For two days in a row White House spokeshill Sarah Huckabee-Sanders has responded to questions about Steve Bannon’s 60 Minutes interview and his alleged statement that “Firing Comey was the worst mistake in modern political history” by arguing that Trump has been proven “right” in his decision to fire Director Comey for reason that have nothing to do with the fake reason Comey was fired, or the real reason Comey was fired which was Russia.
She said this yesterday:
“I think we have been pretty clear what our position is,” Sanders insisted, “and certainly I think that has been shown in the days that followed, that the president was right in firing director Comey. Since the director’s firing, we’ve learned new information about his conduct that only provided further justification for that firing, including giving false testimony, leaking privileged information to journalists, he went outside the chain of command and politicized an investigation into a presidential candidate.”
“I think the president has been very clear in his position on that front,” she added. “He is very pleased with the new director.”
Today she was asked about her previous “false testimony” claim and she followed up by saying that “Yes, the Justice Department should look at illegal actions by Comey.”
The problem with that of course is that it’s all based on a pack of lies.
Via Rawstory
“I think everyone knows where the president stands on that issue,” Sanders said during a press briefing. “The president is proud of the decision he made. The president was 100 percent right in firing James Comey. He knew at the time that it could be bad for him politically, but he also knew and felt he had an obligation to do what was right.”
“I think there is no secret Comey by his own self-admission leaked privileged government information, weeks before President Trump fired him Comey testified that an FBI agent engaged in the same practice, they would face serious repercussions,” she continued. “His actions were improper and likely could have been illegal.
“Comey leaked memos to the New York Times. He politicized an investigation by signaling he would exonerate Hillary Clinton before interviewing her or other key witnesses. [Trump] is very happy with the decision he made and I think he has been fully vindicated.”
This has got to be the worst game of “I know you are, but what am I?” in history. I mean, an Administration that is already the target of at least 3 different investigations is going to claim that what FBI Director James Comey shared out of his own private notes with a colleague was somehow “privileged” information even though first of all, as head of the FBI Comey had the final say on what was or wasn’t to be considered “classified” within any FBI document in the same way that Trump as President had the power to decide to disclose Code-Word Classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak just as small talk.
The intelligence disclosed by Mr. Trump in a meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, was about an Islamic State plot, according to the officials. A Middle Eastern ally that closely guards its own secrets provided the information, which was considered so sensitive that American officials did not share it widely within the United States government or pass it on to other allies.
Mr. Trump’s disclosure does not appear to have been illegal — the president has the power to declassify almost anything. But sharing the information without the express permission of the ally who provided it was a major breach of espionage etiquette, and could jeopardize a crucial intelligence-sharing relationship.
That was also the meeting, one day after he fired Comey, where Trump said he “was a nut job” who “politicized things” and that now his “Russia pressure” would go away.
According to Executive Order 13526 signed by Barack Obama in 2009 these persons have the ability to assign classification of a document.
Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority.
(a) The authority to classify information
originally may be exercised only by:
(1) the President and the Vice President;
(2) agency heads and officials designated by the President; and
(3) United States Government officials delegated this authority pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.
Similarly these same persons, or their supervisors have the power to declassify a document.
Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification. (a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.
(b) Information shall be declassified or downgraded by:
(1) the official who authorized the original classification, if that official is still serving in the same position and has original classification authority;
(2) the originator’s current successor in function, if that individual has original classification authority;
(3) a supervisory official of either the originator or his or her successor in function, if the supervisory official has original classification authority; or (4) officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior agency official of the originating agency.
As head of an agency, Comey would be the ultimate authority on whether something was or wasn't "classified." Also not just anything can be considered classified, it as to classified for one of the following reasons:
Sec. 1.4. Classification Categories. Information shall not be considered for classification unless its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the national security in accordance with section 1.2 of this order, and it pertains to one or more of the following:
(a) military plans, weapons systems, or operations;
(b) foreign government information;
(c) intelligence activities (including covert action), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology;
(d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources;
(e) scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security;
(f) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;
(g) vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security; or
(h) the development, production, or use of weapons of mass destruction.
What the President does or doesn’t say in a private meeting one-on-one with James Comey in the Oval Office doesn’t fit any of those categories. And telling the press about it isn’t a "crime" because obviously lots of people in the White House are doing that on a fairly regular basis and no one is trying to prosecute them now are they?
James Comey specifically testified before Congress, under oath, that he had established all of his personal notes of his conversations with Trump as “Unclassified.”
When the two were alone, Comey said, Trump repeatedly requested that he pledge loyalty.
"I remember thinking: This is a very disturbing development,” he said, adding that he made a mental note that he needed to remember every word of the conversation and document it. He said he also made a decision to document it in a way that would not trigger security classification, so his notes could later be shared with colleagues and government investigators.
“My thinking was if I write in such a way that won’t include anything that trigger classification, that will make it easier to discuss within FBI and government.”
The FBI has reviewed Comey’s memos and determined that some of them (4 out of 7) in their opinion contained sensitive or confidential information — which means he's now facing the same after-the-fact second guessing classification upgrades that plagued Hillary Clinton's emails when at the time she was head of the agency and the final arbiter of what was and wasn’t classified — but what they did say was that the specific one that was leaked to the press which ultimately triggered the Special Counsel wasn’t one of those the four with classified info so Huckabee-Sander’s claim is false..
Those memos are now in the hands of Special Counsel Mueller, who one would presume as former Director of the FBI himself, has clearance, and if he thought that Comey had violated security rules, or perjured himself before Congress he already has all the requisite information for that although he could very well offer Comey an immunity deal for his testimony, the same kind that Michael Flynn was begging for.
This entire claim is one that had previously been made by Trump’s former lawyer Kasowitz who for weeks had threatened to file a complaint with the DOJ IG against Comey for leaking privileged/classified information but never actually did it. Legal scholars such as John Dean using the example of US. V Nixon have pointed out that Comey’ s notes were not “privileged” at all — Comey isn’t his personal lawyer and didn’t sign a customary TrumpCo Loyalty Pledge permanent and retro-active Gag-Rule NDA — and that this threat from Kasowitz, and now Huckabee-Sanders could be itself considered obstruction, witness intimidation and abusive retaliation.
As the news broke, I was on the phone with Stephen Kohn, partner at a law firm focused on whistleblower protection. We’d been talking about where the boundaries lay for Comey in what he could and couldn’t do with the information about his conversations with the president. Kohn’s response to the story about Kasowitz, though, was visceral.
“Here is my position on that: Frivolous grandstanding,” he said. “First of all, I don’t believe the inspector general would have jurisdiction over Comey any more, because he’s no longer a federal employee.” The inspector general’s job is to investigate wrongdoing by employees of the Justice Department, which Comey is no longer, thanks to Trump — though the IG would have the ability to investigate an allegation of criminal misconduct.
“But, second,” he continued, “initiating an investigation because you don’t like somebody’s testimony could be considered obstruction. And in the whistleblower context, it’s both evidence of retaliation and, under some laws, could be an adverse retaliatory act itself.”
It’s also false that Comey had determined before seeing any witnesses or gathering any evidence that he would “let Clinton go” because he was upset that he seen indications that Loretta Lynch might do that exact same thing. So why would he do the exact same thing he was concerned that Lynch might do, especially after her Tarmac Talk with Bill Clinton, and particularly when the original/fake reason for firing Comey in the first place was that he was “too unfair and mean” to Hillary Clinton when he wrote this in his summary:
- “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
- Clinton’s emails included seven message chains with information classified as top secret.
- “None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system.”
- “The security culture of the State Department …was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.”
- Comey acknowledged that the FBI did not normally make public its recommendations to prosecutors as to whether to bring criminal charges. He added: “In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order.”
- “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
- “I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation.”
So was he too nice to Clinton or was he too mean? Huckabee-Sanders seems to talking from both ends of her mouth, like a typical Trumpkin sycophant. And worse, in the process making the pattern of obstruction by Trump and his surrogates even more obvious.