The long-anticipated release of the FBI Inspector General’s report investigating abuses of power at the agency confirms that ex-FBI Director James Comey violated FBI policies to engage in overt political acts contrary to the image he has presented as a man of impeccable character and confirms that President Trump was absolutely correct in firing Comey for his abuses of power.
In the aftermath of his election, President Trump was hounded by elements of the Deep State which sought to overturn the election and force him from office in disgrace. Deep State elements in the FBI played a crucial role in this attempted coup led by former Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, former Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok, and his love former agent Lisa Page. They were assisted in their efforts to drive President Trump from office by various underlings in the FBI whose loyalty to Hillary Clinton overshadowed their oath to protect and defend the laws of the United States.
Comey’s duplicitous self-dealing became apparent to President Trump almost immediately after taking office resulting in his firing by Trump. Prior to the election, Comey was instrumental in Clinton campaign efforts to smear candidate Trump with a dossier containing salacious gossip and unproven allegations whose creation was funded by the Clinton campaign through the Democrat law firm of Perkins Coie. Various Obama administration officials such as former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland spread the dossier throughout their government offices to ensure that it was leaked to the press.
Even before Hillary fabricated the Russian Collusion theory to explain away her loss due entirely to her focus on elitist coastal liberals at the expense of blue-collar workers and inability to connect with voters, Comey spearheaded the investigation into Hillary’s illegal use of a private server to store classified emails during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Comey’s self-serving duplicity was revealed when he took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference to announce that the FBI was not charging Clinton for her egregious abuse of intelligence laws. This stunning act on Comey’s part provided cover to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch who declined to bring charges against Hillary based on Comey’s announced recommendation even though Comey went on to characterize Clinton’s actions as “extremely careless.”
Throughout the entire sordid Russian Collusion investigation and subsequent unmasking as a monumental fraud fabricated by Hillary and perpetrated by the Deep State to smear President Trump and tarnish his administration, James Comey has held himself out as a paragon of virtue dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way all while maintaining that he did absolutely nothing wrong. The release of FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report demonstrates conclusively that Comey engaged in egregious abuses of power to pursue a political agenda sympathetic to Hillary Clinton and in opposition to President Trump.
The actions of the Deep State cabal at the FBI in attempting to stage a coup against a sitting president to drive him from office under scandalous allegations are absolutely stunning in their breadth and scope, but even more egregious is the fact that those who suffered dismissal and face possible criminal sanctions due to their abuses of power are now suing for wrongful termination in an act of extreme chutzpah. Those such as Comey, McCabe, and Strzok who were exposed for their parts in the attempted Deep State coup of President Trump are now suing the government for wrongful termination in the hopes of clearing their names and having their government pensions restored. It was not enough for these duplicitous characters to thoroughly trash the laws they swore to uphold to pursue their own personal political agendas or suffer the humiliation of termination after being exposed for their parts in the criminal conspiracy, but they now demand an apology as if they are the victims rather than the perpetrators of these criminal acts.
We have apparently progressed from the Watergate scandal wherein some Nixon administration officials still believed in telling the truth, to Bill Clinton who learned the lesson from the Nixon administration to stonewall at all costs, to the Obama administration which perfected stonewalling to a high art form to escape responsibility for myriad scandals under their watch, to the Deep State which now demands an apology for being caught red-handed and suffering the consequences of being held responsible for their criminal actions. Failure to hold past political figures responsible for their scandalous actions has emboldened successive generations into even loftier abuses of power and self-centered demands for apologies.
Three things are absolutely required for a nation to be successful. First, a nation must have sound currency to ensure the stable financial transactions required by a thriving economy. Second, a nation must respect property rights to ensure that its citizens feel confident enough to invest in the property improvements which gradually increase the standard of living. And third, a nation must ensure the fidelity of the rule of law so its citizens voluntarily submit to that rule of law. When the people begin to see the wealthy and powerful held to a different standard because of their wealth and power, they stop respecting the law and the nation gradually descends into chaos.
Hillary Clinton has spent her entire adult life skating from one scandal to another from her unbelievable success trading cattle futures, to the Rose Law Firm billing scandal, to the Whitewater real estate scandal all the way to her stint as Secretary of State throwing the Benghazi embassy under the bus, mishandling classified information on a private email server, and selling access to power through contributions to the Clinton Foundation, to the fabrication of the Russian Collusion hoax and attempted coup of the man who defeated her crooked run for the White House, President Trump. Hillary long ago passed the point of credible benefit of the doubt when it comes to her involvement in the myriad scandals surrounding her. She has managed to skate through these various scandals with the assistance of powerful politically connected associates whose personal interests align with hers.
Americans long ago tired of seeing Hillary float above the law committing acts which would have sent any ordinary American to prison for life. Her success at flouting the law to enrich her own self has done lasting damage to the rule of law by eroding Americans’ trust that Lady Justice is truly blind. James Comey has been one of many who have enabled Hillary to ignore the law to do as she pleased, and his actions have also contributed to the erosion of the rule of law in America.
There was hope that Attorney General William Barr would work to hold those in the Deep State responsible for the attempted coup of President Trump accountable for their criminal actions if for no other reason than to restore Americans’ confidence in the rule of law. Sadly, AG Barr has announced that he would not be bringing charges against Comey for his criminal actions despite the findings of the Inspector General’s report. It is possible that other Deep State elements may be brought to justice, but the pass on such a key figure in the criminal conspiracy as Comey does not bode well that others will be held accountable.
I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that Hillary will never be president, and that America escaped having to endure another Clinton administration, but the rule of law has suffered enormous harm. Those who would attempt such a brazen crime in the future will certainly learn from the mistakes of those who perpetrated this attempted coup through their various abuses of power. Perhaps these successive conspirators will learn the lessons of this scandal well enough to successfully perpetrate their criminal conspiracy and cover their tracks to avoid discovery and prosecution. It is certain that they will learn the lesson that success depends on the unwillingness of others to pursue them for their crimes.
James Comey will have to live with the shame of having disgraced himself and his tenure as FBI Director. Comey will continue to steadfastly maintain his innocence while portraying himself as the victim of President Trump’s disregard for the law as he constructs an elaborate façade to conceal the truth from even himself. He will be shunned by some while finding favor with others and learn to endure the indignities heaped upon him by those resentful at his disgraceful actions and avoidance of prosecution.
When pardoning Richard Nixon for his part in the Watergate scandal, President Gerald Ford referred to the episode as the end of our long, national nightmare. These words leap to mind in considering the past three years of constant inundation of the Russian Collusion hoax and its sordid details all flogged incessantly by the media in its attempts to fan the flames of public opinion against President Trump. With the release of the Inspector General’s report, the Russian Collusion hoax is all but dead and kept alive only by those diehards such as Adam Schiff and Elijah Cummins who find it useful as a distraction from their sordid abuses of power.
The Deep State cabal consists of a vast array of elements extending far below those at the top who have been outed by President Trump as the perpetrators of this criminal conspiracy. There is a vast network of enablers and associates who all did their part to perpetrate the attempted coup against President Trump and who have either quietly retired or faded into the background after the collapse of their plot. Most of these will escape any form of sanction for their misdeeds, and it is virtually certain that Barack Obama will never be held accountable for his part as the leader of this Deep State cabal.
The Hatch Act of 1939 specifically restricts federal employees from engaging in overt political campaign practices by requiring them to abstain from “any active part” in political campaigns. Having never held political office, Donald Trump was running for president as the Republican nominee against the Clinton political machine in what everyone assumed was a lopsided contest Hillary couldn’t possibly lose. The political class, the media, and an army of progressive snowflakes had written Trump off and were preparing for Hillary to breeze into the White House. Hillary was so sure of her chances that she ignored Bill’s advice to address blue-collar voters in the Midwest and continued her focus on the coastal elites. Yet, the Clinton campaign still paid Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie to assemble the fake Russian dossier of unsubstantiated allegations and spread it throughout the Obama administration to smear Trump and improve her chances at winning. She was assisted in this effort by numerous Obama administration officials operating as the Deep State embedded into the government bureaucracy. One of these Deep State elements was James Comey.
Comey, like everyone else in D.C., was sure that Hillary would win and sought to get in her good graces to improve his odds of remaining as FBI Director or possibly be appointed to an even higher political office. He got his chance in 2016 by orchestrating the official investigation of Hillary’s criminal mishandling of classified information and use of a private email server. Comey’s intervention in the investigation ensured that Hillary would escape being charged, but his last-minute change of heart reopening the investigation betrayed his squeamishness at selling out his integrity to move ahead politically. With his reopening of the investigation just prior to the election, Comey earned the enmity of the Democrats and the Clinton machine to go along with the enmity he had already earned from conservatives for sweeping the initial investigation under the rug.
Comey sought to make up for this by pursuing the Russian Collusion investigation launched by Hillary’s fabricated explanation for her election loss. Her poor excuse for losing was transformed into a mechanism to harass President Trump by shifting his focus from administering the federal government to defending himself from the scurrilous charges being brought against him by the Deep State. This tactic ultimately failed to tie Trump’s hands or distract him from governing effectively as the conspirators learned to their dismay. Their hastily arranged plot left a great deal of evidence in the form of emails and a document trail which ultimately doomed their efforts.
Given Comey’s actions to clear Hillary in the email scandal and harass President Trump through the Russian Collusion investigation on Hillary’s behalf, no reasonable person can come to any conclusion except the fact that Comey took an active part in Hillary’s campaign and abused his power as Director of the FBI to do so. Furthermore, in spite of his moral posturing, Comey even admitted publicly that he kept personal notes of meetings with President Trump and stored these notes in his home in violation of FBI policies. Comey also admitted publicly to passing some of these notes on to a colleague with instructions to leak them to the press, also in violation of FBI policies. Examination of these personal notes revealed that they contained classified information, yet another violation of FBI policies and the intelligence laws. Comey ended up engaging in the same disregard for classified information that he investigated Hillary for doing.
James Comey may live in a fantasy world in which he believes that his actions were entirely justified and his conduct in line with the highest moral and ethical standards, but the reality is that Comey engaged in overt political acts in violation of the Hatch Act, disregarded FBI policy on several levels, violated intelligence laws for the handling and storage of classified information, was duplicitous in his dealings with President Trump, and sought to promote his own interests at the expense of the oath he took as FBI Director. The release of the IG’s report detailing his investigation into Comey’s actions reveals that Comey is no paragon of virtue and should be facing prosecution for his crimes.
As FBI Director, James Comey possessed an enormous amount of power to bring the full force of the federal government with its unlimited resources against anyone he chose regardless of their guilt or innocence. The Founding Fathers warned that any power granted to the federal government would eventually find its way into the hands of despots who would abuse that power for their own personal gain. The Founders have been proven right on multiple occasions throughout American history, yet their prescience is still ignored by the radical progressive left which seeks to convince Americans to surrender their rights and invest additional power into their hands for the sake of our “safety.” James Comey is living proof that all officials holding power must be constantly challenged in their use of that power to hold them accountable for that power.
James Comey sold out his integrity for the sake of his personal agenda of political gain. In doing so, he abused the power of his office and degraded American trust in the rule of law so essential for the preservation of order in a free society. Merely living in disgrace is not enough punishment for Comey’s crimes, nor does it properly convey the gravity of his criminal behavior, and it certainly does nothing to dissuade future miscreants from abusing the power of the offices they hold to pursue their own personal agendas.
Independent Conservative 