And that is why all his little “gotcha” questions fail miserably without Comey having to say a word.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing for an incurious mind.
As an upfront primer as part of my new Talking Points for Dems series, here are the answers from 20 questions for Comey with Sean Hannity.
- Andrew McCabe’s releases to the media were fully authorized by Comey and he has emails to prove it.
- The Steele Dossier was legitimate credible intel for use in a FISA Warrant Application.
- Many portions of the Dossier have been corroborated by the FBI and the Media.
- It was fully apparent that Steele’s Russian intelligence came from Russian sources, but also from some inside the Trump organization.
- The funding from HRC and the DNC to Fusion GPS was fully transparent to the FBI, as was their funding from the Republican Washington Free Beacon.
- The FBI didn’t pay Christopher Steele for the Dossier, but they had previously paid him for other investigations into Russia.
- Fusion GPS received corroboration for their findings from the FBI itself as well as from other media sources.
- The DNC and the Hillary Campaign wasn’t even aware that Perkins Coie had contracted with Fusion GPS or that they had Christopher Steele on their payroll.
- The FBI did learn about Steele reaching out to the media, because that’s why he was terminated as a source.
- The fact that Clinton investigation hadn’t found evidence of a crime by May, is not invalidated by the fact they didn't interview Hillary until July.
- Hillary Clinton did not “mishandle” Top Secret or Special Access classified information because she didn’t have any TS/SAR info on her server — but Trump did when he blurted it out to Russian in the oval office.
- Hillary’s email server wasn’t in her “bathroom closet” — it was in the basement of their Chappaqua home until it was moved in 2013 to a server farm in Secaucus New Jersey.
- No foreign intel services hacked into Hillary’s Server. [Although they did hack into the State Dept. Email Server which is where everybody says she “should” have put her emails]
- No, not Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or even the fat guy on his sofa breached her server.
- Hillary Clinton didn’t delete her remaining emails to avoid a House subpoena, the request to delete them had already been made. One PRN technician had simply forgotten to finish the job.
- Hillary Clinton didn’t deliberate delete her emails to obstruct justice, FBI found her attorneys made a good faith effort to comply with FOIA and other requests.
- Hillary didn’t “wash her server with Bleach Bit” — that was the PRN technicians and it wasn’t anything special that the Clinton camp requested.
- Justin Cooper didn’t destroy Hillary’s old Blackberry’s to obstruct justice, he was trying to prevent identity theft.
- You have to have Top Secret/SAR data on your systems to be “charged” with destroying Top Secret/SAR data.
- Hillary Clinton didn’t destroy any marked or identified Top Secret/SAR information, she didn't have any.
- The Kristian Saucier case is not relevant to the Clinton Emails. He took pictures inside a Nuclear Submarine, she received 3 emails marked with a (C) for “Confidential” [which isn’t “Top Secret” because TOP SECRET is Top Secret] — and 2 of them were incorrectly marked that way by mistake.
And so it goes.
1. Mr Comey what did you know about McCabe’s leaks/Conduct?
McCabe’s sharing information with the Wall Street Journal about the Clinton investigation was [according to McCabe] authorized by Comey himself, McCabe noted this in his own statement after he was fired.
In fact, this entire investigation stems from my efforts, fully authorized under FBI rules, to set the record straight on behalf of the Bureau, and to make clear that we were continuing an investigation that people in DOJ opposed.
The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor. As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter.
McCabe states that Comey knew everything about it, and he authorized it. McCabe also states he has emails between himself and Comey to prove this even if neither of them could recall it when they were asked by IG investigators.
[Update: According to the IG report McCabe had initially denied being behind the leak originally but later in print and during a recorded interview admitted that he did authorize it. Comey during his various interview on his book tour has said he didn’t recall McCabe getting his authorization, however he also said McCabe already had the authority for this and didn’t need his approval. The IG has made a criminal referral against McCabe, but McCabe has since counter-sued for wrongful termination and defamation. If he does have the emails detailing that he did inform Comey — not that he had too — then this entire situation is simply a mistake based on the fact they both forgot about those emails., and if he doesn’t then his countersuit would be considered frivolous and abusive. I think he has them because there is no upside to saying he does, when he doesn’t. Stay tuned.]
2. Why was the unverified and salacious dossier (January 2017) used as “the bulk” of the FISC application (October 2016)?
Because the FBI had found Christopher Steele’s information credible multiple times including when he was a source on the FIFA corruption scandal in 2011 which included a person, Chuck Blazer who was living in a $1,800/month Trump Tower suite, being paid off by Russians and also in 2013 during investigation of a money laundering and gambling ring led by Russian mobster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who also rented property in the Tower. Thirdly, the dossier itself confirmed information the FBI already had from other sources about the actions of Trump associates in connection with Russians as noted by Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.
We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.
This was also a point brought up in reporting by the Guardian.
A source close to the investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign and its ties to Russia says that there is now “specific concrete and corroborative evidence” that individuals within Trump’s immediate orbit coordinated with Russian intelligence operatives during the election.
The Guardian said on Thursday that the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been watching the Trump camp since late 2015, having noticed suspicious “interactions” between Trump associates and well-known Russian agents.
And also noted by Newsweek.
Last Saturday, the Times published a story revealing the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign began in earnest in July 2016 after Australian officials alerted them that Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos—who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October—had told Australia’s top diplomat in Britain in May that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Clinton. An Australian newspaper has confirmed the report.
Steele’s dossier matched up with very closely with what the FBI already knew was true.
3. Why didn’t the FBI verify and corroborate the Dossier?
They have been. As noted, although redacted for security reasons, in the Schiff memo the FBI did find corroboration of Steele’s memo.
Glenn Simpson testified to House Intel that elements of the Dossier have been verified.
MR. ROONEY: Okay. Do you or ~nyone else independently verify orcorroborate any information in the dossier? This is sort of a repeat of a question I just asked, but we're talking about verification here.
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. Well, numerous things in the dossier have been verified . You know, I don't have access to the intelligence or law enforcement information that I see made reference to, but, you know, things like, you know, the Russian Government has been investigating Hillary Clinton and has a lot of information about her and is -- and the Trump people are interested in getting that information. I mean, that turned out to be true.
It was also true, you know -- I mean, if you just think back to the chronology of this, when the original memos came in saying that the Kremlin was mounting a specific operation to get Donald Trump elected President, that was not what the Intelligence Community was saying.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has also put out a document that argues that nothing in the Steele Dossier has been disproven.
The facts about Carter Page are not disputed. As has been widely reported, the FBI was aware of Page’s extensive connections to Russia several years before he joined the Trump campaign. In fact, the FBI determined in 2013 that Russian intelligence operatives had been attempting to recruit him and warned Mr. Page about this.15 That same year, Mr. Page reportedly described himself as an “informal advisorto the staff of the Kremlin.”16 Page continued to cultivate Russian investments and business17 – something that the FBI believed could be used by Russia to cultivate him as a source.18
On March 21, 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump named Page to his foreign policy team.19 In July 2016, and with the approval of Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Page traveled to Moscow to speak at the New Economic School.20 During his trip, Mr. Page emailed the Trump campaign about “some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential Administration here.” 21
That same month, Mr. Steele reported that Russia and the Trump campaign “had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate HILLARY CLINTON, whom President PUTIN apparently both hated and feared.” Mr. Steele reported that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was using “foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries” between the campaign and Russia and that Mr. Page had meetings with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and Presidential Administration official Igor Divyekin.2
So yes, the Steele Dossier is corroborated and verified at least as far as Carter Page being in contact with high profile Russians during the campaign, and as far as the Russian operation to help elect Donald Trump.
4. Did you know the Dossier used “Russian” sources?
Yes, of course he did — Comey personally briefed Trump on the dossier on Jan 12, 2016.
A senior U.S. official said that it was FBI Director James Comey himself who pulled Trump aside after the briefing and spoke with him one-on-one about the so-called "dossier," 35 pages of memos prepared by a former British spy for an anti-Trump client prior to last year's election.
It also used sources that were inside the Trump campaign.
Steele Dossier June 20, 2016 : Source A stated that Kremlin has been feeding Trump and his team valuable intel on his opponents including Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for several years. This was confirmed by Source D, a close associate of Trump’s who had organized his recent trips to Moscow noting Russian Intel had been “very helpful”.
I’m pretty much willing to bet Source D is Felix Sater who recently admitted that he did exactly that on live TV and has previously been an informant for the FBI and was born in Russia.
5. Mr Comey, did you know HRC paid for the Lies in the “Russian” dossier?
Again from by Schiff memo the funding source for Fusion GPS was noted — albeit masked — in the FISA Warrant which was approved by Comey.
Comey could have requested the names be unmasked just as Susan Rice did later when the Crown Prince of the UAE sneaked into the U.S. for a secret meeting at Trump Tower.
The memo was also paid for by Republican sources such as the Washington Free Beacon as testified to by Glenn Simpson while being questioned by Trey Gowdy.
MR. SIMPSON: The Free Beacon has been publicly stated as the client or identified to the committee as the client, and I can confirm that._
MR. GOWDY: All right. I'm going to be asking you questions even thoughthere's been public reporting. I don't want anybody in the media to take any offense, but sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not right. So --
MR. SIMPSON: I can agree with that.
MR. GOWDY: So in this instance, we can all celebrate the fact that they were correct. You were hired by the Washington Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: That was the client, yes.
6. Did you or anyone at the FBI pay Christopher Steele?
Yes, but not for the Dossier. Steele was previously a paid informant on the FIFA and Russian Mobster cases as noted by The New Yorker.
Although the Bureau had paid Steele for past work, he was not paid for his help on the Trump investigation. Orbis remained under contract to Fusion, and Steele helped the F.B.I. voluntarily. (He did request compensation for travelling to Rome, but he never received any.)
The Schiff Memo notes that the FBI had planned to pay Steele, but that payment was cancelled when it was discovered he had spoken with David Corn of Mother Jones.
7. Did you ask Fusion GPS owners if they corroborated the “Russian” dossier?
They were primarily talking to Steele, not Glenn Simpson who provided the funding not the research — so from what I can see that’s a “No” because it was raw intelligence, however as noted above Glenn Simpson contends that the FBI already had information that corroborated their findings and additional information has been released by other media sources that confirm them as well.
8. Why did HRC’s campaign and the DNC funnel Fusion GPS’s payment (Steele Payments) through a law firm?
They actually didn’t funnel anything. It was Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS who went to Perkins Coie on his own to secure a funding source after the contract with the Washington Free Beacon ended, not the other way around. Simpson has since testified that the DNC and Hillary Campaign didn’t even know that Perkins Coie had hired Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign themselves had no idea from their end via the New Yorker.
Inside the Clinton campaign, John Podesta, the chairman, was stunned by the news that the F.B.I. had launched a full-blown investigation into Trump, especially one that was informed by research underwritten by the Clinton campaign. Podesta had authorized Robby Mook, the campaign manager, to handle budget matters, and Mook had approved Perkins Coie’s budget request for opposition research without knowing who was producing it. Podesta and Mook have maintained that they had no idea a former foreign intelligence officer was on the Democrats’ payroll until the Mother Jones article appeared, and that they didn’t read the dossier until BuzzFeed posted it online. Far from a secret campaign weapon, Steele turned out to be a secret kept from the campaign.
Again Steele didn’t handle the funding Glenn Simpson did.
The funding for the project originally came from an organization financed by the New York investor Paul Singer, a Republican who disliked Trump. But, after it became clear that Trump would win the Republican nomination, Singer dropped out. At that point, Fusion persuaded Marc Elias, the general counsel for the Clinton campaign, to subsidize the unfinished research. This bipartisan funding history belies the argument that the research was corrupted by its sponsorship.
Also Steele himself didn't even originally know who was paying the bills.
In the spring of 2016, Orbis Business Intelligence—a small investigative-research firm that Steele and a partner had founded, in 2009, after leaving M.I.6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—had agreed to do opposition research on Trump’s murky relationship with Russia. Under the arrangement, Orbis was a subcontractor working for Fusion GPS, a private research firm in Washington. Fusion, in turn, had been contracted by a law firm, Perkins Coie, which represented both Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Several months after Steele signed the deal, he learned that, through this chain, his research was being jointly subsidized by the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. In all, Steele was paid a hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars for his work.
So in short the DNC didn’t know about Steele and he didn’t originally know — or even care — about them. So exactly how did they “collude” when they weren’t even aware of each other?
9. What did you know about efforts to pass on the unverified salacious dossier to American media companies?
Quite a bit I would suspect since Steele’s would be contract with the FBI was terminated over his contact with the media.
And again, because of his being terminated the DOJ did not pay him.
So there’s that then.
10. Mr Comey, Why were you writing HRC’s exoneration in May 2016, long before she was interviewed in July 2016?
Because they had already gathered sufficient evidence based on interviews with her staff and persons at PRN to show that there was no intention to break the law, just as Comey testified. It’s normal to gather all the key information before interviewing the principle target to see if that known information is confirmed. And Comey specifically testified that Hillary did not lie to the FBI.
Unlike Flynn and Papadopoulos.
Also by May it was becoming fairly clear according to media reports that the FBI had found “No Malice” so far.
FBI agents and federal prosecutors tasked with looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state have yet to find evidence that Clinton intentionally broke classification rules, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Anonymous U.S. officials close to the investigation told the Post and CNN that interviews with top Clinton aides in recent weeks yielded no indication that Clinton willfully violated U.S. law. Longtime adviser Huma Abedin was among those interviewed, according to CNN.
“From the start, Hillary Clinton has offered to answer any questions that would help the Justice Department complete its review, and we hope and expect that anyone else who is asked would do the same," Clinton’s presidential campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, said in a statement to the Post. "We are confident the review will conclude that nothing inappropriate took place.”
The FBI investigation reportedly has been focused on the security of the server and whether classified information was mishandled on the server.
Why exactly would they expect that to suddenly change just 4 weeks later?
11. 18 USC 793. Is it illegal to mishandle Classified, top secret, special access programs and information? Was such information mishandled by HRC?
It wasn’t. Information marked Top Secret or Special Access was not sent to or from Clinton’s email. The Statement department told the FBI this and they included it in their report that only a few emails marked (C) for “Confidential” had been sent to Clinton and that two of those markers were included by mistake.
“Confidential” is not “Top Secret”, nor is it “Special Access”.
However, for the record the information Trump blurted out to Lavrov and Kislyak in the Oval Office about potential ISIS laptop bombs on airplanes which had been discovered by israeli hackers was Top Secret/Special Access Required.
President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.
So um, where are all your questions about that Sean?
12. Did HRC mishandle such information by placing such information on the server of a mom and pop shop, stored in a bathroom closet?
No. The original Apple server came from the Hillary’s Presidential campaign and was first replaced by a new MS Exchange server from the Bill Clinton organization which is a bit more than “Mom and Pop”. Starting in 2008 — before she was ever selected for Secretary of State, They were located in the basement of their home, not the bathroom closet until ultimately being relocated to the server farm at PRN in Secaucus New Jersey in 2013. Again as noted in the FBI report.
13. How many foreign intelligence agencies do you believe hacked HRC said server?
None. There were several attempts to breach her server but the FBI found that none were completely successful at installing Malware [although there was odd user login using Tor software.]
So no, the server wasn’t breached with Malware the way that the DNC was and her IT teamed actually did deploy successful counter strategies.
Unlike Yahoo Mail, the White House and the State Dept emails systems — who were all hacked by the Russian FSB — Hillary’s server was never breached.
14. What countries? Did Russia China, Iran, North Korea hack into HRC server?
No.
15. Mr Comey is it a crime to delete e mails that have been subpoenaed?
Not if a) they’ve already been deleted and b) you were never informed of the subpoena which is exactly what happened with one of the PRN technicians who after Clinton’s attorney had searched them for items that were work related, deleted the remaining emails between December 2014 and January of 2015. The technician simply forgot to delete the last copy.
The House Oversight Subpoena was issued on March 4th after the NYTimes broke the story about the server, after which the PRN technician finally remembered after a meeting with Clinton’s attorney’s but they didn’t tell him to do it and they didn’t bring up the subpoena.
16. When HRC deleted 33,000 subpoenaed emails was that obstruction of justice?
No. Not since she and her attorneys had already made a good faith effort to comply with FOIA and other legitimate requests for relevant data.
Hillary Clinton had nothing personally to do with any of this, and even if you could claim this was deliberate — which it wasn’t — the only person that would look bad for it was the PRN technician who was negligent.
17. What about when HRC acid washed her hard drive with “bleach bit”.
She didn't do that, according to the FBI report it was something the technical staff at PRN did as part of their standard practices. Real IT Houses use real IT House tools, not just the Trash Bin.
18. What about destroying blackberries and other devices with a hammer?
Her IT support Justin Cooper destroyed her old Blackberries to prevent someone from stealing her identity or accessing her personal information, not to destroy classified information or obstruct justice.
Identity theft is a thing, it’s going around. Also this is good security practice in general, do you leave all your receipts and bank records in the trash unshredded Sean?
19. Mr Comey is it illegal to destroy top secret, classified, special access programs information?
Yes.
20. Did HRC destroy such information?
No.
21. Are you aware Christian Saucier was sentenced to 1 year in prison for 6 photos (classified) that were on his cell phone from a US Submarine?
Probably, and it’s Kristian Saucier — not Christian. Since this case took place between 2009 while Comey was FBI Director I would say he probably knew about it. Also this argument didn’t work for Saucier so what makes you think it works for you since he was fully aware that what he was doing was documenting classified info unlike Clinton’s staff who again — only included one paragraph with a (C) marker by mistake.
Saucier admitted to taking six photos of classified areas inside the USS Alexandria in 2009 when it was in Groton and he was a 22-year-old machinist mate on the submarine.
The photos showed the nuclear reactor compartment, the auxiliary steam propulsion panel and the maneuvering compartment, prosecutors said.
Kristian Saucier’s attorneys tried working a Hillary Clinton angle, arguing that the Democratic presidential nominee had been 'engaging in acts similar to Mr. Saucier' with information of much higher classification, according to US News.
What Saucier did was a knowing and deliberate violation — which wasn’t the case with Clinton.
I have a more thorough post on the Clinton Email Investigation Here, for further details.
And in the final tweet just to cap everything off — Hannity invited Comey to come on his show.
How you like them apples?