O’Connor: Why didn’t George [Stephanopoulos] let you sit in on that interview Lanny?
Davis: Good day Larry. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, I get to decide what rules to follow and which ones not to because you know why, because I’m Jim Comey. Lordy, Lordy.
O’Connor: He does come across a little holier than thou doesn’t he Lanny?
Davis: Oh my God. If you even suggest that he’s done anything wrong … “Me, Jim Comey? I get to play by my own rules. The Justice Department’s 50 year policies under Republican and Democratic administrations, you don’t do anything in the last 60 days that might impact a presidential election the hell with that. I’m Jim Comey.” So the answer is of course Jim Comey made stuff up he was never obligated to do this. He used the word, ‘obligated’, because he’s Jim Comey. And I did ask George Stephanopoulos to ask him the question, ‘Excuse me, you told Congress that if anything new came up in the Hillary Clinton email investigation after you decided not to prosecute or recommend prosecution, if anything new came up you would look first. You never said you would issue a letter or do anything publicly. You said you would look first.’ We know that had he looked, he would have found nothing new and it would have been all over but of course it’s Jim Comey and he doesn’t need to look first he’s just worried about covering his political you know what’.
O’Connor: Listen Lanny, I do love that in this regard you have been so consistent from the day this occurred, this letter that happened, what was it October 29th – I think- or October 30th, you have been spitting mad, you continue to be. Listen there were so many people that were angry and then suddenly as soon as supporting Jim Comey and calling Jim Comey ‘God’s gift to law and order’ became something damaging to Donald Trump, they completely shifted. So I appreciate that with you. You know Hillary Clinton pretty well, and I know that she is well aware of your book and I’m sure that she has read it, do you think if Hillary Clinton had won the election she would have fired James Comey?
Davis: Had he written the letter and she won the election, would she had fired Jim Comey, I don’t know. I know what I would have told her to do. If Comey had done something to Donald Trump for example reveal the Russian meddling finding that the intelligence community had already made in October of 2016 and that had tilted the election against Trump I would have said Comey should be fired for doing that. So I think I would be consistent that he should have been fired. Whether she would have fired him, I can’t guess that.
O’Connor: But based on everything that happened up till November 6th, if Hillary Clinton President-elect said, ‘Lanny, I’d love for you to advise me on this should I keep Jim Comey around’ you would have said, fire that guy?
Davis: I would say you have to fire somebody who puts himself above the Justice Department, above the President, above the Attorney General. The only drum that he listens to is his own. That’s called a narcissist and that’s dangerous in a FBI director, that’s dangerous in anyone but especially a FBI director.
O’Connor: Lanny, I know you’re a big fan of Loretta Lynch as well and I think that you said that she did a pretty stellar job as Attorney General…
Davis: But she blinked.
O’Connor: But she blinked because of that meeting on the tarmac, right?
Davis: Well, that I can forgive because it was hard to imagine that would blow up and she made a mistake and so did President Clinton. What I can’t forgive is that she or Sally Yates had the power, and I know this from talking to people in the room, to order James Comey not to send the letter. Comey told somebody the night before he sent the letter, ‘If they don’t want me to send the letter, tell them to pick up the phone and order me not to’. Neither Sally Yates or Loretta Lynch picked up that telephone and they will regret that, they should regret that and really be ashamed of that in looking back with the wisdom of hindsight forever.
O’Connor: Given all the revelations we’ve learned in the last several months about what was happening in those months, the summer of 2016 at the Justice Department and the FBI with Andrew McCabe and Peter Strok, and the text messages and all those things, are you disturbed at all about what appears to be certain political motivations? Whether it’s pro-Hillary or anti-Hillary, pro-Donald Trump or anti-Donald Trump that there seemed to be a lot of politics being discussed there on the 7th floor and in the hallways of what should be a pristine Justice Department.
Davis: So I had to wrestle with the question of political motivation when I wrote my book to see whether I would accuse Comey of politically motivating against Hillary Clinton. And I decided I just couldn’t do that because the institution of the FBI is what they were worried about and there were anti-Clinton people in the New York City office. It was called Trumpland, the ones that investigated the Clinton Foundation. And McCabe improperly had a background conversation with the Wall Street Journal, meaning not to attribute, to say that he, McCabe, wanted that Clinton Foundation to be investigated and his main [inaudible] in Washington opposed the FBI. So that is what he was fired for doing was leaking to the press on background. This is the culture of people in the FBI, not pro-Clinton, pro-Trump, but pro-FBI and everybody else be damned.
Clinton Supporters Have Some Questions for Comey (WSJ)
James Comey’s book comes out next week. While promoting “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership” the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation should face some tough questions. First, will he correct the postelection distortions by “friends and associates” meant to justify his decision to send the Oct. 28, 2016, letter to Congress? That letter—which announced the FBI was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails—almost certainly handed Donald Trump the presidency.
In an Oct. 29, 2016, internal memo, Mr. Comey claimed he was “obligated” to inform Congress because of a public commitment he had made during a congressional hearing. But that is untrue. On Sept. 28, 2016, Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) had asked what the FBI chief would do if anything new on the Clinton emails issue was discovered. Mr. Comey responded only that “we would certainly look at any new and substantial information.” [Read More]
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