COMEY sworn in for his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning.
GRAHAM keeps misstating Carter Page's relationship with the CIA. He was an "operational contact" which is different than a "source" or someone being "tasked" by the CIA.
Comey keeps pointing this out.
Here is the explicit distinction, as explained in the Horowitz report. Being an operaitonal contact "does not allow for operational use of a U.S. person or tasking of that person." justice.gov/storage/120919…
IMPORTANT: COMEY says that if he used the term "legit" to describe Flynn's calls to the Russians, it was meant to say the calls were "authentic" and not "fabricated."
Flynn team has used the "legit" phrasing to suggest Comey meant the calls were appropriate and above-board.
In fact, Flynn's attorneys in court yesterday used this interpretation, which Comey says today under oath is incorrect.
NEW: Comey says he's concerned about DOJ's decision to drop the Flynn case and that a key page of FBI notes cited by the Flynn defense has been incorrectly interpreted. w/ @AndrewDesiderio
COMEY now says that neither Obama nor Biden made any suggestion about investigating Flynn under the Logan Act. That conflicts with another Flynn-team interpretation of the same set of notes — one Trump echoed on the debate stage last night.
GRAHAM says that FBI agents purchased liability insurance because of the Flynn investigation.
But William Barnett, the lead Flynn agent who Graham just cited approvingly, said that suggestion was improbable and that the liability insurance discussion wasn't tethered to Flynn.
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1) Donald Trump could win by losing because in this case losing his most extreme argument means further delay of trial — and for Trump, delay is almost as good as an outright win
2) The conservatives on the court contorted themselves to avoid discussing the specific case in front of them — Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election. They talked about FDR, Nixon and future presidents. But they rarely engaged w the present.
BREAKING: Arizona prosecutors have charged 11 fake electors for their roles in efforts to subvert the 2020 election. mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f…
There are *seven* additional people charged in this indictment who have not yet been served. So their names remain redacted. mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f…
There's some wild stuff in this newly unsealed (but heavily redacted) FBI interview from a high-level Trump-world person related to the classified docs investigation.
And while the interview is primarily about the docs investigation, this person apparently witnessed Jeff Clark hand Trump the letter about Georgia electors: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This person has a very low opinion of "person 24," who apparently tried to overplay a relationship with Trump and pushed the post-hoc claims that Trump had "declassified everything." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
JUST IN: The DC Circuit has upheld the conviction of former Ron/Rand Paul aide Jesse BENTON for orchestrating an illegal payment from a Russian national to the Trump campaign and RNC. documentcloud.org/documents/2455…
Trump had previously pardoned Benton for *other* campaign finance crimes. The story of this particular contribution is really incredible. the Russian, Roman Vasilenko, really wanted to meet Oprah, Stephen Seagal or Jimmy Carter. documentcloud.org/documents/2455…
Forget the experts: Prosecutors and Trump defense lawyers have already told us what they think is necessary in four different Trump cases. And the questions they want(ed) to ask range from pointed and political to philosophical and a bit odd.
At bottom there are five clear categories aimed at delving into jurors’ minds:
-Opinions about Trump, the man and his presidency
-Views about Trump’s criminal cases
-Political views/activity
-News consumption
-Wildcards aimed at unearthing hidden biases