Chip Bok's Bokbluster

And Comey’s Ascension

In the early days of the Trump administration FBI Directer Comey did an end run around protocol and sent two agents to the White House to interview National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. No attorney needed. “It’s hard to imagine two FBI agents ending up in the State Room. How did that happen?” “I sent them…,” Comey bragged.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley thinks that line sums up Comey pretty well: 

Just send a couple of guys over. One line could not more aptly capture Comey and his own professed view of “ethical leadership.” The interview confirmed what some of us have written about Comey for more than two years. The media consistently reinforced his image as a rules driven and principled public servant, often referring to him as an almost naive Eagle Scout. The Washington Post even ran the headline, “Boy Scout James Comey is no match for Donald Trump.” Yet, the history of Comey shows both an overriding interest in his own actions as well as a willingness to violate rules to achieve that interest. But his comments, including a call to the public to defeat Trump in a “landslide” in the next election, have stripped away any remaining pretense. The fact is, there often was more pretense than principle in his final years as director.

Why Did He Lie?

But the feds did catch Flynn in a lie, they just didn’t know it at the time.

Why Did He Plead Guilty?

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz says the FBI knew the answers to questions they asked him. So why’d they ask? 

The FBI knew the truth. They had recordings of the conversations. Then why did they ask him whether he had those conversations? Obviously, not to learn whether he had them but, rather, to give him the opportunity to lie to federal agents so that they could squeeze him to provide damaging information against President Trump. 

Not Comey’s First Rodeo

Comey also asked questions he knew the answers to in 2003. When he was a deputy attorney general he appointed a special prosecutor to find out who blew Valerie Plame’s CIA cover. Except he already knew who. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had already admitted he was the accidental leaker. In that case Scooter Libby was convicted of lying.

Professor Turley called the Flynn conviction a “canned hunt.” “They put him in cage and shot him.”

Eli Lake at Bloomberg says Flynn is owed an apology.

Meanwhile, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan delayed Flynn’s sentencing again.