James Comey's Book

A Weekly Online Publication of the Anonymous Anything Society — May 9, 2018

REVIEWING JAMES COMEY'S BOOK: A HIGHER LOYALTY-Truth, Lies, and Leadership - Part III (Final)

FOLLOWING THE MONEY: Before we resume our book review, we and the Real News Media learned yesterday from Michael Avenatti, Attorney for porn Star Stormy Daniels, that a shell company, Essential Consultants, LLC, set up by President Trump's personal fixer Michael Cohen, received at least a half-million dollars from a company here in the US, Columbus Nova, controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Putin.

Essential Consultants provided the $130,000 in hush money that went to the porn star. (No, don't know where the remaining $370,000 is right now, but the tabloids are working on the puzzle, if Mister Avenatti is not.)

I bet that Trump is not sleeping well and in a final desperate move, I predict he will try a last minute attempt to shut down the Mueller investigation by firing EVERYONE. Only Mike Pence will be left to gaze adoringly at the back of the only person now standing between him and the presidency.

The rest is already old news.

In September of 2013, James Comey was nominated by President Obama to follow Robert Mueller as Director of the FBI. In the waning days of the Obama administration, Comey had to deal with complicated matters: The aftermath of the revelations in documents stolen by Eric Snowden and the scandal involving General Petraeus, once head of the CIA, who had been supplying his lover and longtime biographer Paula Broadwell with intelligence developed by the Agency the vaunted military officer headed for a while. It is unclear to me exactly what she did with the pillow talk, but apparently it did not involve espionage.

Then, on July 6 of 2015, the Bureau received a referral from the inspector general of the intelligence community that raised the issue of whether Secretary of State Clinton, the candidate of the Democrat Party for President, had mishandled classified information while using her personal e-mail system. After investigating, the Bureau held that she had 36 emails that dealt with matters that could have caused serious damage to national security and eight emails that could have been used to cause exceptionally grave damage to the U.S.—If utilized by enemies. (I followed respected news sources and offered my modest guess to the handful of my followers that Russian resources had probably hacked into this information).

The FBI apparently decided it was due to Hillary Clinton's ineptitude in dealing with computer servers, without a sinister motivation. They were not going to lock her up.

Despite the consequences of releasing the results of the FBI probe into the matter just days before the presidential election, Comey felt duty-bound to inform the public, and in doing so, flew directly into the eye of a political storm.

In my estimation, it was the only credible thing to do. The integrity of of the FBI and the entire Justice Department was at stake. As fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was claimed by mystery writer Conan Doyle to have said, "The truth will out." Comey describes it as "A nightmare."

By now, every reader of this is surely aware that soon after winning the Presidential sweepstakes, the President invited then FBI Director Comey to a get-acquainted tete-a-tete. Comey soon discovered that his job security was on the menu. According to Comey, Trump stressed very strongly that he needed not only absolute, unswerving loyalty but apparently a special sort of prosecutor to do his bidding.

When they met again, Trump excused two persons who lingered for a moment after all others at the meeting had departed—namely Justice Department Secretary Jeff Sessions and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In his book, Comey said that after these two had left, the President began to speak insistently on behalf of once National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, who by then had been indicted for lying to the FBI about the content of Flynn's conversations with and payoffs by Russians. The President wanted Comey to "Let this go." Comey decided that he should not do this.

Trump keeps insisting, ad nauseam, there is nothing to investigate; that he, Trump, never colluded in any means or manner with a Russian agent or agents during the 2016 election and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, chosen by the Justice Department to investigate Trump & Company's connections, if any, with Russian President for Life Vladimirovich Putin's people, is on a witch hunt,

(Actually, a "which hunt." Which lady is going to win the Donald J. Trump Dalliance Jackpot).

On May 9th, 2018, Comey exited a jet in Los Angeles, where he had gone to assist in a campaign to recruit candidates to be new FBI Special Agents, and was greeted with a crawl across TV screens in the LAX terminal that read "COMEY FIRED!."

Stay Tuned. There's lots more fun ahead in the Breaking News Department, starring our irrepressible President in "Life in the Ever- Changing White House Staff.

NEXT!

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the Human Condition and Storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself."—Joseph Menchen

Our unending thanks to Jim Bromley, who programs our Archive of Prior Commentaries

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