It looks like President Trump may prosecute James Comey after all!
New reports out today suggest that the Trump legal team is putting together all the pieces to go after James Comey for lying to Congress.
From FoxNews:
President Trump’s legal team is renewing claims that fired FBI Director James Comey misled Congress as they push back on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, in the wake of the latest explosive perjury plea filed in the Russia case.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress about the timeline of a since-abandoned Moscow real estate project.
Trump, in response, branded Cohen “weak” and a liar, while attorney Rudy Giuliani stressed Mueller still has “no evidence of collusion” and has instead racked up false-statement pleas.
But Trump’s lawyers also are raising questions of a double standard, drawing new attention to letters sent in 2017 to Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein hammering Comey over allegations of his own “inaccurate” statements.
The letter cited eight alleged areas of problematic testimony. This included complaints that Comey testified in May 2017 he never acted as an anonymous source in news reports related to the Trump or Clinton probes, though he shared accounts of his private Trump meetings with the understanding they would leak to the press in the event of his ouster. The letter said Comey’s testimony was “misleading,” even if “technically correct.” But Kasowitz detailed a host of other examples, involving allegedly misleading claims about Trump’s directives to him, about his closure of the Clinton email case and subsequent revisiting, and more.
A subsequent letter from attorney John Dowd to Rosenstein blasted Mueller for not investigating Comey’s alleged “misconduct.”
In a heated interview earlier this year with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Comey disputed the notion that his discussions of his Trump meetings constituted a leak.
The focus on these Comey complaints, though, dovetails with the narrative Trump himself is pushing on Twitter, repeatedly criticizing Mueller for not applying the same scrutiny to his political detractors.
“This is an illegal Hoax that should be ended immediately. Mueller refuses to look at the real crimes on the other side,” he tweeted Thursday night.
Comey, though, has hardly escaped the persistent scrutiny of congressional Republicans and is currently locked in a battle with them over a newly issued subpoena.
He is now asking a federal judge to dismiss a House Judiciary Committee subpoena requesting closed-door testimony, citing a history of leaks creating a “corrosive narrative.”
“Mr. Comey asks this court’s intervention not to avoid giving testimony but to prevent the Joint Committee from using the pretext of a closed interview to peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative about the Clinton and Russian investigations through selective leaks,” recent court documents read.
The subpoena, issued last week, calls on Comey to testify as part of the congressional inquiry into allegations of anti-Trump bias surrounding the closure of the Clinton email probe and opening of the Russia probe.
The former FBI chief, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, alleged in his motion that he previously declined a closed-door meeting in October and instead offered a public hearing but the committee never addressed the matter again.
A hearing is set for Friday.
Watch:
And from the Washington Times:
Former and current members of President Trump’s legal team have compiled research to make the case that former FBI Director James B. Comey misled Congress in his testimony and is not a reliable witness for special counsel Robert Mueller.
The lawyers last year tried to persuade Mr. Mueller to investigate Mr. Comey, his former colleague, to no avail.
The Trump-Comey war took on new dimensions last week as Mr. Mueller won a guilty plea from former Trumpattorney Michael Cohen, who admitted to lying to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a proposed election-year Trump Organization Moscow hotel deal.
“The Cohen plea of lying to Congress by the special counsel raises the very serious question as to why the special counsel has refused to investigate and prosecute the false statements and testimony of James Comey, the main accuser of the president, before the Senate Judiciary and intel committees,” former Trump attorney John Dowd told The Washington Times.
Mr. Dowd and his colleagues filed a complaint with the Justice Department and Mr. Mueller last year. It says, in part, that Mr. Comey was dishonest in May 2017 when he said he never took steps for FBI surrogates to leak stories about Mr. Trump to the news media.
The Washington Times showed the complaints to Mr. Comey’s legal team, which didn’t respond.
In a court filing to quash a Republican congressional subpoena, Mr. Comey rejected as untrue a charge from Mr. Trump that he had leaked classified information.
Trump supporters say that if Mr. Mueller can target Mr. Cohen for lying, then why doesn’t the Justice Department go after others? They mention not only Mr. Comey but also James R. Clapper, former head of national intelligence; Democratic attorney Michael Avenatti; dossier creator Christopher Steele; and his handler, Fusion GPS founder Glenn R. Simpson.
Of the four in addition to Mr. Comey, three involve public charges from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. They are:
⦁ Mr. Clapper. The Barack Obama appointee testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2013 that the National Security Agency doesn’t “wittingly” spy on Americans in the United States.
The testimony was “clearly erroneous,” as he admitted later in a letter. The NSA collects bulk domestic phone records and some internet communications.
In retirement, Mr. Clapper is a prime Trump critic.
“I really question his ability to — his fitness to be — in this office,” he said on CNN. “I worry about, frankly, access to the nuclear codes.”
⦁ Mr. Avenatti. A fierce Trump critic, the lawyer presented sworn statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of Julie Swetnick, who made a series of sensational gang rape charges against then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. She later retracted some of the charges.
Mr. Grassley sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department accusing Mr. Avenatti of a conspiracy to submit false statements.
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