15 thoughts on “Christopher Wray”

    1. Why are you picking on Jeff Sessions?

      He got blindsided by that paragon of probity, the then junior Senator from Minnesota. I thought he got a raw deal all-around. His name doesn’t belong on that list with the other two names.

      1. I disagree. He was a weak sister. He should have reigned in Comey from nearly the get-go. There was plenty as AG he could have done but didn’t. He let the DOJ get out of control on his watch. He was clearly in over-his-head.

        1. The fact that he had to recuse himself from the outset of the new administration was a huge red flag. If I had been Trump I would have asked for his resignation as soon as that happened.

        2. Comey’s flip-flopping twice on the Hillary server issue in October 2016 was an enormous red flag not just for the Democrats but the Republicans should have taken notice as well. Clearly something was not ok over at the FBI, getting that much involved in the election at that late stage. Hillary was furious with Comey. Had she won she would have had her AG put such a tight leash on Comey he’d have to ask the AG for permission to urinate. Under those conditions, he’d been gone within a matter of weeks of his own volition, with plenty of eager D’s waiting to take his job (McCabe, I’m looking at you).

    2. Know you Disagree with at least the first three but think you have to add to your list
      Flynn
      Rudy
      Powell
      Kushner
      Redfield
      Azar

      and it’s easier to probably list Trump good hires
      which begins and ends with
      Mnuchin

      1. I’m curious to know what you think Comey’s job retention expectancy would have been in a Hillary administration….

        1. Assume you are asking me , 2023 when the senate and Hillary don’t renew him for another 10 years?

          Ok joking aside and hope wouldn’t have elected her twice.
          Well really only 2 answers that matter, are immediately or longer than during the Trump administration. I side with longer.

          No way she wants a confirmation fight over the FBI director with a Republican senate in her first 3 months when she going to fight over a supreme court justice instead (assuming Cocaine Mitch didn’t prove himself a liar and confirmed Garland once Hillary won). Your conjuncture that she would want to get rid of Comey , to promote Comey’s best buddy who was fired for authorizing leaks to a Rupert Mudock run media outfit about their being investigation into a Foundation that shares her last name and she a member of is well curious.
          I suspect her AG (Garland) would name a special counsel and get the various Clinton investigations out of the NY FBI field office and out of Comeys hands and attempt to neuter any Senate investigations, while Ken Starring the special counsel. And Comey would have been chastised enough that Clinton would have owned him at least for a while. With a different power dynamic than Comey had with Trump and not such a plum job future. Now if somehow she comes out with the Democrat senate in 2018 the push to drive Comey out might have come.

          1. Not sure that leak would have been made public, because I doubt there would have been a Horowitz investigation to begin with. Plus McCabe had this “get out jail, free card” according to what we learned from the IG report:

            …It reveals that McCabe on Nov. 1 — just days before the election — recused himself from both the Clinton Foundation investigation and the investigation into Clinton’s private email server, which had been effectively reopened just days before.

            At that point, according to the IG report, Comey had excluded McCabe from a phone call related to a new tranche of Clinton emails found days before the election, “out of an abundance of caution because of appearance issues” following the story about McCabe’s wife.

            Probably would have never learned of the leak in the first place or maybe no leak and surely the above would not have gotten McCabe into a lot of hot water with Hillary….

  2. ” The long game would be to continue to publish this material and the ways in which this administration in particular have weaponized government into an authoritarian Big Brother, and then put that issue to the voters. It may not be satisfying, but patience and thoroughness will pay off better in the long run than stunt votes and the premature finality they provide.”

    Yes to all this but I still maintain that reinstating Trump’s executive order (i.e. “Schedule F”) is the best idea I have heard of so far.

    “At the top of Trump’s list is reinstituting an executive order known as “Schedule F,” which would reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees involved in policy decisions as at-will employees. In other words, they would lose their employment protections, and it would be much easier for a president to fire them.”

    “Schedule F is getting to the point where I cannot see anyone who runs on the Republican side who doesn’t put this into play,”

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-retribution-agenda-government-workers-schedule-f-rcna78785

    DeSantis (rapidly fading…apparently polling behind Trump even in Florida) seems on board:

    “Indeed, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who polls as Trump’s most formidable potential presidential rival, dedicated space in his recently published political memoir to Schedule F, writing positively about the policy while appearing to mildly criticize Trump for not having instituted it sooner.”

    Of the 50K or so federal employees that would be effected doubt if Trump would have to fire more than ~500 to a thousand or so. The rot seems mostly at the higher levels; the ones who get promoted for political reasons rather than demonstrated superior performance.

    1. “Of the 50K or so federal employees that would be effected doubt if Trump would have to fire more than ~500 to a thousand or so.”

      Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres

      2. I guess this needs to be explained for the benefit of others on Rand’s fine Web site.

        This French-language quote is attributed to the work Candide by Voltaire in the mid 18th century. Translated, one of the characters is explaining, “In a certain country, it is their policy to kill one of their admirals from time to time in order to motivate the other admirals.”

        The incident inspiring this saying was when a British admiral was tried and executed for cowardice by failing to follow orders to attack the French fleet. The admiral in question didn’t carry out these orders because his badly outnumbered squadron of ships would have been sunk without accomplishing the mission of relieving a besieged garrison. The French thought this “lol” humorous inasmuch that the British were killing their own admiral without their French adversary having to do this for them.

        A modern parallel might be Putin “disappearing” his top military leaders right now because they failed to take action to stop Priogoszhin’s recent “march for justice.” These actions certainly don’t advance the war effort, but Putin may feel them necessary to hang on to power.

        It took me years of struggling through French class to get to the point of being able to read and understand the entire quote, but I am aided by independently knowing what the quote is saying from online sources. “Pour encourager les autres”, however, is pretty easy to read as “in order to encourage the others.” What this widely means is that an organization, a corporation, a military service, a government, applies a drastic, seemingly extreme punishment to some hapless higher-up for an organizational failure, making an example of that person as a lesson for others to “toe the line.”

        Another version of this is the saying “the beatings will continue until employee morale improves.” Both sayings mean that handing out excessive punishment is the resort of incompetent leaders.

        In this context, I don’t get what Rick C is trying to say about his prediction of a re-elected President Trump firing only 500 Federal employees to effect a major change in federal employment culture. Are you saying that firing this small number of a pool or renegade federal employees would “get the message across”? In essence, making an example of 500 Federal employees would be a good action for Mr. Trump to take?

        The context of “pour encourage les autres” is that this form of leading by making an example of a few is a dumb way of conducting business used by inept leaders.

          1. Is Old Chef eating anything lately? We haven’t seen him consuming any food.

            What is improved about New Chef over Old Chef? New Chef swears a lot and also complains of inadequate supplies of ammunition. Seems to be Old Chef 2.0?

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