{"id":8663,"date":"2017-03-20T20:32:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T01:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8663"},"modified":"2017-03-20T20:32:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T01:32:03","slug":"reading-the-tea-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/03\/20\/reading-the-tea-leaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Tea Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare <\/b><\/i>gives his learned opinion <\/a>on how to read FBI Director Comey’s testimony today regarding the Russia investigation:<\/p>\n

But free as I am from the shackles of any actual knowledge, let me offer readers the following user’s guide to Comey’s testimony, which can be summed up in one simple sentence: Comey’s communicativeness with the committee\u2014and through it with the public\u2014will almost certainly be inversely proportional to the seriousness of the Russia investigation.
\nThat is, if Comey says a lot, makes a lot of news on Russia matters, and cheers a lot of anti-Trump hearts by maximally embarassing the President for his outrageous comments on Obama’s alleged wiretapping of Trump Tower, that will very likely be a sign that Comey has relatively little to protect in terms of investigative equities in the Russia matter and is thus free to vent. Conversely, a quiet, reserved Comey\u2014one whose contrast with the relatively loquatious FBI director who talked at length about the Clinton email matters will infuriate a lot of liberals and frustrate those who want to know what’s going on with Russia\u2014may well spell trouble for the President.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why? Stipulate that there’s very big news concerning Russia and the Trump campaign:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Comey, in other words,\u00a0has significant investigative equities to protect and he believes that he needs to be there in order to protect them\u2014in other words, that he has a responsibility\u00a0to not get himself fired because of his anger about the Trump tweets (or anything else) because he has to make sure the investigation can proceed unimpeded. In this situation, I would expect him to be minimally verbal. He may have to answer yes or no questions in certain instances, including about the truth of the wiretapping allegations,\u00a0but he will refuse to answer\u00a0a lot of questions<\/em>. He will make as little news as humanly possible. He will be exceptionally\u00a0spare with his opinions. He will make a point of not antagonizing the President. Lots of people will leave disappointed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So I was at work all day. How did the testimony go? NBC News <\/b><\/i>reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Sitting beside the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, Comey began the hearing by revealing in his opening statement that the FBI was in the midst of a counterintelligence investigation into the Russian campaign to hack, leak and promote bogus news stories. Part of that investigation, he said, would examine whether the Trump campaign coordinated with that effort.<\/p>\n

Comey said he could not disclose any details about the probe. Normally, he said, the FBI doesn’t confirm or deny investigations, but it can make exceptions in cases of major public interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This ride could get very interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare gives his learned opinion on how to read FBI Director Comey’s testimony today regarding the Russia investigation: But free as I am from the shackles of any actual knowledge, let me offer readers the following user’s guide to Comey’s testimony, which can be summed up in \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8664,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8663\/revisions\/8664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}