Monday, February 12, 2018

LIKE RATS FROM A SINKING SHIP: Comey vs. Rice Edition

For your consideration, a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee to one Susan "Benghazi" Rice. Perhaps this pathetic attempt was Rice's own form of an 'insurance policy'.
Dear Ambassador Rice:

        The Senate Judiciary Committee has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the FBI
and the broader Department of Justice. Part of that duty involves ensuring that law enforcement
efforts are conducted without improper political influence. Accordingly, the Committee has
been investigating the FBI' s relationship with Christopher Steele during the time his work was
funded by Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee, as well as the FBI's
reliance on his unverified third-hand allegations in the Bureau' s representations to courts.

        As part of that effort, the Committee sent a request to the National Archives for records
of meetings between President Obama and then-FBI Director Corney regarding the FBI's
investigation of allegations of collusion between associates of Mr. Trump and the Russian
government. In response, the Committee received classified and unclassified versions of an
email you sent to yourself on January 20, 2017 - President Trump' s inauguration day. If the
timestamp is correct, you sent this email to yourself at 12: 15pm, presumably a very short time
before you departed the White House for the last time.

       In this email to yourself, you purport to document a meeting that had taken place more
than two weeks before, on January 5, 2017. You wrote:

       On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the
       2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation
       with FBI Director Jim Corney and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval
       Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.

That meeting reportedly included a discussion of the Steele dossier and the FBI' s investigation of
its claims. 1 Your email continued:

        President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to
        ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law
        enforcement communities "by the book". The President stressed that he is not
        asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.
        He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would
        by the book.

        From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to
        be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if
        there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.

The next part of your email remains classified. After that, you wrote:

        The President asked Corney to inform him if anything changes in the next few
        weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming
        team. Corney said he would.

        It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the
Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email
purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the
FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation. In addition, despite your claim that President
Obama repeatedly told Mr. Corney to proceed "by the book," substantial questions have arisen
about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department,
actually did proceed "by the book."

       In order for the Committee to further assess the situation, please respond to the following
by February 22, 2018:

1. Did you send the email attached to this letter to yourself? Do you have any reason to
   dispute the timestamp of the email?

2. When did you first become aware of the FBI' s investigation into allegations of
   collusion between Mr. Trump' s associates and Russia?

3. When did you become aware of any surveillance activities, including FISA
   applications, undertaken by the FBI in conducting that investigation? At the time you
   wrote this email to yourself, were you aware of either the October 2016 PISA
   application for surveillance of Carter Page or the January 2017 renewal?

4. Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the
   aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama' s meeting
   with Mr. Corney about the Trump/Russia investigation? If so, who and why?

5. Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate? Did
   you omit any other portions of the conversation?

6. Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way,
   such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo? To the best of your knowledge,
   did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting?

7. During the meeting, did Mr. Corney or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of
   the Steele dossier? If so, what did they say?

8. During the meeting, did Mr. Corney describe the status of the FBI's relationship with
   Mr. Steele, or the basis for that status?

9. When and how did you first become-aware of the allegations made by Christopher
   Steele?

10. When and how did you first become aware that the Clinton Campaign and the
    Democratic National Committee funded Mr. Steele' s efforts?

11. You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was "not asking about, initiating or
    instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective." Did President Obama ask
    about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI' s
    investigation?

12. Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Corney, Ms. Yates, or other
    government officials about the FBI' s investigation of allegations of collusion between
    Trump associates and Russia? If so, when did these occur, who participated, and
    what was discussed?

       Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please contact Patrick Davis of
Chairman Grassley' s staff at (202) 224-5225 or Lee Holmes of Chairman Graham' s staff at
(202) 224-5972 if you have any questions.

                                    Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley                                Lindsey 0. Graham
Chairman                                           Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary                         Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
                                                   Committee on the Judiciary
Ewww. Interesting.

So Rice says she, Comey and Obama met on the latter's last day in office.


So who is lying? Comey or Rice?

Update: Here are some hints.


Update II: More hints.





Hat tip: BadBlue Uncensored News.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

With this email it's not hard to imagine Ms. Rice lifting her heard from the victim's neck and attempting to wipe blood from her mouth. She liked it too much, and now she must give an account.

KellyJ said...

Well now she has implicated Biden in this by including him as attending the meeting.
Based on this they can now bring Biden in to provide testimony. If he says the meeting happened, then you can bring up the visit logs. And finally you can remark that the day you were at this meeting happens to be the same day you were at the PBS studios recording your outgoing Q&A.

Unknown said...

“Ewww. Interesting.

So Rice says she, Comey and Obama met on the latter's last day in office.“

The email was sent on Obama’s last day in office 1/20/17. The message documents a meeting held on 1/5/17. Important distinction.

Interesting that Rice sent classified and unclassified info to herself. Was this to her .gov email or a personal email account?

MMinWA said...

Who is lying?

Really?

Matthew W said...

Depending on your definition of "IS", technically 01/01/2017 is "late" 2016. Very late.

Anonymous said...

Why is Comey's name miss-spelled as Mr. Corney? Who proof-read this thing anyway?