Yesterday’s much-anticipated testimony from the former FBI director included genuine bombshells – which some may have missed
After weeks of anticipation, yesterday James Comey testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, offering his account of how and why President Donald Trump unexpectedly fired him as FBI director one month ago. As expected, Comey came across as the careful and calm career legal bureaucrat which he is. Both the pro- and anti-Trump camps heard things they liked in Comey’s testimony.
Predictably, the president’s supporters are trumpeting things which they heard Comey say – or at least what they think they heard him say. Already the White House is running with Comey’s words which, they claim, vindicate the president and his version of how things went very wrong between Trump and his FBI director over the Bureau’s counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in our 2016 election.
On the positive side, Trump’s supporters are taking comfort from Comey’s admission that he had, in fact, informed the president that he was not personally under FBI counterintelligence investigation last winter. This, while true, is something of a technicality, since Comey admitted that Russian interference in our 2016 election was very real – “with purpose and sophistication” as Comey put it – no matter what the president tweets.
When asked about this critical issue by Republican Senator Richard Burr, the SSCI chair, Comey’s responses were clear-cut:
Burr: Do you have any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections?
Comey: None.
Burr: Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the intrusions in the D triple C systems and the subsequent leaks of that information?
Comey: No, no doubt.
Burr: Do you have any doubt the Russian government was behind the cyber intrusion in the state voter files?
Comey: No.
Read the rest at The Observer …
The XX Committee 