https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
“A comet is an icy small Solar System body, that when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gasses, a process called outgassing.”
There is an old saying: “it is better to stay silent and have people think you are stupid than to open your mouth and prove it.” Comey made a huge mistake by testifying publicly under oath today and he is likely to pay a very high price for this mistake.
Democrats will interpret this meeting as proof Trump obstructed justice. The opposite is true. If anything, this exonerated Trump. Republicans, sadly, will wait to see which way the wind is blowing before they make up their minds. In reality this was nothing more and nothing less than a public “outgassing” by a pissed off former employee.
The main stream media missed the entire point. They thought that Trump was going to respond by becoming defensive because Comey said Trump lied. However, the only lie, according to Comey, was when Trump criticized Comey’s reputation at the FBI. Comey offered zero proof that anything Trump said was a lie, other than the obvious fact that Comey was insulted.
Trump sent out his attorney, Marc Kasowitz and it was the opposite of defensive.
He pointed out, correctly that Comey admitted that not only did Trump not impede the investigation, he said “it would be good to find out in that investigation if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong.” This is an admission under oath that Trump not only did not impede the investigation, he encouraged it.
Comey also admitted that he did tell Trump that he was not under investigation on at least three occasions and Comey knows of no current investigation of Trump.
But it gets worse. Comey testified to actions taken personally by him that may be a criminal act:
Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President. The leaks of this privileged information began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he disclosed to them the conversations he had with the President during their January 27, 2017 dinner and February 14, 2017 White House meeting.
Comey has now turned over his notes to the Special Prosecutor. That is an admission under oath that he considered these to be privileged conversations that should be handled appropriately. He can’t both give his notes to the press and then claim they can only be entrusted to a Special Counsel.
It gets even worse, Kasowitz provided evidence that Comey lied under oath:
Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. He also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to entirely retaliatory. We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.
Finally he drove a nail into the Comey coffin:
In sum, it is now established that there the President was not being investigated for colluding with the or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events.
Kasowitz made a crucial point. The only thing that wasn’t leaking out of the Russia investigation was the FACT that no one was investigating Donald Trump and he wasn’t obstructing any investigation. CNN may not understand that, but my guess is that the American people will.
I don’t think we will see much of James Comey for some time, because he is about to lawyer up and the first thing any smart legal counsel will do is tell him to shut up.
TDM