As details continue to emerge about President Trump's extraordinary firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, there are growing indications that the FBI's investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia was a key motive in the termination. Here's a play by play of the controversy:

2016

July 5: Comey announces that the FBI did not find evidence to support criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as Secretary of State. Comey also concludes that Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless" in their handling of classified information.

July 7: Comey testifies before the House Oversight Committee, reaffirming his decision not to charge Clinton.

Late July: The FBI launches a counterintelligence investigation into contacts between Trump associates and Russia. There is no public confirmation of this investigation at the time, but Comey later confirms it in a March 2017 hearing before the House Intelligence Committee.

August 16: The FBI defends its decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton in a letter to House Oversight Committee members.

September 28: Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Comey says that reopening the Clinton email investigation is not necessary.

October 28: Comey sends a letter to members of Congress saying that the FBI would be re-opening its investigation into Clinton's emails, following the discovery of new emails on the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner, which was seized as part of a criminal investigation into Weiner. The laptop was also used by Weiner's then-wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin; some of the newly-discovered emails included messages between Abedin and Clinton.

October 31: At a campaign rally, Trump praises Comey's handling of the Clinton investigation: "It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made, in light of the kind of opposition he had, where they're trying to protect her from criminal prosecution," Trump said. "What he did was the right thing."

So Trump fired Comey, citing his handling of the Clinton case.

This was Trump on Comey in October, after the Clinton letter. Watch.pic.twitter.com/CjPLsxshlH

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 10, 2017

2017

January 10: Comey testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing; he declines to say whether the FBI is investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia.

Read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/comey-fired-trump-russia-timeline

 

Please note that Russia had nothing to do with the US Presidential elections... 

 

 

From Chris Floyd:

 

 

Whatever else you can say about Trump (don't get me started), he's a first-class troll: citing Comey's handling of the Clinton email probe in the last days of the campaign as his reason for firing him! The very action Trump had long praised as a "gutsy" move by Comey, one which redeemed him in Trump's eyes. That's some high-grade mendacity there, transparently false, yet told with a straight face, and pretending it was on advice of the Attorney General. 

People will say it's a bad move by Trump, drawing even more attention to the Russian probe the FBI was carrying out. And in conventional terms, it is a stupid, self-defeating act. But it could also be seen as part of a long-term Trump team strategy to tear everything down, rendering the nation's institutions, laws and established procedures to piles of ruin, covered with steaming piles of bullshit, absurdity and chaos. And what happens to nations and societies in ruins? Why, "strong leaders" must step in, with a strong hand -- a free hand -- to "do what it takes" to "restore order." 

Trump has actually been pretty open about his desire to be such a figure, and of course his vizier Bannon is even more candid about his desire to "destroy the administrative state" and build a new, nationalist order. We're not just through the looking glass these days -- we've shattered it to pieces and are rocketing into the unknown at a thousand miles an hour. So I'm not sure similar scenarios from the past (Nixon's 'Saturday Night Massacre,' for example) are reliable guides as to how this will play out.

Meanwhile, under cover of the carnival noise, Trump’s generals are getting ready for a new “surge” in Afghanistan, arming the Kurds (threatening conflict with Turkey), massing tanks and material in on the Syrian border in Jordan, massacring more civilians in Yemen and Somalia, and in general getting ready to make major murderous mischief across the planet.(Even more than the usual never-ending bipartisan-backed belligerence, I mean.) Not to mention setting the berserkers of our militarized police loose on the populace, under the watchful eye of the tiny Confederate general Trump made Attorney General. And preparing to transfer $5 trillion from the public purse to the super-rich. And seeking to strip millions of people of healthcare in order to … give tax cuts to the super-rich. And so on and on and on. 

Trump is spreading so much ruin so quickly across so many fronts that the firing of an FBI Director is little more than a sideshow. But you can bet it will be the focus of the “Resistance” — as some of our media-political elites like to call themselves these days — as the other depredations roll on.

Read more:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/home/articles/curtains-for-comey-rocketing-th...

 

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