Former FBI Director James Comey is “not worried about any tapes” of conversations between him and President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the matter told CNN Friday, adding that “if there is a tape, there’s nothing he is worried about” that could be on it.
And then there’s this from NBC reporter Ken Dilanian:
A source close to Comey told me this morning: “He hopes there are tapes. That would be perfect.”— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 12, 2017
Yesterday, Donald Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. The White House didn’t allow the American press in, but did allow official Russian photographers.
Everyone from Chuck Todd to a former CIA official was mad about that. Whether it was an assault on the free press or straight-up dangerous to allow Russian crews to set up tech in the Oval Office, the involvement of the Russian news agency TASS was the only way American people got images from the meeting.
Now, the White House is upset about even that.
According to CNN, the Trump administration didn’t think that TASS would post the photos. In fact, CNN quotes an official as saying, “They tricked us,” and, “That’s the problem with the Russians — they lie.”
CNN also described how the Russian media acted in a pretty straight-forward way: “The Russians used the photos to troll the White House in its social media posts Wednesday.”
WH furious over Russian government photos of Trump meeting with Lavrov/Kislyak. “They tricked us,” an official said of Russians “They lie.”
In a clip released by NBC News, President Trump tells Lester Holt that he planned to fire former FBI Director James Comey regardless of any recommendations from Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.”
Additionally, in the clip Trump calls Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”
Yesterday, the White House’s story was the firing happened due to DAG Rosenstein’s 3 page letter recommending the firing.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows President Trump’s approval number trending further down, losing support from white voters with no college degree, as well as indie voters and white male voters.
The president is losing support among independent voters and groups which are important parts of his base. Approval ratings are:
• Negative 29 – 63 percent among independent voters, down from a negative 38 – 56 percent April 19
• A split among white voters with no college degree, as 47 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove, compared to a 57 – 38 percent approval April 19
• White men go from a 53 – 41 percent approval April 19 to a split today with 48 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving.
Excellent behind-the-scenes reporting by Politico on the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
President Donald Trump weighed firing his FBI director for more than a week. When he finally pulled the trigger Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t call James Comey. He sent his longtime private security guard to deliver the termination letter in a manila folder to FBI headquarters.
He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.
Trump’s firing of the high-profile FBI director on the 110th day since the president took office marked another sudden turn for an administration that has fired its acting attorney general, national security adviser and now its FBI director, whom Trump had praised until recent weeks and had even blew a kiss to during a January appearance.
The article goes on to say Comey found out he was fired from watching TV reports while in the LA offices of the FBI.
This is only the second time in the history of the U.S. that an FBI director has been fired and Trump couldn’t even bother to call or meet with Comey.
Trump was apparently surprised by the backlash last night as the news unfolded.
Officials in the White House told Politico that the assumption was everyone had a problem with Comey, Democrats and Republicans alike.
What Trump doesn’t seem to understand is: he has now fired the man investigated his campaign and associates for connections to Russia. How Nixonian can you get?
After strong testimony by former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper today before a Senate committee today, President Trump issued a Twitter meltdown trying to assert there was only “old news” to report.
Trump claimed that Clapper just “reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows.” He also said that Yates “made the fake media extremely unhappy” by saying “nothing but old news” in her testimony.
Yates made headlines by testifying that she warned the White House that Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn could be “compromised with respect to the Russians” as a result of his “underlying conduct.”
She also testified that some lawyers in her department were told not to inform her about Trump’s original executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries until it was implemented.
Trump nevertheless insisted that the “fake media” was ignoring the real story “on surveillance,” though he did not offer any further details or evidence about that claim.
The title of today’s hearing was “Russian Interference in the 2016 United States Election,” not “My Trump Tower Phones Were Wiretapped.”
Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today — she said nothing but old news!
NBC News is reporting that that former President Obama personally warned then-President-elect Donald Trump about hiring Michael Flynn as his national security adviser in their Oval Office meeting on November 10th.
The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office.
The revelation comes on a day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
NBC News has asked the Trump administration for a response.
According to all three former officials, Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues.
Obama’s warning pre-dated the concerns inside the government about Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador, one of the officials said. Obama passed along a general caution that he believed Flynn was not suitable for such a high level post, the official added.
Two administration officials said Obama also warned Trump to stay vigilant on North Korea.
Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. Flynn, who was conducting private conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions, was then fired three weeks into the administration for misleading Vice President Pence about those conversations.
Here’s the NBC Exclsuive: Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn in their Oval Office meeting post-election, per 3 fmr. Obama officials. pic.twitter.com/m67UXiawYN
For every “Bernie or Bust-er” and Jill Stein supporters:
Bill Maher took time this past Friday night during his “New Rules” segment to ask those Liberals who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton how they are feeling now that President Trump has passed his 100th day in the White House.
“This isn’t about reliving the last election or my great love for Clinton, which never was, but this is about winning the next election,” Maher said. “And that begins with learning the difference between an imperfect friend and a deadly enemy.”
After noting how various liberal politicians, activists and commentators had said that either a Trump or Clinton administration would be a disaster, Maher asked whether conservatives would now control the Supreme Court if the “just-as-evil-Hillary” had won.
“Just wait until the 5 to 4 decisions start rolling in, gutting unions, making it harder for minorities to vote, siding with polluters, overturning abortion rights,” he said. “Then maybe you’ll join me in saying to the liberal purists, go fuck yourselves with a locally grown organic cucumber.”
