On today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor and Jennifer Hanson react to the release of damning new evidence against former FBI director James Comey, a handwritten note indicating he knew full well Trump-Russia collusion was spawned by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity.
JENNIFER HANSON: Well, Victor, let’s go ahead then and turn to speaking of something, a plant blooming. [Former FBI Director James] Comey seemed to bloom under the Biden administration and before, and he’s now indicted. And the new thing in his case is that there are handwritten notes that implicate him in knowing about the Russian collusion on the part of Hillary [Clinton] and his agents that he also encouraged leaks out of his office. And what he’s actually charged for, for everybody, is making false statements and obstruction of justice.
My question, I think our listeners’ question is, not only what you think about those things but is he ever going to have any consequences for what he’s done and that’s my issue.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Not for the things he really did because they’re past the statute of limitations of five years because we know from this Columbia law professor [Daniel Richman] who worked for the FBI as a contractor, which he used to leak a confidential conversation with the president of the United States. I think that should have been classified. They claim it was confidential. So he talked to Trump and said, you’re not a member of Crossfire Hurricane when he was. Lied. Then he went and recorded it and put the memo in his safe, not file it with the FBI. That should have been a felony right there. And then he called up his former legal contractor, and said, we gotta get this out. I can’t have my fingerprints in it, so you leak to The New York Times.
Well. He said he gave it to him, but he wasn’t aware that he was going to leak. And he said it wasn’t classified. And then Andrew McCabe said, when he lied four times to federal investigators about that he didn’t leak, he wasn’t really culpable because he was just trying to hide the footprints of the FBI that James Comey had authorized leaks. And he denied this. OK, so that’s all off the table. Right? It’s seven, eight, nine years ago.
But during COVID, in the Senate hearings, they interrogated him and they said to him, Ted Cruz and Grassley were the two luminaries, and they said, you said that—this is in the statute of limitations, so what they were trying to do is give shelf life extended to his exposure, because they knew he was lying. They said, you said that you have not leaked classified information. Is that true? Yes. You said that you did not authorize anyone else to do it or know of it. Yes, that rings a bell. That’s what he said.
OK, so now they have notes where he’s written that he knew about Hillary Clinton and he wanted his friend to leak information about what he really felt because he knew, he said President-elect Clinton, the subtext was, probably would be mad at him, but if he was clearly after Trump then he could rehabilitate himself and either continue as FBI director under the sure President Hillary or get a high appointment. He basically said that.
All that’s off the table. But it shows you that in the table, within five years, he said that he never authorized or engaged, that he was using this Richman to leak. And then more importantly, it really weakens the particular count because he’s charged with obstruction of justice and leaking classified information and authorizing that.
And he’s going to say he never authorized Andrew McCabe to lie. Andrew McCabe said he did. But now you know, because he denied that he ever did that, and yet there’s evidence about it that he knew at the time he had written those documents. You can say within the last five years, he said something that at the time he knew was untrue. And therefore, if he did that, he’s not a very reliable person. And maybe he did actually tell Andrew McCabe.
It came at the same time John Brennan was at a conference at the … I think it’s Michael Hayden, the person who compared Trump to the jailer at Auschwitz. He was just crazy. He’s way out there.
And they had all of the spooks that, many of them, signed [the letter claiming Hunter’s laptop was Russian misinformation]. And it was all a love fest. And this career National Security Agency, Director of National Intelligence employee comes in there and says about collusion. Ah, who let him in? Who is this guy? Who you work for? I don’t work for anybody. I just want to know you knowingly knew from your subordinates that this dossier was not valid, and yet you passed it off as if it was on the prompt of — Ah, who is this guy? And then afterwards, so they wouldn’t let … “next, next, next.”
So then there’s a lobby reception and the same guy comes up to Brennan and says—I’m summarizing, but basically said, you wanted to help Joe Biden. And [Biden advisor] Antony Blinken called Mike Morrell, who got you guys all rounded up. Mike Morrell’s one of them, too, on the stage or was at that symposium. And you knew that the FBI had the laptop for 11 months, and they authenticated it, and they leak like a sieve. So, you knew it was authentic. You know Mr. Big, the Big Guy, Mr. 10%, the porn, all that was accurate.
Where did the FBI get it? They had got it not from the Russians. They got it from a clerk, self-owner at a computer repair store. So, do you really believe he worked for the Russians? Because Hunter gave it to him, and he signed off. So they knew that. And then the person says, so why did you arm Joe Biden in the last debate to lie in front of the American people that that laptop—when he knew Trump would ask about it—was a work of Russian disinformation? I didn’t say disinformation! Come on now, I’m not that stupid. This is what he didn’t say, but this is what he actually said. I said “Russian information operation.” And the guy looks like, what? What is the difference in a Russian information operation and a Russian disinformation? You idiot Brennan, you said “information” because you were going to play gymnastics, so if you ever got caught with your pants down, you were going to, excuse me, you would say, well, I said information, not disinformation. But it was ludicrous.
But it’s important everybody, because it shows you that like Comey, Brennan has been asked questions about his former testimonies, and he’s lied before Congress about Predator collateral damage, he’s lied about the CIA. [They] did surveil the computers of staffers that worked for senators, and he lied about the dossier. And he lied about that since within the period of the statute of limitations, and that’s what it’s going to hinge on. But the fact that he’s so paranoid, and he’s angry, and he always gets that way. He’s gruff and he doesn’t look good.
