THIRD THOUGHTS ON COMEY

My column yesterday (5/09) on “Second Thoughts on Comey” didn’t age well. Here are my third thoughts:

1. Evidently President Trump does think Comey is a putz. If so, I think that’s primarily because of his role in promoting the Steele dossier.

“FBI Director James Comey considered an anti-Trump dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer so important that he insisted the document be included in January’s final intelligence community report on Russian meddling in the election,” Fox News reported May 6.

If he did this, Comey could have done it out of bias, incompetence, or both. I doubt it was bias. But as I wrote last week, “anyone in the National Security Division of the FBI who didn’t recognize immediately the Steele dossier is a clumsy fraud has no business being in the National Security Division of the FBI.”

Or being FBI Director.

2. Even if Comey weren’t a putz, he’d have had to go sooner or later. His name is mud with the public. Neither Democrats nor Republicans on Capitol Hill trust him. Morale at the FBI has plummeted.

Three former assistant directors of the FBI had nice things to say about Comey, but agreed he had to go.

“(Comey) is basically a good guy,” said James Kallstrom. “I don’t think he’s done this with malice aforethought. He just lacks common sense.”

Comey “became a victim of politics,” said Ron Hosko.

His firing “had to happen, based on what the director did last year,” said Bill Gavin.

3. Arnie Steinberg had some great insights this morning, but contra him and almost every talking head on cable tv, I don’t think there is anything “curious” about the timing of Comey’s dismissal.

We don’t know when Mr. Trump decided to can Comey. I doubt it was spur of the moment. But it wasn’t until this week the stars aligned to make this a good time to drop the hammer.

*As Arnie notes, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – whose job it is to oversee the FBI, and who has an impeccable reputation – wasn’t confirmed until two weeks ago (April 25).

*It wasn’t until April 6 – when Trump bombed Syria – when it became crystal clear to all the sane with IQs higher than room temperature that there was no substance to the narrative Trump is Vladimir Putin’s prison wife.

If Trump had fired Comey in January – as Arnie and many others say he should have – the cries of “treason,” a “coup,” a “constitutional crisis” would have been louder and more hysterical than they are now – and more would have believed them.

*On Monday (5/08), the Senate Intelligence Committee held its long anticipated hearing featuring the Left’s new heroine, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

It was a nothingburger per the Left’s narrative. Former DNI James Clapper reiterated yet again there is “no evidence” of collusion between Trump and the Russians. Though she tried to keep the narrative alive with innuendo, Ms. Yates tacitly agreed.

Trump may have awaited this further deflation of the hopes of conspiracy mongers before poking a stick into the hornets’ nest.

*Though not in itself reason enough to justify canning Comey, the FBI’s correction Tuesday of Comey’s testimony about Huma Abedin’s emails provided an excellent excuse for when to drop the axe.

The apparently shabby way in which the firing was done – Comey was in LA, learned about his dismissal from CNN – suggests haste. But haste not in deciding whether to fire Comey, but in when to do it.

4. Comey is going to be just fine. He was in an impossible situation, I suspect he’s glad to be out of it.

Now that he’s a hero again to the Left (unless and until Citizen Comey says what Director Comey said three times: that Trump is not the subject of a criminal investigation, there is no evidence he colluded with the Russians), he’ll get a gazillion dollar book deal, become a partner in a prestigious law firm.

5. I wouldn’t bet more than pocket change on it, but I wouldn’t be astonished if Comey didn’t deliberately botch his testimony last week. (It was a really bad mistake for a good lawyer to make, but was without legal consequence. Either way, Huma was grossly negligent in handling classified information.)

If the circumstances of Comey’s departure were premeditated and staged, then Trump was willingly playing the meanie so Comey could appear to be a martyr. It’s hard to believe, because no normal politician would ever do this.

But Trump already is doing something like this. With regard to North Korea, he’s playing bad cop so China can be good cop.

6. Trump delights in gaslighting the Lying Swine.

*Remember the Bannon-Kushner feud? Where is Bannon now? Have you heard anything about that feud in the last few weeks?

*After the Bannon-Kushner feud, disappeared from the news, we had more than a week of drama about adviser Sebastian Gorka. Would he stay or would he go?

That’s over now, too. A reporter actually wrote that Gorka’s job was saved because Bannon and Trump had intervened on his behalf. As Thomas Wictor said: “Thank you, Mr. Trump, for standing up to you.”

*No sooner did the Gorka controversy end than there reports of trouble between Trump and McMaster. The National Security Adviser “lectured” the president, sources said. The president “screamed” at McMaster, other sources said.

What bull. There’s no evidence Trump has ever “screamed” at anyone. If he’d screamed at McMaster, McMaster would have resigned on the spot. No good XO would ever “lecture” the CO. McMaster is as good as it gets.

The Lying Swine expect there to be dissension in the White House. Team Trump gives them rabbits to chase.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.