The Comey Memos release is backfiring on Don Cornholeone, revealing, among other things, that Reince Priebus quite possibly knew that Michael Flynn was under FBI surveillance while he was actively serving as National Security Advisor, and that George Papadopoulos was actively engaged in trying to obtain the stolen DNC emails from Russia instead of just informing the drumpf campaign of their existence.
You will doubtless read all about that in other diaries that are up today...
But it was the below exchange between drumpf and Comey, reported by Washington Post, that caught my eye this morning…
Comey’s memo of his Feb. 14, 2017, discussion with Trump also includes a previously unreported exchange about trying to prevent leaks.
At the time, the president was upset that transcripts of his phone conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia had appeared in The Washington Post.
Comey said he told the president, “I was eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message. I said something about it being difficult and he replied that we need to go after the reporters, and referred to the fact that 10 or 15 years ago we put them in jail to find out what they know, and it worked.”
Comey said he replied: “I was a fan of pursuing leaks aggressively but that going after reporters was tricky, for legal reasons and because (the Justice Department) tends to approach it conservatively. He replied by telling me to talk to (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and see what we can do about being more aggressive.”
“I said something about the value of putting a head on a pike as a message,” Comey said. “He replied by saying it may involve putting reporters in jail. ‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, they are ready to talk.’ I laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened.”
The exchange puts Comey in a bad light also, as it displays his eagerness to pursue reporters that are just doing their damn job.
But then, Comey just worked for the Justice Department, he wasn’t in charge of the damned thing.
We’ll see how funny drumpf thinks his joke is when it’s his wrinkled ass in lock up.