Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Trump ignores FBI chief Comey's words to insist he 'refuses to deny' Obama briefing

you know, there is a story that's been around for about ...oh? maybe three weeks by now .. that an intelligence
officer promised that uh yuuwegi will die with his head on a prison bed! .. OH! wouldn't that be the best story ever to read your kids???? ... ;)

Laura Clawson
Monday Mar 20, 2017 · 10:39 AM PDT


LOCK HIM UP!!!

FBI Director James Comey has been very clear that viewers of the House Intelligence Committee’s hearing on Russia and the 2016 elections should not “draw any conclusions from the fact that I may not be able to comment on certain topics.” Has that stopped Donald Trump or whichever of his advisers tweeting from the official @POTUS account during the hearing? Of course not.

Comey, in his opening statement:

Please don't draw any conclusions from the fact that I may not be able to comment on certain topics … We need to make sure we don’t give other people clues as to where we are going. We need to make sure we don't give information to our foreign adversaries about what we know or don't know. We just cannot do our work well or fairly if we start talking about it while we are doing it.

He later reiterated that point, and throughout the hearing he repeatedly said he couldn’t answer specific questions from both Democrats and Republicans. Nonetheless, @POTUS:

FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia. pic.twitter.com/cUZ5KgBSYP
— President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017

Monday, Mar 20, 2017 · 11:29:53 AM PST · Laura Clawson

Regarding Trump’s official-account tweet that “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process”:

The FBI Director was just asked under oath if this tweet was accurate. He said this tweet is not what he said. https://t.co/RWijNNe90pb
— Liam Stack (@liamstack) March 20, 2017

What Comey says there is “I’m not going to get into either that particular case, that matter, or any conversations I had with the president, so I can’t answer that.” He “refuses to deny” only in the sense that he refuses to answer at all.

For context on the range of questions Comey said he couldn’t answer, he also refused to comment on whether Paul Manafort was Donald Trump’s campaign manager as of July 2016. “I really don't want to answer questions about individual U.S. persons,” he said. “It's obvious from the public record but I don't want to start down the road of answering questions about somebody.”

So, yeah. He won’t answer questions about things on the public record because to answer the question might set the wrong precedent for his other answers, but it’s definitely significant when he “refuses to deny” AKA “refuses to answer at all” a question about a presidential briefing.

oh my my my ... . anyone like roasted donaldduck?
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/20/1645416/-Trump-ignores-FBI-chief-Comey-s-words-to-insist-he-refuses-to-deny-Obama-briefing