The FBI is trash. Trump creates a Constitutional crisis. Trump is worse trash.

I believe it was probably more fear than vanity that clouded Comey's judgment so severely in the late stages of the presidential campaign.  It's true that the NYC FBI office was wired in with Giuliani and was virulently anti-Clinton.  That's established.  Comey surely believed, and perhaps knew almost for a fact, that if he did not do what he did in announcing what was understood by voters to be the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation days before the election, he was going to be subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign in the media and in the GOP Congress initiated by the Giuliani wing of the FBI. 

[And doesn't the existence of such a wing tend to prove Michael's point?  Is anyone surprised that there has been no thorough housecleaning of the NYC FBI office to remove the Giuliani elements who abandoned their professionalism, abused their power, and grossly violated their public trust, to pursue a partisan political agenda?]   

Jim likes to project an image of himself that is above politics.  And he has done courageous things earlier in his career.  In this case he allowed himself to be politically pressured into doing what he did.  He's an extremely ambitious guy and has just as much of a self-preservation instinct others in politics who is comparably ambitious.  

The decision Jim made I find comprehensible (not justified, in any way--quite the contrary, it is one of the most outrageous and tragic misjudgments in the history of US law enforcement), in context.  People in public life make colossal misjudgments.  That's just a fact. 

What I find incomprehensible, or maybe just scary, is his continued insistence (last I knew) that going against all the internal guidance and departmental policy he went against that was established for the very best conservative reasons, and doing what he did, was the only way he could not unfairly interfere in a presidential election.  How Jim could say, and continue to say, that with a straight face leaves me just gobsmacked.  It suggests to me that his ambition remains untempered.

Perhaps only judgment clouded by fear, a clamoring for the spotlight, and a scary certitude that he was destined to make History, could account for such a disastrous decision and self-deceptive rationalization.  I can detect not one whit of genuine humility in Comey, only a determination to present a public appearance of awe shucks earnestness.  

I continue to believe that had he remained as FBI Director Jim would have pursued a thorough and vigorous investigation of Trump.  Trump clearly believed that, and fired him for that very reason, as Trump himself has acknowledged.

very interesting

Why I voted to release the Nunes memo

By Will Hurd February 2 at 11:26 AM @ WashingtonPost.com

Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas, is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

[....] Not all classified information has national security implications. If it does, it should be withheld. But as David Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, once said, “Just because you see it in a top-secret document, just because someone had said it to the FBI, doesn’t mean it’s all accurate.” [.....]

[....] My vote to release the memo was not about discrediting the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It was not about debasing the hard-working men and women serving in the FBI. Rather, I supported the release because I do not agree that an American citizen’s civil liberties should be violated on the basis of unverified information masquerading as intelligence.

The Intelligence Committee also voted this week on whether to release the minority response. This secondary memo included many references that would affect existing intelligence activity. I voted against releasing the minority response until revisions are made to ensure that it would not jeopardize national security.

Let me be clear, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation must continue to ensure that our democracy was not compromised by Russian interference. [....]

especially when you read about his background on Wikipedia

[....] Hurd is the only African-American Republican man in the U.S. House., and one of two black Republicans in the U.S. House [....] Hurd worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nine years, stationed in Washington, D.C., including a tour of duty as an operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.[3][4] He speaks Urdu,[5] the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where he worked undercover.[5] One of his roles at the CIA was briefing members of Congress, many of whom he said could not distinguish the Sunni and Shia divide at the center of Islamic civil wars for centuries.[6] This alleged lack of understanding by members of Congress made Hurd want to pursue politics.[6] He returned to Texas after his CIA service and worked for Crumpton Group, strategic advisory firm, as a partner and a senior adviser with the cybersecurity firm FusionX.[4] [.....]

After winning re-nomination, Hurd began to distance himself from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He opposed Trump's "nasty rhetoric" in reference to Muslims and Latinos and the candidate's proposal to build an $8 billion, 1,000-mile long wall across the American border with Mexico. "Building a wall is the most expensive, least-effective way to do border security," Hurd said in an interview. Hurd said he did not need coattails from his party's presidential nominee: "Anybody who is hoping on coattails or macro trends, is not doing his job."[17] [....]

Thanks Mike. Good piece. Corey Robin also has an interesting take on this "crisis." He makes the point that the Democratic attack on Trump for alleged collusion and the Republican defense is artifice based solely on partisanship rather than because either party is adhering to principles or even trying to promote a political agenda. http://coreyrobin.com/2018/02/02/a-constitutional-crisis-or-partisans-wi...

Thanks for reminding people of this fact.