News Release

FBI Whistleblower on Comey and Clinton

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COLEEN ROWLEY,  rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net, @ColeenRowley
Rowley, a former FBI special agent and division counsel whose May 2002 memo to the FBI Director exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. See her page at ConsortiumNews.com.

She said today: “Given the beating that FBI Director James Comey is taking from Democratic leaders and partisans as well as from the Clinton campaign, it would be good to remember some of his history. Back in 2013, I wrote a New York Times op-ed [“Questions for the F.B.I. Nominee“] that attempted to question and point out some of the (mostly undeserved) basis for Comey’s reputation for integrity.

“My op-ed came out the day of his Senate confirmation hearing accompanied by a nice torture graphic (although the Times watered it down a little; for instance, they made me change the word ‘torture.’ We settled on: ‘He ultimately approved the C.I.A.’s list of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including waterboarding, which experts on international law consider a form of torture.’). The op-ed had little effect as Comey sailed through the nomination with full bipartisan support and only one Senator voting against his confirmation.

“Comey is neither saint nor villain but someone who has been around the block. As an acting Attorney General, he’s actually been in his nominal boss’s Loretta Lynch’s exact position and knows how the political pressures as well as media disclosures (i.e. leaking to the public) work. Although he wasn’t really challenging mass surveillance of American citizens or the CIA’s use of torture back March 2004 in Ashcroft’s hospital room, he did stand up to John Yoo’s (presidentially ordained) pettifoggery establishing a form of martial law after 9-11, based on (fascistic) ‘imperial presidency’ war powers.

“Considering his background, I think Comey could be truly worried about the high level of corruption that has engulfed Washington D.C. It should be recalled that he appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush-Cheney’s ‘Plamegate’ perfidy. And don’t forget a young Comey helped investigate the Clintons’ ‘Whitewater’ fraud over two decades ago. Yet after his stint at the Department of Justice, Comey went on to become a Vice-President and General Counsel for Lockheed Martin which donates to and has numerous ties to the Clintons and their Foundation.”  CNN reports: “Hillary Clinton enlists ‘Daisy’ from the 1964 ad to questions Trump on nukes.” Rowley was recently featured on the Institute for Public Accuracy news release “Clinton’s ‘Incredibly Dangerous’ Nuclear Brinkmanship,” which notes: “While many have argued that Donald Trump is unstable and therefore unsuitable to be responsible for making decisions about nuclear war, analysts point to a series of Hillary Clinton policies that risk all out nuclear war.”

Rowley added: “Sorry if my nickname ‘Killary’ offends any Democratic partisans, but Clinton, by my and others’ calculations has callously helped cause the needless deaths of a couple million people (and counting), to some extent motivated by her close ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia (and the millions she derives from these connections). …

“Comey may also be an experienced politician of sorts but his history shows he possesses a tad more integrity than the Clintons.”