James Comey: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Former FBI Director James Comey testified today. For the past month, both parties have debated what he’d say, tonight they are arguing over which side won. Don’t just take the news’s word for it, read what happened and judge for yourself.

A month after being fired, James Comey finally got to tell his side of the story to The Senate Intel Committee. The day started with an open hearing in the Senate and ended in closed session. What was the outcome of these sessions? Well, that seems to depend on which party you affiliate with and what news organization you watch/read. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between.

Comey opened by saying that when he was appointed, he knew any president had the authority to fire him for any reason or no reason at all. However, then he goes on to say, “But then the explanations, the shifting explanations, confused me and increasingly concerned me. They confused me because the president and I had multiple conversations about my job and he had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and had hoped I would stay.” While Mr. Comey claims the true reason for the change in attitude occurred due to the Russian colluding investigation, the true reason stems from the former director’s testimony on May 6th when discussing the Clinton e-mail investigation. Either way, unless it was for nefarious reasons (never established), it’s a non-issue due to the law that gives the president the authority to fire the FBI director.

Prior to the start of the hearing, I wondered if any of the senators would ask why James Comey felt it necessary to keep memos on his interactions with President Trump, but not with anyone else. I found his answer to be rather weak. He claimed it was just something he felt compelled to do from his feelings based on awkward interactions when the president was still a candidate. Then again, he would also reveal that he informed President Trump three separate times, without any prompting on the president’s part, that President Trump wasn’t personally under investigation. All this was done while trying to convince the senators and watching public that he didn’t want to be alone with the president, but continued to take his calls.

An interesting note to mention here is that Mr. Comey would later go on to say he felt queasy when former Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked him to refer to Hilary Clinton’s e-mail investigation as a matter. Ironically, the severity of the queasy feeling left by Loretta Lynch’s request didn’t warrant him feeling he needed to keep a record of conversations with her.

The main thing that people wanted to see, whether or not Mr. Comey would try to say President Trump obstructed justice. Whether he or didn’t depends on your party affiliation. I’m sure Democrats tuning in cheered when Mr. Comey said he had interpreted President Trump saying, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go,” as an order. Quite a few of the senators taking part in the hearing pointed out that saying, “I hope,” isn’t an order, which probably returned the smile to the faces of Republicans.

In the end, when it really got down to it, Mr. Comey decided to defer to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. This was probably a wise decision since he had already testified on May 3rd that there had been no obstruction as far as he knew. To those of you determined to believe James Comey said obstruction had occurred in today’s hearing, you’re also saying the former director committed perjury; after hearing how he set up privileged information to be leaked to the public, I think he’ll already have his hands full.

Whether anyone realizes it or not, the bigger issue that should have been discussed more in full was the investigation in the Russians meddling in our elections. Now I realize most of the investigation may still be classified due to it being ongoing and therefore not discussed in the open forum, but what was said was sparse at best, fear mongering at worst.

For months now, we have heard that the Russians meddled in our election process. While Mr. Comey did say that none of the votes were tampered with, he still reiterated what we had been told since the election; the Russians hacked the elections. No proof was provided only a vague warning that the Russians were coming.

Also on the Russian investigation, it was revealed that the president is fully behind finding out the truth and especially wanting to know if any of those within his administration were involved. That little bit of information came after Mr. Comey’s testimony over whether or not President Trump ordered the investigation of Michael Flynn halted.

The hearing lasted over two hours and thirty minutes before it moved behind closed doors. I have no clue the closed session lasted, but I am certain that with all that was said today, this investigation has only just begun