The Deep State was worse than previously argued

Mark Penn:

I guess no one in the FBI ever watched “The Apprentice.” It was only the number-one rated show in the country. In it, Donald Trump, more than any other person in the world, made famous weekly the phrase “you’re fired.”

Consequently when Donald Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey, exercising the authority he believed he had as president of the United States, he was taking the very action he made famous. It wasn’t out of character for him but in character, as he has been throughout his administration. If anything, it’s hard to find anyone who has not been fired or threatened with firing. It’s what he does.

Now, let’s review some of the actions of the FBI director. Many of these actions were clear at the time; others we know only now. What we have learned since underscores that the president’s firing of Comey was more than justified, and the actions of Comey’s staff and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to trigger the most extensive investigation in history of a campaign, an administration and a president appear to be wholly without justification – and were based instead on politically inspired emotion and hysteria.

James Comey initiated his relations with Trump by holding a one-on-one meeting at which he detailed the allegations of the Steele dossier without disclosing its source. Almost immediately the contents of the dossier leaked out to press, also without the source or verification. Comey publicly confirmed there was an investigation of the administration and yet refused to confirm that the president was not a target of the investigation while he repeatedly told the president that was the case.

We then learned through Comey’s congressional testimony that he decided to take it upon himself to clear Hillary Clinton on her email controversy, and that the memo clearing her was drafted months in advance of much of the actual investigating. Once he believed the attorney general was compromised, as he testified, he should have asked for an independent counsel. Instead he exceeded his role and authority, politicizing the FBI in the process.

His testimony was enough to get Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to endorse Comey’s firing in writing, citing his complete lack of professionalism.

Now, in the year since, we have learned new information that buttresses the case for his firing.

First, Comey’s tweets and comments reveal that he despised Trump, and so the self-serving memos he was making and then leaking about his every contact with the president were likely part of an effort to build a case against Trump. We learned that the FBI was wiretapping a number of Trump campaign officials largely on the basis of the Steele dossier. We learned that the dossier was authored by an operative who hated Trump and paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via hidden payments to their law firm. And we learned that Comey sent FBI agents to question General Michael Flynn about perfectly legal conversations they already had transcripts of, without following White House protocol, in a deliberate effort to entrap him.

On top of all of this, the Carter Page warrants flat-out state that the FBI had long before “concluded” the Trump campaign was working with the Russians.

Somehow every clear security breach in the Clinton camp – like an aide’s classified mail on the laptop of a sex offender or huge payments and contributions from Russian-connected sources – was no big deal, while every fourth-hand contact with someone who could possibly be linked to Russia was evidence that Donald Trump was secretly serving as a Russian agent.
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There is more.

While clearly the President was justified in firing Comey, he could have done it for no reason at all under his Constitutional powers.  The suggestion that Trump was a Manchurian candidate is absurd on its face.   The recent attempt by the NY Times and Washington Post to resurrect this absurdity appears to be married in a collusion with Democrats and other media operatives to justify the Democrats harassment of the President.

In fact, it would be much easier to make the case that Obama was colluding with the Russians than Trump.  After all, Obama sold the Russians 20 percent of the US uranium and promised more flexibility once he was reelected.  Obama's energy policies were more in line with what Putin and the Russians saw as their interest in reducing US fossil fuel competition.  The Russians actual supported Obama backed green groups who tried to stifle US energy production.  No sane person could argue that US energy policies since Trump was elected have benefited the Russians.  In fact, it is the opposite.  How have the Russians benefited from US manufacturing growth since Trump's election?  That growth is making the US less dependent on imports of vital products like steel.

If Carl Berstein is right that Mueller will say in his report that Trump has "destabilized" the US, it only demonstrates how off base Mueller and his team of angry Democrats are.  Trump has strengthened the US economy and its trade position and energy production while Obama weakened those positions.  I am not arguing that Obama was a Manchurian President.  But I am arguing that the case they are trying to make against Trump is ridiculous and logically inconsistent.