Comey testimony, will you watch or listen to it?

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:56 pm

I'm retired and it's supposed to rain here in the PNW so I'll be setting my alarm. But I have a question about following the president's twitter. Can someone tell me how I can do that if I'm not on twitter.

FWIW I'll do some baking, perhaps a (im)peach(ment) pie.

SixOfWands

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 1:58 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

I'm sure that someone will simulcast. But just join twitter. Use a fake name if you like; they won't know. You never need to tweet, just follow.

Amarante

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 4:42 pm

You don't have to join twitter to follow a specific twitter. Just google twitter and Donald trump and his twitter page will come up. You can do that for anyone when you want read about specific twitters that they have been sending.

I am sure you know he has several twitter accounts. His personal one is the realdonaldjtrump but it's kind of moot because that's the one that comes up first in google anyway and has all the followers. LOL

youngishbear

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 4:48 pm

Someone told me you can also receive tweets on sms text messages. I'm not sure how or if it's true. Does anyone know?

I want to watch the testimony but business before... Pleasure???

WhatFor

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 5:20 pm

I hope to be able to watch tomorrow's House of Cards episode while working.

I've already done my homework and read Comey's statement to the Senate intelligence committee. Did you? It's available at os-jcomey-060817.pdf

Jeanette

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 7:10 pm

Not sure of the origin of this but found it in my Facebook feed:

TO: DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, CONSERVATIVES, LIBERALS, PROGRESSIVES, LIBERTARIANS, ET. AL:

Beware, friends, of what the media feeds you today. The local and cable stations are teeing up the Comey testimony as if it were something between the Beatles Reunion and an Ali/Frazier rematch. No doubt this is happening on radio and social media, too. They're providing interrupted programming, special commercials, music, graphics, and countdown clocks all to accompany their endless, biased, speculative commentary. My hardening opinion is that Fox, MSNBC and their ilk don't care if you're *well* informed, they want blockbuster ratings and a return on all the advertising they have sold to give us what is rightly ours, testimony before the Congress of the United States.

They will serve up hours (and hours) of speculation telling us what we SHOULD think about what we hear. One side will tell us how this testimony vindicates the president and the other how it damns him. Neither may be the case, at least not entirely. But then, having received our marching orders, we'll take to Facebook and social media to defend our (their) positions rather than discuss or debate what we actually heard.

Your assignment should you chose to accept it: watch the testimony for yourself and then find dissenting opinion. If Maddow or Blitzer are your usual sources of political opinion, switch the channel and see what the folks on Fox are saying. If Hannity or Dobbs do it for you, switch the channel and listen to what Maddow and Blitzer have to say. There is truth in both places.

If you can't bring yourself to listen to the other side, tune into C-SPAN where they simply aim the cameras and provide NO commentary or opinion. After the testimony they will open their phone lines to citizens of the United States. If nothing else, listen to your neighbors from the other side.

Do not contribute to the continuing death of informed opinion by taking in glossy, one-sided, hyper-biased political commentary, and the utterly false assumption that only one side, your side, has it right.

The success of today's politicians is the ability to keep us firmly in our corners by pushing information that does not challenge us or cause us to question. We yell from our corners, unwilling to consider that there may be truth coming from the other side.

The truth will always lie somewhere in the No Man's Land of the widening space they help to keep between us.

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 7:14 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Thanks I've read the statement and am now reading some commentary about it.

Alas I finished my binge of HoC the other night. It's incredible. Tonight I get to watch Handmaids Tale.

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 7:20 pm

Jeanette wrote:

Not sure of the origin of this but found it in my Facebook feed:

TO: DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, CONSERVATIVES, LIBERALS, PROGRESSIVES, LIBERTARIANS, ET. AL:

...

Then there is the assumption that everyone gets their news from tv...
Cronkite did one heck of a job covering Watergate but that didn't keep me from listening to the hearings or reading coverage from other sources.

SixOfWands

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 7:20 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Thanks I've read the statement and am now reading some commentary about it.

Alas I finished my binge of HoC the other night. It's incredible. Tonight I get to watch Handmaids Tale.

One of my favorite books. I haven't watched it; afraid the series will ruin it.

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 7:21 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

One of my favorite books. I haven't watched it; afraid the series will ruin it.

I'll pm you rather than hijack. Very Happy

WhatFor

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 11:24 pm

I don't anticipate much more than what's in the memo. I imagine Comey would have put the most important talking points in there.
Any other opinions?

MagentaYenta

Wed, Jun 07 2017, 11:31 pm

WhatFor wrote:

I don't anticipate much more than what's in the memo. I imagine Comey would have put the most important talking points in there.
Any other opinions?

The committee is supposed to meet with Comey behind closed doors after the public show and tell.

DrMom

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 3:10 am

Jeanette wrote:

The media is such a hot mess of bias and hysteria and spin these days. I just don't know what to make of any of this. It is such a circus.

I like your suggestion about C-SPAN.

Jeanette

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 7:26 am

DrMom wrote:

The media is such a hot mess of bias and hysteria and spin these days. I just don't know what to make of any of this. It is such a circus.

I like your suggestion about C-SPAN.

I didn't write this BTW. Just passing along something I found on FB.

JoyInTheMorning

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 7:31 am

WhatFor wrote:

I don't anticipate much more than what's in the memo. I imagine Comey would have put the most important talking points in there.
Any other opinions?

I'd guess that there's at least one surprise coming. Come says that there have been 3 meetings and 6 phone calls between him and Trump. He described what happened in 3 phone calls and 3 meetings, so there are still 3 phone calls that we haven't heard about.

But the surprises may be only disclosed behind closed doors.

Blue jay

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 8:01 am

Before anyone bakes "impeachment pie" have a slice of this first! ( QB3)

Former FBI Director James Comey's written statement, which was released in advance of his Thursday testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not provide evidence that President Trump committed obstruction of justice or any other crime. Indeed it strongly suggests that even under the broadest reasonable definition of obstruction, no such crime was committed.

The crucial conversation occurred in the Oval Office on February 14 between the president and the then director. According to Comey's contemporaneous memo, the president expressed his opinion that General Flynn "is a good guy." Comey replied: "He is a good guy."

The president said the following: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this thing go.”

Comey understood that to be a reference only to the Flynn investigation and not "the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to the campaign"

Comey had already told the president that "we were not investigating him personally."

Comey understood "the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December."

Comey did not say he would "let this go," and indeed he did not grant the president’s request to do so. Nor did Comey report this conversation to the attorney general or any other prosecutor. He was troubled by what he regarded as a breach of recent traditions of FBI independence from the White House, though he recognized that "throughout history, some presidents have decided that because 'problems' come from the Department of Justice, they should try to hold the Department close."

That is an understatement.

Throughout American history -- from Adams to Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Kennedy to Obama -- presidents have directed (not merely requested) the Justice Department to investigate, prosecute (or not prosecute) specific individuals or categories of individuals.

It is only recently that the tradition of an independent Justice Department and FBI has emerged. But traditions, even salutary ones, cannot form the basis of a criminal charge.

It would be far better if our constitution provided for prosecutors who were not part of the executive branch which is under the direction of the president.

In Great Britain, Israel and other democracies that respect the rule of law, the Director of Public Prosecution or the attorney general are law enforcement officials who, by law, are independent of the Prime Minister.

But our constitution makes the attorney general both the chief prosecutor and the chief political adviser to the present on matters of justice and law enforcement.

The president can, as a matter of constitutional law, direct the attorney general, and his subordinate, the Director of the FBI, tell them what to do, whom to prosecute and whom not to prosecute. Indeed, the president has the constitutional authority to stop the investigation of any person by simply pardoning that person.

Assume, for argument’s sake, that the president had said the following to Comey: quot;You are no longer authorized to investigate Flynn because I have decided to pardon him." Would that exercise of the president's constitutional power to pardon constitute a criminal obstruction of justice? Of course not. presidents do that all the time.

The first President Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger, his Secretary of Defense, in the middle of an investigation that could have incriminated Bush. That was not an obstruction and neither would a pardon of Flynn have been a crime. A president cannot be charged with a crime for properly exercising his constitutional authority

For the same reason President Trump cannot be charged with obstruction for firing Comey, which he had the constitutional authority to do.

The Comey statement suggests that one reason the president fired him was because of his refusal or failure to publicly announce that the FBI was not investigating Trump personally. Trump "repeatedly" told Comey to "get that fact out," and he did not.

If that is true, it is certainly not an obstruction of justice.

Nor is it an obstruction of justice to ask for loyalty from the director of the FBI, who responded "you will get that ('honest loyalty’) from me."

Comey understood that he and the president may have understood that vague phrase -- "honest loyalty" -- "differently." But no reasonable interpretation of those ambiguous words would give rise to a crime.
Many Trump opponents were hoping that the Comey statement would provide smoking guns.

It has not.

Instead it has weakened an already weak case for obstruction of justice.

The statement may provide political ammunition to Trump opponents, but unless they are willing to stretch Comey's words and take Trump's out of context and unless they are prepared to abandon important constitutional principles and civil liberties that protect us all, they should not be searching for ways to expand already elastic criminal statutes and shrink enduring constitutional safeguard in a dangerous and futile effort to criminalize political disagreements.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus and author of Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law and Electile Dysfunction.

WhatFor

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 9:07 am

Queenbee- did you read Comey's statement? What were your own thoughts on the statement? Copy-pasting another person's opinion without analysis doesn't contribute as much as your own thoughts.

In any case, Dershowitz seems to be arguing that Trump has the authority to terminate any investigation at any time. Clearly the Senate disagrees or else there would be no reason to have this meeting altogether.

Blue jay

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 9:18 am

WhatFor wrote:

Let the law of the land prevail. I offered this article to provide some more perspective. I felt it clarified some of the legalities and responsibilites of the FBI and its relationship to the president.

Regarding Comeys statements and journals and such, its all "here say". Thats just my opinion. Its cases like these we rely on the law to help set things straight. ( we hope)
I agree with Dershowitz's analysis.

I am not a lawyer, but his take is very helpful as opposed to some of the conspiracy theories out there.

youngishbear

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 10:35 am

If the president can halt any investigation, how will we ever know whether he committed "high crimes and misdemeanors?"

I don't understand this.

Blue jay

Thu, Jun 08 2017, 10:48 am

Comey admitted that Trump did not halt any investigation.