What Rings Comey s Bell: The Former FBI Director s Casual Testimony Confirms the Worst About His Tenure JONATHAN TURLEY
Yet, the more interesting question is what exactly does ring the bell of James Comey. Recent disclosures have added to the very serious allegations of misconduct in the handling of the Russian investigation. Highly critical reports by the Inspector General and the secret FISA court detailed critical omissions and outright false information used as the basis for the investigation. This includes conduct leading to the firing of the top FBI officials and agents involved in the investigation and a recent criminal plea by the key FBI agent in charge of the FISA applications. Comey however seemed locked in some Kübler-Ross loop, stuck between denial and transference.
Comey did finally admit that, knowing what he knows today, he would not have signed off on the key secret surveillance targeting Carter Page. That makes it unanimous. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and now Comey himself have all said that the application was invalid. Everyone agrees but no one is taking real responsibility.
Yet, Comey bizarrely said, while he would not have approved such surveillance today, he still did not think that he should have been informed (while considering the application containing Steele dossier information) that the source for the information was believed to be an actual Russian agent. Comey said that that was something that he did not really need to know: I m not investigating the case&They d want to wrestle with that [on the team] and decide what to do with it.
So Comey was questioning the relevancy of his knowing that FBI agents believed that the Steele dossier (which was part of his briefing) was Russian disinformation and supplied by a Russian agent. That apparently would not ring his bell before signing a highly unusual application, including the Steele material, targeting a person close to the Republican presidential candidate in an investigation on Russian influence in the election.