Tipsheet

There Goes Comey Tweeting About the Forest Again

Former FBI Director James Comey tweeted out an image of a forest floor Thursday with the caption, “so many answers,” after the Department of Justice released the complete (with redactions) report of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings from the Russia investigation.

Comey appeared to be following up on a tweet from March 24, after Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of the report. In that tweet, Comey said “So many questions,” along with a picture of him looking up at trees in a forest.

The Mueller report addressed the firing of Comey in 2017 and whether the president obstructed justice in doing so.

Guy touched on this segment of the report in in his full analysis:

On obstruction of justice, Mueller's team takes a decidedly more jaundiced view of the president's actions. A key flashpoint in the relevant timeline was the firing of FBI Director James Comey, which the president had full authority to do under the law. Why was Comey fired? The 'official' (and largely false) White House spin was that Comey had mishandled the Hillary Clinton email probe, but the real driving factor was Trump's seething anger at Comey's unwillingness to state publicly what Comey had assured the president in private on several occasions: The president himself was not under investigation. Trump very obviously became convinced that (a) 'collusion' was a bogus narrative (he was correct), and (b) Comey was being two-faced and playing games on this question, which needlessly contributed to the cloud hanging over his presidency (very arguably accurate). So he fired Comey -- and according to Mueller's investigation, he wanted the conflict over Comey's assurances to be included in the termination letter. It wasn't, and one wonders if Trump could have saved himself a lot of headaches by simply being bluntly honest on the true rationale behind this consequential decision.  Mueller describes this as the first phase of the obstruction question. […]

As the investigation turned to obstruction, Trump raged against those whom he felt were determined to take him down via non-existent "collusion."  This rage, albeit understandable and righteous in many respects, was occasionally channeled in unproductive and even self-destructive ways.  The president was saved from his worst instincts by people around him.  Again, that is not a positive commentary on his temperament or suitability for high office.  But the way that everything has played out, it was also not a crime.

The president celebrated the 448-page report on Thursday, issuing a number of tweets about how there was no collusion or obstruction.