The Morning Briefing: Comey Memos Released and Much, Much More

Good Friday morning.

Here is what’s on the President’s agenda today:

THE PRESIDENT hosts a roundtable with Republican National Committee supporters in Palm Beach, FL

Comey’s memos released; he’s not a weasel or sneaky

The Department of Justice has finally released the memos written by Twitter personality, moralist and fired director of the FBI James Comey. Comey wrote the memos memorializing the meetings and conversations he had with President Trump during his brief stint as part of the Trump administration. After Mr. Comey was fired, he leaked the memos to his friend, who was subsequently supposed to leak them to the media to force a special counsel appointment. Here are the memos if you want to read them. Questions surround the propriety of Comey choosing to release the memos to his buddy, as they are a work product that are property of the FBI and might contain classified information.

What’s the big deal with these memos? Trump comes out looking pretty good which is the big deal. If your goal is to destabilize, undermine and de-legitimize the Trump administration, these memos throw a wrench in that plan. According to Comey, Trump urged him to investigate any purported RUSSIAN collusion or wrong-doing. Comey made it clear Trump was not suspected of being part of any RUSSIAN meddling. This is information that would make it difficult for the media to work their anti-Trump narrative, their vague ominous references to evil-doing, their non-specific allusions to malfeasance and the non-crime of collusion. He’s a RUSSIAN agent, he’s corrupt, he’s obstructing…blah, blah blah. The memos make it hard to sell this line to the progressive dupes in the resistance via countless hours of silly MSNBC and CNN programming.

My favorite part of the memos:

https://twitter.com/StarChamberMaid/status/987138567213170688

Amazing: the performative act of Comey informing Trump of the existence of the dossier (but without including the genesis of the dossier, of course) and warning the president that CNN was looking for a news hook to report about it was itself the news hook for CNN to report about it. It’s too much.

Related:

CNN disagrees that the memos are helpful for Trump Comey memos renew questions over Trump’s behavior

Comey memos: Trump had ‘serious’ concerns about Flynn

Justice Department watchdog to report on Clinton-related FBI leaks

Committee Chairs in the House GOP are not amused

The Hill tells us that House GOP leaders “blasted” the Comey memos.

Goodlatte, Gowdy and Nunes wrote that the memos, which were made public Thursday, portray Comey as self-centered and vindicate the president from the suspicion he sought to stop the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

All the more reason to keep Comey’s reports quiet.

“(Comey) was willing to work for someone he deemed morally unsuited for office, capable of lying, requiring of personal loyalty, worthy of impeachment, and sharing the traits of a mob boss,” the congressmen said in a statement.

“Former Director Comey was willing to overlook all of the aforementioned characteristics in order to keep his job,” they continued. “In his eyes, the real crime was his own firing.”

Here’s Comey in his own words:

“I reminded [Trump] that I had told him we weren’t investigating him and that I had told the Congressional leadership the same thing,” Comey wrote. “[Trump] said it would be great if that could get out and several times asked me to find a way to get that out.”

It shouldn’t have been hard to “get that out.” Alas, Comey did not want to “get that out.” Why?

IG refers McCabe for criminal prosecution

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG) has referred Obama’s fired Deputy FBI Director “Andy’s office” McCabe to a prosecutor for criminal investigation. The referral comes after the IG released a report that concluded Andy had “lacked candor” or LIED under oath about leaking self-serving information to the Wall Street Journal. CNN hopes that “prosecutors there may decline to prosecute.”

While leaking non-classified information is generally not a crime in itself and the IG’s investigation was not a criminal probe, lying to federal investigators is a crime.

Referrals are not unusual but the move is significant give McCabe’s role as the former No. 2 at the FBI.

“We were advised of the referral within the past few weeks. Although we believe the referral is unjustified, the standard for an IG referral is very low,” Bromwich said in a statement.

“We have already met with staff members from the US Attorney’s Office,” he added. “We are confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration, the US Attorney’s Office will conclude that it should decline to prosecute.”

Inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration? That’s an interesting defense. Do you think that there might have been inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration during other presidential administrations?

McCabe either lied under oath or he didn’t and this has nothing to do with President Trump pressuring a criminal prosecutor.

Rosenstein tells Trump he isn’t a target

Fox News sources say that last week Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told President Trump that he is not a target in the Michael Cohen raid/investigation. Cohen is Trump’s long time personal lawyer. What does this mean? Not much, it’s how the game is played. The feds go after people in Trump’s orbit until they find something on Trump. Standard procedure. This is similar to the unmasking scandal where Obama administration malefactors were targeting foreigners who were near US citizens the administration wanted to snoop on and then claimed they had to unmask or reveal those people for national security reasons.

Trump is most certainly the target.

Historical picture of the day:

Paper continues to shower on Gen. Douglas MacArthur as he stands in an open car during the Ticket Tape parade in his honor in New York City’s financial district on April 20, 1951. (AP Photo)

Other morsels:

Fearless Girl to stand on her own, at least for now

FreedomWorks backs Jim Jordan for House Speaker

ACLU files lawsuit against California city that agreed to cooperate with federal immigration policy

Comedian Jay Mohr calls for professor who bashed late Barbara Bush to be fired

Bush-bashing professor has Fresno State scrambling to keep its donors

Heitkamp becomes first Dem to back Pompeo for secretary of State

Southwest gives $5,000 checks to passengers on Flight 1380

Wisconsin court reinstates lawsuit against gun seller in shooting that killed three

Appeals court rules against Trump effort to hit ‘sanctuary cities’

Giuliani joins Trump legal team

Dem senator said airstrikes in Syria may have been a ‘choreographed kabuki show’