Comey's opening remarks [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Comey's opening remarks [pdf]

intelligence.senate.gov

117 pointsrunesoerensen52 comments

Political futures markets are trading basically unchanged after the release of this, with a 77% chance trump is president at the end of 2017. Get your bets in!

https://www.predictit.org/Contract/5140/Will-Donald-Trump-be...

P.S. "Will James Comey mention "obstruction of justice" in Thursday's Senate hearing?" is trading at 46%

https://www.predictit.org/Contract/6788/Will-James-Comey-men...

I'm having a hard time finding a response. But I don't see any malicious intentions or acts of obstruction. Though, I can understand how those situations are unnerving for a goal of remaining independent.

>But I don't see any malicious intentions or acts of obstruction

You don't see anything malicious about a sitting President making repeated asks to an FBI director to end various investigations concerning possibly illegal activities that he or his associates may have committed? ?

Only said "I hope you can let this go" twice. Seems plausible it's an honest plea for a guy he thinks did nothing wrong. I don't see it obstructing the investigation. Which would be my main concern.

How is asking to shut down an ongoing investigation not obstructing justice? If he was really so sure this "good guy" did nothing wrong, why not let the evidence validate him?

I don't equate "i hope you can let this go" to "shut down the investigation." I get the concern. It's valid. But I feel it's more of an issue if there's an _action_ to suppress the investigation.

>But I feel it's more of an issue if there's an _action_ to suppress the investigation

Such as firing the FBI official who refused to comply...

I don't think that stopped or harmed the investigation. I also don't see evidence linking the Flynn conversation to the firing.

The firing is a valid concern. But directors have been fired before. Could be many reasons.

> I also don't see evidence linking the Flynn conversation to the firing

Trump stated it was due to the Russia investigation in the CNN interview the next day.

And whether or not it harmed the investigation is irrelevant, the question is whether the intent was to harm the investigation. So given that

1. Trump asks comey to stop the investigation 2. Comey doesn't 3. Trump fires Comey 4. Trump claims that Comey was fired because of the russia/flynn investigation

I don't see how you can read this any other way.

Here's how I read it:

1. Trump asks Comey to stop the investigation because it's creating bad press and is undermining the goals of his administration

2. Comey doesn't

3. Trump fires Comey for disloyalty and for allowing what Trump sees as a distraction to worsen, not because he believes the firing will somehow end the investigation.

4. What you said, though specifically because Comey's actions showed disloyalty and created problems for administration vs an effort to deliberately "obstruct justice"

The point is, firing someone because they wouldn't end an investigation is obstruction. Sure, his intent wasn't to "obstruct justice", but his intent was to obstruct justice.

The distinction I make is this: If Trump fired Comey in a clear attempt to end the investigation, then that's an action to obstruct but this does not seem to be the case, since Trump was likely informed the investigation would continue with or without Comey. Though I do find the talk of loyalty to be "unnerving" as some other commenter described it.

What do you think "letting this go" means? If Comey had said yes, what do you think Trump would have expected Comey to do?

How is such a request "obstructing" anything?

This doesn't sound damning enough to you? 'He described the Russia investigation as “a cloud” that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country' 'He asked what we could do to “lift the cloud.”'

Additionally, his insistence on "loyalty" is terrifying to me. As soon as the FBI isn't independent, parties will be involved in the judicial process.

He mentions several times that what's he looking for is PR on the fact (acknowledged by Comey) that Trump personally was not under investigation. Certainly could be inappropriate, but this isn't the smoking gun the dems wanted.

Agreed that it's not as powerful as some had hoped. That said, his repeated requests for loyalty, followed by asking him to halt or hinder an investigation, and then the subsequent 'firing' can be fairly easily related. It's not acceptable to ask the FBI director to stop an investigation and then fire him when he doesn't.

It's not a great look, but it's nothing actually illegal. And likely a thing every politician also would have done in his place, albeit with more tact.

In short, Trump lacks tact and isn't a skilled politician. I think we knew these things.

Where this is going to bite him is adding more "acting suspiciously" wood on the woodpile, should Democrats win a majority and move to impeach on the basis of some other spark. Nixon probably wouldn't have been impeached over Watergate if there hadn't been a pattern of behavior.

His requests for loyalty have a pretty innocuous explanation, that is hinted by Comey himself - this was in the midst of an anonymous revolt from intelligence agencies against the President, with constant leaks hitting the press every day. Alongside the leaks the President also had to contend with insubordination, e.g. Ms. Yates refusing to follow his executive orders. Regardless of the merit you see in his orders, it is logically consistent that a President who faces obstruction when trying to enact his vision would be specifically looking for loyalty among his subordinates.

I think we can agree the Russia issue is impacting his term. If he thinks he's innocent, he'd be asking for ways to get around it.

The loyalty part is worrying, agreed. But I don't see any actions to obstruct investigations.

I don't think I'd agree firing the director impaired the investigation.

I hope you're at the least "unnerved"

I'm not sure what you would consider acts of obstruction, then. The President said “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Do you believe that because he was coy with his language, that his meaning was unclear?

"Let this go, or I'll fire you"?

"The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. "

So you're saying, the President can get away with making whatever threats he wants, so long as he makes them obliquely? Like it's only an illegal threat if he says the magic words?

I feel like history and law bears out my answer: yes.

Isn't that the definition of plausible deniability?

Denial becomes a lot less plausible when you consider that Comey did not end the investigation, and was fired for it.

But no, being vague in your implications is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Laws are evaluated by humans who are adept at seeing through bullshit, not computers.

Aware of the complexities, but Clinton wasn't impeached by the Senate despite giving a knowingly false statement.

While being vague is not a get out of jail free card, it's demonstrably easier to defend a vague statement than a concrete one.

> it's demonstrably easier to defend a vague statement than a concrete one

It is, I agree. However, when the speaker—in this case Trump—behaves as if the coyly hinted at meaning was correct, then there's no room left to hide behind "oh but that's not what I meant". In Trump's statement was a strongly implied—yet unstated—threat: If you don't drop this investigation, then you'll lose your job. And what happened? When it became clear that Comey wasn't dropping the investigation, he lost his job. Trump has no wiggle room in claiming an alternate meaning, because the clearly implied meaning was what he did.

Imagine this:

You're walking down the street at night. You pass a man, who calls out to you. You notice that he's got a gun in his front pocket. While he places his hand on the gun, he tells you that he really could use some money, whatever you have on you. Which you proceed to give him.

Did you get mugged? Or did you instead give $200 and your phone to your new best friend?

It's like when you meet a bad boss, you know immediatly you should keep everything in writing...

I did that in a previous internship and it helped me greatly afterwards. Though in my case it did escalate to physical threats.

I'm wondering why this link has been [flagged]. Is it because it's breaking news, or not insightful?

Some time ago, during the height of the election political frenzy, dang expressed the wishes of the moderator community for a week of no politics[0]. It is possible that people enjoyed the period and are consciously trying to extend it. It is also possible that the controversial nature of Comey's remarks got this post a number of partisan flags. The most likely explanation is a little mix of everything.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404

This isn't r/news. Nothing wrong with breaking news. It just doesn't belong on hacker news. A lot of people here care about the signal to noise ratio. Allowing discussions like this here adds what many people consider noise.

Ironically, this is one only places where it is possible to see a sensible political discussion without it into a cesspool / circle jerk.

many HNers are anti-Trump...

User are encouraged to flag content the judge off-topic. And the definition of off-topic is quite broad:

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Probably people don't find their intellectual curiosity gratified by the umpteenth post about Trump. Also consider that many users are not American.

One thing I like about HN is that it (usually) steers clear of politics. I hope it remains that way. There are other venues, including many technology-related sites, where there is plenty of political discussion.

"steers clear of politics"

I imagine there were many people in 1972-1973 who were also saying they hope discussions "steer clear of politics".

I know the mandate of HN (to the extent there is one) is not "politics" but on the other hand in times like these, I welcome any venue for citizens to become engaged. The stakes are very high.

>I imagine there were many people in 1972-1973 who were also saying they hope discussions "steer clear of politics".

Please don't do this. This is really just (poorly) veiled mud slinging.

The screenplay will practically write itself.

This section seems to be a direct accusation of attempted obstruction of justice, even though it's unable to be corroborated:

> I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. [...] Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency.

It will be interesting to see whether any extra information is provided or deviated from during the live testimony.

How is this available before his testimony? I'm confused.

Oh. Uploaded prematurely. Got it.

I think it's uploaded by intention, because this is a prepared opening statement.

Written testimony is pretty much always uploaded day before to committee websites. When the hearing starts he's going to read this verbatim, and then there will be senator questions.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the answer.

Well shit. That's gonna leave a mark...

I can't even... IANAL, but I would have written memo on those discussions as well because I would have been scared witless.

"The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot.” He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” I replied only that “he is a good guy.” (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would “let this go.” "

Is there a non PDF version?

There will be a video version tomorrow.

In seriousness, here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/read-james-comeys-prepar...

> He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia

Boom, there it is. What kinks does Mr President indulge? That is now the question.

Edit: come on down voters, you know that's what's going to viral out of this statement: FBI Director, Trump, Russian hookers. If you don't agree, at least comment!

How is this related to hackernews ? Oh yes, I get it. All people of the world are from a planet called US. No other land mass exists on earth. Honestly, the rest of us dont care. Keep politics to yourself, hackernews is not foxnews.

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