaking this information.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 1 2019 12:03pm

I don't know why that's relevant? If the concern is protecting classified information, why is the president's lawful ability to release any American secret he wants to relevant? Whether it's Comey releasing information or Trump, the result is the same. Sensitive information made public.

So, if you're completely cool with Trump releasing shit, but super anal about Comey releasing his memos, you should probably think about how you're not being consistent. You're not concerned with classified information getting out, you're just feigning outrage because you don't like the guy who exposed Trump's corruption.

Who says my primary concern is protecting classified information? My primary concern is that powerful people at the FBI were running amok and blatantly trying to influence the political process in spite of their strict obligation to remain neutral. Them getting away with it, now THAT would really set a dangerous precedent.



sidenote: it's "broke", wtf was I thinking.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 1 2019 01:28pm

Yang 2020

Wonder how many trump voters would switch to Hogan, he aligns more with their values.