Lanny Davis Wanted Clinton Put Computer Hard on Review Tv

Since the Afterword to my volume (which follows) was written, two months subsequently I came to correspond Michael Cohen. Subsequently the reporting of a story relating to the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, I realized my fault in not much more clearly telling reporters of my uncertainty and inability to ostend the story they were working on. I apologized for this error and for any unintentional misleading comments I made to attempt explain my error. I took full responsibleness for these mistakes and blamed no 1 else.

I learned a number of of import professional and personal lessons for the hereafter—at to the lowest degree I hope so. The well-nigh important lesson—the one I thought I knew but need to remind myself fifty-fifty more from now on—is to verify and confirm for myself all data I share with reporters. If I have doubts, I accept learned, then exist silent.

In dissimilarity, former FBI manager James Comey never apologized for sending the Oct. 28 letter that I believe my book proves with difficult data was the final decisive reason why Donald Trump won the election. Even after the DOJ Inspector General found Comey's sending that letter of the alphabet to Congress eleven days before the election to be a violation of long-standing DOJ policies and an act of "insubordination"—too equally his July v globally televised press conference that offered his negative opinion on the subject of the investigation without bringing any charges—Comey never apologized or even admitted to an erroneous judgment. —Lanny J. Davis

Afterword to the paperback edition of The Unmaking of the President 2016: How FBI Director James Comey Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency

The Unmaking of the President 2016 was published in Feb 2018, a petty more than three months earlier sometime FBI director James Comey published his volume, A College Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Comey completed his book bout having received mostly softball questions from mainstream media interviewers. This must take pleased Donald Trump, for these interviews helped confirm to his loyal base that Trump was right well-nigh the bias and anti-Trump hatred of the mainstream media and vindicated in his decision to fire Comey. The coverage also helped strengthen his strategy to nationalize the November 2018 midterm elections effectually the issue of impeachment. And thus, the interviews helped divert attention away from the fact of his illegitimate election, thanks to Comey's improper intervention. The fly in the ointment of that strategy, as we shall see, is someone named Robert Mueller, who won't exist deterred and couldn't care less about political attacks. His focus will remain on one matter and one thing merely: the facts.

i. Comey'south Big Lie About His October 28, 2016, History-Irresolute Letter of the alphabet

As Comey's book tour proceeded, I watched with amazement as among all the interviewers in the mainstream media—in print, cable, morning and evening network news, yous name it—not 1 interviewer asked Comey why he lied about the reason he said he was "obligated" to ship the history-changing October 28 letter to Congress.

I don't apply the discussion "lie" hands. I didn't employ it to describe Comey'due south behavior in the capacity of this book. After all, information technology means accusing Comey of not just being incorrect or mistaken. Information technology goes to his intent—an intentional misrepresentation of facts—an act of willful deceit.

Comey lied, I believe—knowingly misled and deceived—when he wrote in a memo to FBI employees on the evening of October 28, 2016, and subsequently repeated afterwards many times and in his 2018 volume tour interviews, that he had an "obligation" to disclose the new Clinton emails to Congress on October 28 because he had previously told Congress and the public that the Clinton e-mail investigation was "closed." He framed his choice equally "concealing"—misleading Congress and the public by non telling them about the discovery of Clinton's emails on Anthony Wiener's laptop—or "speaking"—i.e., sending his Oct 28 letter to Congress. Between those two options, Mr. Comey saw no selection but to uphold the integrity of the FBI (and his own) to speak and not to conceal. He had to proceed his and the FBI's integrity with such a binary selection, of course—because, after all, to paraphrase Marc Antony speaking of the hypocritical Brutus in a unlike (merely not so unlike) context: "For James Comey is an honorable man."

But Comey'due south statements in his October 28 memo and throughout his book bout that he faced just these two choices are belied past his own testimony on September 28, 2016, before the House Judiciary Committee. Here is the verbal substitution with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who, forth with all the other Republicans on the committee, was disquisitional of Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton:

"My first question is this, would you reopen the Clinton investigation if yous discovered new information that was both relevant and substantial?"

"Information technology'southward difficult for me to reply in the abstract," Comey replied. "We would certainly look at any new and substantial information." (Accent added.)

So, in fact, Comey never said he would disclose start and and so wait. He said the opposite: He would look first and then decide. He knew that, since this testimony was publicly reported many times after he sent his October 28 letter and much repeated in the months later on in 2017–xviii. The faux choice between "speaking" and "concealing" was contradicted by his own congressional testimony on September 28. The true fact was that he told Congress there was some other choice—to look at the new e-mail data outset.

That's correct. "Look at" first earlier disclosing. A huge deviation. A historically huge difference.

And so why did Comey frame his choices in such an plain false manner? Why didn't he expect first at the Clinton emails before deciding whether to publicly reopen a new investigation, which he knew could injure her presidential chances considerably?

He'southward not pathological most lying, as is Donald Trump—knowing that he is lying and not caring. The best explanation is that he was so good at his "Lordy, Lordy" image of innocence and sanctimony that he idea he could go away with fudging the truth, and the book bout interviewers proved he was right.

So, what was the truth? Comey, I believe, but couldn't, wouldn't, step up to the line. To practise and then would have meant that the unabridged carefully crafted image of himself promoted so meticulously over the years—Mr. Transparency, Mr. Integrity, Mr. "I Never Consider Politics Noble Prosecutor"—would have been shattered.

We should at present have no doubt as to the true reason why he sent the letter. Comey gave a potent hint of the truth when he said during ane of his interviews, manifestly without understanding how revelatory it was, that when he wrote the alphabetic character he was certain that Donald Trump would never win the presidential election.

So there, I am confident, yous have the key to the truth he was reticent to admit: Comey thought, since there was no chance that Trump could win, what the hell? Why not protect his political rear end with the congressional Republicans, throw them some red meat to immunize himself from their criticism later on Hillary Clinton was elected president? Fifty-fifty if something new was institute amid the Clinton emails on Wiener's laptop, the chances the emails were appropriately marked as classified and still ignored by Clinton—the prerequisite (as Comey had correctly stated in his July nonprosecution finding) to any finding of criminal intent necessary to bring a criminal case—were close to zilch. (Out of 33,000 Clinton emails reviewed by the FBI, Comey conceded at a July 7, 2016, congressional hearing that none had been appropriately marked equally classified.) So why not write the letter to protect himself from postelection GOP critics?

In other words, Comey made the ultimate political determination that every politician understands: It'southward called CYA, or "Comprehend Your Ass." But he self- servingly called it a determination to "speak" rather than "conceal." But expect: Comey also knew that he had opened a criminal investigation in August 2016 of possible illegal bunco betwixt Trump entrada officials and the Russian government, which the intelligence community knew past then had embarked on an active try to interfere in the U.S. presidential election through cyber attacks, hacking, and disinformation via Facebook, to tilt the election to Trump over Clinton. Did the "apolitical" James Comey utilise the same standard and decide to "speak" rather than "conceal" the fact of this FBI investigation of the Russian meddling and the Trump campaign's (or Trump'south own) complicity?

Oops. How to explain the disparate treatment betwixt "speaking" in the case of Clinton'southward emails on Wiener's laptop—which he had never seen before he sent his alphabetic character—and "concealing" the Russian-Trump collusion investigation, then ongoing? Well, Comey said, this was different: It was about a sensitive counterintelligence investigation about the Russians meddling in our elections, non the e-mail practices of one of the presidential candidates.

As a police schoolhouse professor once said to me when I was straining to distinguish one harmful precedent from another helpful one: that is a "distinction without a divergence."

During 2017 and up to and through the writing of his book, Comey knew, and we all knew, that had he looked at the Clinton/Wiener laptop emails offset before informing Congress, he would have adamant within six days that at that place was cypher new there. (We know this with certainty considering that was the corporeality of time, between Oct 31 and November five, that information technology took the FBI to obtain a warrant and review all of Clinton's emails on Wiener's laptop to determine simply that.) Thus, Comey knew with certainty that had he looked get-go, he never would have written his Oct 28 letter of the alphabet. Ergo: Donald Trump would have lost the presidency to Hillary Clinton. Ergo: Comey'south impulse for CYA political protection gave the country Donald Trump every bit president.

So, when asked for the reason he wrote the letter, I believe he lied. He just couldn't confront the truth that his sick-considered and improper Oct 28 letter was the decisive reason how America came to elect Donald Trump every bit president.

Then, in early June 2018, a final reckoning of James Comey's misconduct occurred when the inspector general of the Department of Justice issued a v-hundred-page report that confirmed everything already written in this book: James Comey violated policies and protocols when he held his July 5 press conference and sent his Oct 28 letter of the alphabet. The inspector general stated his unequivocal decision: James Comey doesn't get to make up one's mind which policies to follow and which to ignore. The IG chosen him "insubordinate"—an understatement, to say the to the lowest degree.

The revelation that Comey used a private email system, mixing FBI official concern with personal messages, on his gmail business relationship stored on Google's private servers rather than the Justice Department server, added a spice of irony and a "y'all tin can't make this up" attribute to the IG'due south report. Seriously? I thought, when I commencement heard this juicy new fact. Mr. Transparency, Mr. Speak Not Conceal, forgot to tell the states that he had a individual email system while he was investigating Hillary Clinton for hers? Oh, some of his apologists said, but unlike Clinton, Comey's private emails on a server that could accept been hacked did non contain classified information. Oh actually? I wondered. How would we know—since Mr. Transparency never told us and kept it a secret until the IG's written report? And of grade, no interviewer during his book tour ever asked Mr. Comey most his email practices.

2. The Mainstream Media's Complicity

Why did the mainstream media allow Comey get away with this false narrative?

I think the respond is obvious, indeed human, but don't take information technology from me. I am a biased longtime friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton and a lifelong partisan liberal Democrat. You tin can discount my opinion: That the mainstream media gave disproportionate coverage of Hillary Clinton's email practices as opposed to her policy positions and preferred to blame her loss to Trump on her entrada's mistakes rather than take responsibility for their own excessive coverage of the email issue that dominated her campaign from March 2015 to Ballot Day.

Instead of accepting my opinion, take a look at what the Washington Mail editorial board wrote, with remarkable prescience, on September 8, 2016, about iii months from Election Day, words I chose to begin my book with:

Imagine how history would gauge today's Americans if, looking back at this election, the record showed that voters empowered a dangerous human because of…  a minor email scandal. There is no equivalence between Mrs. Clinton's wrongs and Mr. Trump'southward manifest unfitness for function.

Yet, reporters and pundits who interviewed Comey during his book tour were disinclined to press Comey to accept responsibility for the election of Trump and thus draw attention to their ain responsibility for excessive coverage of what the Mail described as a "minor email scandal."

And so in that location was the fact that when asked whether he thought his letter contributed to the election of Trump, Comey said repeatedly, with undisguised hurting in tone and trunk language, "I don't know." Why weren't at that place immediate tough follow-upwardly questions, based on hard, undisputed data? "What do you mean you don't know? Have you seen the virtually immediate drop in Hillary Clinton'southward substantial leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin from the morning of October 28, before your letter hit the media? Practice you recall the 24/seven headlines your fact-free letter created throughout the media—'New Hillary Clinton Emails Criminal Investigation'? Didn't you lot realize those headlines and the dramatic drop of Clinton in the polls couldn't be nullified by your announcing, quietly on Sunday forenoon, two days before the election, that the investigation had found nil new at all? Didn't it occur to you lot that all yous had to do was look outset before yous decided to ignore long-standing Justice Section policies by writing a alphabetic character that could have at least some effect on the election results?"

I am not aware of whatsoever interviewer who cited the detailed data contained in the definitive May 3, 2017, study by the highly respected Nate Silvery (and expanded upon in Chapter viii of this book with many other sources of information) regarding the decisive post-Comey effects on the election results in these three and other cardinal battlefield states.

Why?

The obvious explanation, man and true, is that the mainstream media to this 24-hour interval prefers to arraign Hillary Clinton's many mistakes and shortcomings as a candidate (which she best-selling in her own book What Happened ) rather than stride up to the line and have responsibility, as the Washington Mail service suggested, for their over-coverage of a "small email scandal" every bit a significant reason why the nation now has Donald Trump as president rather than Hillary Clinton. I have close friends at The New York Times who have written me and told me how aroused they are with my criticisms of the Times' electronic mail coverage in my book, even though I still regard the paper as 1 of the earth'south greatest. Even so none of them mentioned any inaccuracy in my reporting on their coverage of the Hillary Clinton emails.

iii. Trump's Likely Happiness with the Comey Volume Tour Interviews

Ironically, at that place was one person in the viewing audience of Comey's generally soft mainstream media's interviews who, one tin can reasonably presume, enjoyed them: Donald Trump.

Why? For two reasons. First, Trump loved being vindicated, especially to his loyal base, that, in fact, the mainstream media hated him and loved James Comey. And 2d, the last thing he wanted was any focus on the Comey letter as the decisive result 11 days out that delivered him the presidency, since this fact seriously threw into doubt the legitimacy of his election as president.

Trump and his strategists have decided to brand impeachment the result for the November 2018 elections to rev up and increase Trump Country turnout. That way, they can sidetrack the event of the Comey alphabetic character and Trump's obstruction of justice and possible complicity with Russia in helping Trump get elected. They know that their best argument against impeachment is that partisan Democrats want to apply impeachment to achieve what they couldn't reach at the ballot box in November 2016. The decisive impact of Comey'due south letter undermines that argument of overturning a free and unimpaired autonomous election. Certainly, given the Comey alphabetic character's decisive bear upon in the concluding eleven days, the election outcome was non an unimpaired reflection of the popular will.

So, Trump and all the president's men (and women) have tried to reframe the 2018 congressional midterm elections as an up-or-down vote on impeaching Donald Trump, which they take good reason to believe will rev upward their base and increase turnout. In the late spring of 2018 they escalated their efforts to politicize the Mueller investigation by accusing the FBI falsely of inserting a "spy" into the Trump campaign arrangement, leading Trump to compare his plight to the corruption of Watergate, calling this FBI performance "Spygate."

But an "oops" moment occurred for Trump on this Spygate conspiracy theory. After a highly controversial briefing of congressional officials, first limited to Republicans and then to the bipartisan "gang of eight" by senior DOJ and FBI officials, the highly partisan conservative Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy—the aforementioned Gowdy who spent millions of dollars and more a yr investigating Hillary Clinton on Benghazi and ending upwardly in a political rabbit hole—openly contradicted Trump and declared there had been no spying and zilch improper done past the FBI.

Embarrassing to Trump and favorite lawyer–TV spinmeister Rudy Giuliani? Probably not. Both men seem beyond embarrassment. They know their base volition accept anything they say—including lies that they know their base of operations knows are lies. Giuliani openly admitted his purpose was to appeal to the Trump base of operations, undermine Mueller's credibility, and become set for an impeachment battle.

4. The Undeterred Silent Submarine

There is i big problem with the Trump/Giuliani strategy of attacking the credibility of the FBI and Mueller. That problem is Robert Mueller.

Some in Trump's camp take claimed to exist taking a page out of the volume of the Clinton strategy of attacking the independent counsel Kenneth Starr every bit partisan, leading a partisan investigation. (I was a part of that effort, and in hindsight, I have my regrets about too many attacks on Starr's motives and not plenty on his questionable judgment and inexperience.) Just Bob Mueller is no Ken Starr. Mueller doesn't come up out his front door each morn to get into his car, with a cup of coffee in paw, and smile, ready to answer a few questions from the awaiting throngs of reporters. Mueller's office isn't filled with leakers who made no hush-hush to reporters of their hatred for Bill Clinton and their belief in his guilt.

No, it'southward not even close. Bob Mueller is no Ken Starr. He is, nevertheless, something else—more alike to a silent but mortiferous submarine. Soundless, moving underwater without anyone seeing or knowing what is going on inside the transport; the fuel and ammunition of that submarine are called facts. Facts, facts, facts.

And so far, every bit of tardily June 2018, Mueller's team has already issued more than twenty indictments and obtained five guilty pleas to felonies from central officials, including Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and a top Trump campaign official. All of this was washed in a little over a year—compared to more 8 years of the Whitewater/Clinton investigation and two years of the GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy Benghazi investigation. Nevertheless a national public opinion survey conducted in May 2018 showed that a substantial majority of the American people—59 percent—did not know that Mueller's investigation has already resulted in these guilty pleas and serious charges against people in Trump's inner circumvolve. That ignorance won't last forever. Additional indictments and published facts will outset to get through to the American people and cannot be rebutted by partisan Trump rhetoric or Spygate slogans. Facts are stubborn things. And that is all Mueller does: facts.

In 1973, Richard Nixon said, "One year of Watergate is plenty." Ane year later, Nixon was forced to resign. Trump's attempt to shut downwards Mueller's investigation—"one year of Muller is enough"—will fail. Despite all of Trump's and Giuliani's and other Trump surrogates' rants and attacks and attempts to politicize the issue of the investigation, the silent and leakproof submarine called Mueller motors on… and the silence and absenteeism of leaks is driving Donald Trump crazy.

v. The November 2018 Midterm Elections and Beyond

If Trump doesn't fire Mueller, the result inevitably will be that Mueller will sally from his underwater investigation and announce indictments of "all the president's men" (and some women, perhaps). And he will probable ship a study to Congress, providing substantial evidence that Donald Trump was aware of, if not actively complicit in, the criminal conspiracy of his campaign officials and peradventure family unit members working with the Russian government, directly or indirectly, to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump and had knowledge that the Russian authorities had engaged in criminal acts of hacking and computer crimes to accomplish their pro-Trump goals. (Indeed, Trump publicly encouraged the Russians to appoint in such criminal carry when he urged at public rallies that the Russians betrayal Hillary Clinton's alleged missing emails.) And, perhaps, he volition produce even stronger testify that Donald Trump was involved in a conspiracy to obstruct justice with the corrupt motive of impeding a criminal investigation of himself and abusing presidential powers and cardinal ramble values and norms in doing so.

To date all signs suggest that, even before such a Mueller report to Congress, in the Nov 2018 elections the Democrats will ride the Blue Wave we take seen in the terminal year, specially replication of the enormous increased turnout of anti-Trump women, young people, and traditional Republican conservatives in suburban and exurban areas who elected Democrats in heavily Trump-supporting areas in the diverse special elections that accept occurred in 2017 and 2018. Such a surge of anti-Trump voters will almost certainly outvote even a surge from anti-impeachment Trump voters. A Democratic House, with Democratic majorities decision-making the Business firm Judiciary Committee, amendment powers, and an impeachment procedure, now appears about likely, though not still certain.

However, brand no mistake: Trump doesn't really intendance if the Democrats take over the Business firm and launch an impeachment endeavour. His reaction will be higher levels of adrenaline and greater numbers of early morning frenetic tweets—all calculation up to "Make my day . . . bring it on." It will be just some other opportunity to say to his base: "I told you lot and then." Trump besides is comforted knowing there is virtually no chance that there can be a ii-thirds vote to remove him in the U.S. Senate, even if there is a worst-case result in November 2018 and the Democrats capture the U.S. Senate past a small margin. That is, if there is no smoking gun testify, alike to the Nixon tape proving that he conspired to get the CIA to try to kill the Watergate investigation and then lied near it. Fifty-fifty then, Trump would probable hang on unless at that place are a group of principled Senate Republicans, as there were in Baronial 1974, led by "Mr. Conservative," Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, who went to the White House to tell Richard Nixon he must resign or be removed past greater than two-thirds vote by the U.S. Senate. If that is to happen, today's Senate Republicans will have to come to realize that they must practise then not only to salvage their party, only also because our nation'southward fundamental constitutional principles and celebrated friendships with long-standing allies are seriously at risk. More likely that won't happen. So that leaves 2020 for Trump to survive and get reelected or to exist humiliated and lose—or, given his excessive level of malignant narcissism, to avert the humiliation and to determine non to run once more, blaming it all on "The Swamp." Meaning, he can decide not to run again and expect forward to playing golf, being a media celebrity, perhaps starting a new version of The Apprentice, and maybe even actually getting to build a Trump Tower in Moscow with his buddy Vladimir Putin cutting the ribbon.

Of course, I and nigh people were incorrect about Trump not having a gamble to win in 2016. Nosotros can be wrong over again. But I cannot resist reminding everyone who says we all missed it and the polls were wrong in 2016. In fact, the polls were about expressionless on in predicting Hillary Clinton'southward nearly three million popular vote margin over Trump nationally. And they were nearly all right in showing her in the lead in the central battlefield states as of the forenoon of October 28, despite all her alleged mistakes, peculiarly by significant margins in the three critical states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and thus, the side by side president as of that forenoon, but for the conflicting intervention of James Comey.

Whether another October surprise occurs in 2020—if Trump wins the nomination—remains to be seen. Given that Donald Trump has offered potent proof that he was right when he said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in New York Metropolis and his hard-cadre base would still dear him and vote for him, anything is possible. In mid-June 2018, that not-and then-funny boast by Trump might be tested, even among his cadre base voters, at the widely televised scenes of children torn from their parents, a baby taken from her mother while nursing, thousands of children in detention, many literally in cages—all a straight result of Trump'southward policies. His outright lie that information technology was all the fault of congressional Democrats was so blatant, so shameful, that even some within his own administration and Republican congressional supporters could not summon upwards the power to echo and support this indisputable and fell Trump lie. So he was soon forced to reverse himself and terminate the child-parent separations, i.e., he lied virtually his prevarication that only Congress could do that. Everyone knew the truth: Trump had callously used these innocent children to try to deter those seeking political aviary from crossing the borders and to coerce Democrats to support funding the Mexican wall that Trump had repeatedly stated would be paid for by Mexico.

The utter immorality and heartlessness of Trump'due south use of innocent children was repudiated even by his ain wife and eloquently by sometime First Lady Laura Bush. Signs of loss of support among his core supporters could be seen by late June, fifty-fifty among previous lock-solid supporters in the Christian-right evangelical movement.

Thus, by belatedly June, Trump still could non get above the low or mid-40s in approval ratings, nor win significant support among independents, women, and suburban bourgeois Republicans. These low approval ratings for this stage of the presidency, despite a strong economy and the lowest unemployment in many years, showed that even in the best of times Trump remained a minority president elected by illegitimate ways. It is therefore doubtful that he can win in 2020. If such is reflected in most of the polls every bit the 2020 election approaches, equally noted above, I am guessing he won't run at all. His vanity probably could not sustain such a humiliating defeat for a second term. There is a serious chance that historians will rank him as the worst president in U.South. history—style below even Republican James Buchanan, some other ane-term president whom nigh historians now rank at the bottom.

Stay tuned. The wheels of history are rolling.

Excerpted fromThe Unmaking of the President 2016: How FBI Director James Comey Toll Hillary Clinton the Presidency by Lanny J. Davis. Copyright © 2018 past Lanny J. Davis.Excerpted with permission past Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-james-comey-covered-his-ass-and-elected-donald-trump

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