Bad Week For The FBI-- I Wonder How Badly Has The Trump Criminal Menagerie Damaged The Bureau

Gangsta President by Nancy Ohanian

That former FBI lawyer Lisa Page filed a lawsuit against the FBI, for illegals sharing private text messages between her and former FBI agent Peter Strzok with the media, isn't the worst thing that happened to the FBI this week. On Monday, handpicked Trump FBI Director Christopher Wray undercut a theory pushed by Trump and the media and congressional Trumpists that the government of Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.

That caused an infuriated Trump to attack him, insisting Wray is, basically, a doofus. "I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men and women working there!"

The underlying problem is that Trump thinks the FBI and the Justice Department and the American government work for him rather than for the country. In fact, Trump thinks he is the country. L'etat c'est moi. That's what people mean when they refer to him as a would-be tyrant and as an authoritarian and fascist. It's why I was so upset when Pelosi botched the impeachment so badly with her two politically-motivated and utterly pathetic articles.

I'm not sure how accurate the assertion that Horowitz's report cleared the FBI is, but it sure didn't paint the Bureau in the colors Barr and Trump wanted, not that that's stopping Barra and Trump from claiming the report proven exactly hat they wanted to see it prove. What a shit-show!

Tuesday Pete Williams and Ken Dilanian reported on Willaims' interview with William Barr, the Attorney General who actually does function as Trump's private attorney.

Williams and Dilanian wrote that "Barr said he still believes the FBI may have operated out of 'bad faith' when it investigated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and he contends the FBI acted improperly by continuing the investigation after Donald Trump took office," essentially dismissing DOJ inspector general Horowitz's findings "that there was no evidence of political bias in the launching of the Russia probe, and insisting that "his hand-picked prosecutor, John Durham, will have the last word on the matter."

Disorganized Crime by Nancy Ohanian

Barr's blistering criticism of the FBI's conduct in the Russia investigation, which went well beyond the errors outlined in the inspector general report, is bound to stoke further controversy about whether the attorney general is acting in good faith, or as a political hatchet man for President Trump.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz, after reviewing a million documents and interviewing 100 people, concluded that he "did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open" the investigations into Trump campaign aides.

But Barr argued that Horowitz didn't look very hard, and that the inspector general accepted the FBI's explanations at face value.

"All he said was, people gave me an explanation and I didn't find anything to contradict it…he hasn't decided the issue of improper motive," Barr said. "I think we have to wait until the full investigation is done."

Barr said he stood by his assertion that the Trump campaign was spied on, noting that the FBI used confidential informants who recorded conversations with Trump campaign officials.

"It was clearly spied upon," he said. "That's what electronic surveillance is... going through people's emails, wiring people up."

Barr portrayed the Russia investigation as a bogus endeavor that was foisted on Trump, rather than something undertaken by career civil servants who were concerned about whether a foreign power had compromised a political campaign.

"From a civil liberties standpoint, the greatest danger to our free system is that the incumbent government use the apparatus of the state … both to spy on political opponents but also to use them in a way that could affect the outcome of an election," Barr said. He added that this was the first time in history that "counterintelligence techniques," were used against a presidential campaign.

Barr said that presidential campaigns are frequently in contact with foreigners, contradicting the comments of numerous political professionals who have said for two years that there is rarely, if ever, a reason for a presidential campaign to be in touch with Russians.

Barr added, "There was and never has been any evidence of collusion and yet this campaign and the president’s administration has been dominated by this investigation into what turns out to be completely baseless."

But the biggest outrage, Barr said, is that the FBI's "case collapsed after the election and they never told the court and they kept on getting these renewals."

The inspector general report does not say the FBI's Russia case collapsed after the election. It does say that the FBI interviewed some of the sources for the dossier written by a British operative, who raised questions about his reporting. But by then, the investigation had moved well beyond anything in the dossier.

In fact, FBI officials told the IG they knew the dossier was raw intelligence that could be filled with inaccuracies. They relied in part on information from it to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had previously been the target of recruitment by Russian intelligence. The inspector general criticized the FBI for 17 errors and omissions in the applications for surveillance.

But after the election, there was a different set of counterintelligence concerns that Horowitz did not address in his report and Barr did not mention in the interview: Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and told Russian officials in the Oval Office that doing so relieved pressure on him over Russia.

That led then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to open a counterintelligence investigation into Trump, the results of which have never been disclosed.

In indictments and the report written by special counsel Robert Mueller, prosecutors identified, by one count, 272 contacts between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives, some of which have never been explained.

Mueller also determined that during the election, Trump was trying to negotiate a business deal in Moscow that would have required the approval of the Russian government.

Mueller said he did not establish coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but he also said the Trump team strategized about how to benefit from the fruits of Russia's election interference, particularly the disclosures of hacked Democratic emails.

The recent trial of Trump operative Roger Stone showed the extent to which the Trump campaign was trying to get information from Wikileaks, which had been identified as working closely with Russian intelligence.

Barr mentioned none of that. He said the basis for opening the Russia investigation was "flimsy" because it stemmed solely from a report of a statement by a young aide, George Papadopoulos, who said he was offered Democratic emails by a Russian agent and didn’t report the conversation to the FBI.

"They jumped right into a full-scale investigation before they even went to talk to the foreign officials about exactly what was said. … They opened an investigation into the campaign and they used very intrusive techniques," Barr said.

The inspector general report said the decision to open the investigation was unanimous within the FBI and the Justice Department, a group of mostly career officials.

Durham will now investigate their actions, Barr said.

On Monday, Durham added his voice to Barr's criticism of the IG report, saying, "Last month, we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the F.B.I. case was opened."

Barr said Durham's much-criticized statement was appropriate.

"It was necessary to avoid public confusion," he said. "It was sort of being reported by the press that the issue of predication was sort of done and over. I think it was important for people to understand that Durham's work was not being preempted and that Durham was doing something different."

Now... how dangerous to this country is William Barr. Super-dangerous. Tuesday, Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics called Barr a "threat to democracy" he may try to help Trump steal the 2020 election. I'm going to put Shaub's Tweet Storm into narrative form:

As Attorney General, Barr is a threat to democracy. He has distorted facts and misled the public. He appointed Durham to run a concurrent investigation because he knew the Inspector General would debunk his conspiracy theories, and he needed someone he could control.

Durham revealed much about his own character when he issued a transparently political message challenging the IG's report before completing his investigation. Barr, who deceived the public about the contents of the Mueller report, has similarly tried to undermine the IG report.

Barr's crackpot theory boils down to the idea that the last administration tried to sabotage Trump's candidacy by keeping its investigation of Trump's campaign completely secret while colluding with Jason Chaffetz to leak information about its investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Barr bizarrely argues it'd be bad if a president abused his power to sabotage a rival's campaign with an investigation. The notion that Obama came anywhere near doing this is the debunked lunacy of pizzagate enthusiasts, but it's exactly what the "transcript" shows Trump did.

Barr's comments also suggest a plan to take personnel actions against individuals tied to the investigation of Trump. Whether action is warranted or not, an Attorney General commenting on personnel actions that must be taken by lower level managers suggests the fix is in.

Whether he ultimately intervenes in personnel matters is almost beside the point. His remarks were intended to intimidate the DOJ attorneys and FBI agents investigating others associated with the president. And there's something far more ominous that his remarks have signaled.

Barr, who traveled the world looking for ways to defend the politician he serves instead of the rule of law, has also signaled he may use the criminal investigative apparatus of the state to go after perceived enemies of his boss—weaponizing it as a tool of a political party.

Even the mere suggestion that he would do this is a direct assault on democracy and a betrayal of the public trust. It is extremely dangerous and may chill legitimate investigations. It's the stuff of autocracies. It must not be tolerated. It cannot be tolerated in a republic.

(Barr even talks like an authoritarian. He said he'd ignore any ethics guidance he disagreed with. He ignored the 1st amendment and blamed "secularism" for society's ills. He told certain "communities" [wink] they need to show more respect or live without police protection.)

In this context, it's important to remember that Trump fired Sessions the day after the election because he would not stop the Russia investigation. A president firing someone for failing to treat him as though he is above the law should have been viewed as an impeachable act.

It's important not to make the same mistake twice. Some people underestimated Barr's ruthless partisanship before. No one should do that again. Like Trump, Barr is capable of doing anything he can get away with-- and that includes interfering in the 2020 election, if we let him.

There Is No Doubt The Russians Are At It Again-- And There Is No Doubt Trump Is Mentally Incapable Of Dealing With That

Julian Barnes and Adam Goldman, reporting for the NY Times Friday-- FBI Warns of Russian Interference in 2020 Race and Boosts Counterintelligence Operations-- wrote that FBI director Wray warned about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a 'significant counterintelligence threat.' The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior F.B.I. official." Trump might not be concerned but there are at least some in his administration who have "come to see that Russia’s influence operations have morphed into a persistent threat. The F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference, senior American national security officials said." Didn't anyone watch all those seasons of The Americans? That warning about how many foreign operatives are living in America today before The Enemy Within?

“We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations.

“So we are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020,” he said.

Mr. Wray’s warnings came after the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, laid out in hundreds of pages of detail the interference and influence campaign carried out by Russian operatives in the 2016 election.

While American officials have promised to continue to try to counter, block and weaken the Russian intelligence operations, they have complained of a lack of high-level coordination. President Trump has little interest or patience for hearing about such warnings, officials have said.

Mr. Trump views any discussion of future Russian interference as effectively questioning the legitimacy of his 2016 victory, prompting senior officials to head off discussions with him. Earlier this year, the White House chief of staff told Kirstjen Nielsen, then the homeland security secretary, not to raise the threat of new forms of Russian interference with Mr. Trump, current and former senior administration officials have said.

But outside of meetings with Mr. Trump, intelligence officials have continued to raise alarms. Officials including both Mr. Wray and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, have said Russia has aimed its influence campaigns at undermining faith in American democracy.

“What has pretty much continued unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, etc. to spin us up, pit us against each other, to sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America’s faith in democracy,” Mr. Wray said on Friday. “That is not just an election-cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365-day-a-year threat.”

In response to growing threats from Russia and other adversaries, the F.B.I. recently moved nearly 40 agents and analysts to the counterintelligence division, the senior bureau official said in an interview earlier this month. Many of the agents will work on the Foreign Influence Task Force, a group of cyber, counterintelligence and criminal experts. Initially formed on a temporary basis before the midterm elections, officials have made the task force permanent.

The Department of Homeland Security made its midterm election task forces permanent, folding them into an election security initiative at their National Risk Management Center. The National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command have also expanded and made permanent their joint task force aimed at identifying, and stopping, Russian malign influence, officials said.

Intelligence officials have said Russia has kept up its interference operations since the 2016 election, continuing through the midterms and most likely to intensify during the next presidential campaign-- albeit with new tactics.

Some intelligence officials believe Russia intends to raise questions in the aftermath of future elections about irregularities or purported fraud to undermine faith in the result. During the midterm elections, Cyber Command conducted an operation to temporarily take offline the most prominent Russian troll farm to keep its operatives from mounting a disinformation operation during voting or vote counting.

Mr. Trump’s continued hostility toward discussing Moscow’s malign influence campaigns, as well as his broader attitude toward Mr. Putin and Russia, puzzles many national security experts.

“The way Trump spoke about U.S. foreign policy, with a particular focus on Russia, NATO and some other cardinal aspects of U.S. foreign policy views were out of kilter with traditional, mainstream foreign policy thinking,” said Andrew S. Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

...The aftermath of the 2016 election and Russia’s attempts to try to influence the American government illustrates the dangers of a loose, ad hoc approach to foreign policy that Mr. Trump embraced during the transition, and still favors to a degree former national security officials said.

“If you can be led by the nose by foreign governments, that is the simplest definition of what a successful influence operation looks like,” Mr. Weiss said. “All sorts of leaders figure out there are ways to work with the Trump team that stressed informal channels, flattery and a freewheeling approach.”

Campaign officials with little security background looking to make impromptu deals are particularly vulnerable to Russian intelligence operations, said James M. Olson, a former chief of C.I.A.’s counterintelligence unit and author of To Catch A Spy.

“They are dilettantes, no question about it. They have no intelligence or national security background and they shouldn’t be playing in a game they don’t understand the rules of,” Mr. Olson said. “These people are jumping into deep water and they don’t even know how to swim.”

What Russia has gained from its influence campaign remains subject to debate. The strong sanctions against Russia remain in place, toughened by congressional action. Funding for American military presence in Europe increased under the Trump administration. The United States has kept up its support for the Ukrainian government and has made no official move to recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

But Mr. Trump’s skepticism of the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and his occasional wavering over the mutual defense pact have strengthened Mr. Putin’s hand in Eastern Europe.

Former officials and other experts agree with Mr. Wray’s assessment that Russian intelligence has also contributed in sowing chaos in political systems, undermining faith in democratic voting systems and potentially further polarizing already divided electorates.

“My hunch is Putin feels pretty good about how it’s going for him,” Mr. Olson said.

Pete Williams, reporting for NBC News, noted that Russian efforts to influence American public opinion are not confined only to periods around elections and that Wray said "It's pretty much a 365-days-a-year threat. And that has absolutely continued" and that it consists of constant use of social media, with "fake news, propaganda, false personas, et cetera, to spin us up, pit us against each other, sow divisiveness and discord, and undermine Americans' faith in democracy."

So why no interest in any of this from Trump-- other than to deride it? Mental health professions issued their own report on the Mueller report that should help us answer questions like that. "While the information in the Special Counsel’s report has been deemed insufficient for criminal determination," declares the report, "it provides, even in redacted form, a wealth of relevant information regarding the President’s mental capacity. Not having the mental capacity to make sound decisions and to refrain from violence, whether by encouraging, recommending, or inciting it on the part of his followers, whether or not he meets the criteria for being diagnosed as mentally ill, is dangerous as long as he remains President and constitutes a medical emergency that health professionals are obligated to respond to.. [T]he office of president requires, at the very least, the ability to make sound, rational decisions based on reality and the ability not to place the nation in grave danger. The final determination of 'competency' is a judicial decision usually made by the courts, while capacity is a medical assessment that psychiatrists, and especially forensic psychiatrists or other appropriately trained forensic mental health professionals, contribute to courts as expert witnesses to aid them in making their legal decisions. Similarly, presidential fitness is a political decision, but just as the courts routinely rely on physicians’ and other experts’ assessments for competence, disability, and fitness for duty, political bodies should not be denied access to the same medical and professional information and expertise that the judicial system benefits from. We therefore offer our analysis as potentially valuable data, as a part of our professional obligation to protect public safety and wellbeing." One conclusion is that Trump is a clear and present danger to America because of his mental incapacity demonstrated in "patterns" on behavior.

[T]he Report outlines how the Russians systematically and sweepingly attacked America before and during the 2016 election. There were dozens of connections, meetings, reaching out, visits, and phone calls between Russians and the President’s circle. While the Special Counsel was not able to find the final legal proof of an actual agreement between Russians and the President, the Report indicates that some witnesses destroyed evidence, gave false testimony, pleaded the Fifth Amendment, lied, claimed false privilege, or used encryption applications or programs that did not preserve long-term records. The Report also makes clear that the President knew about, expected, and received benefit from Russian actions (Vol. I, pp. 4-10). Given the President’s continued refusal to acknowledge the severity of these attacks, we can see that his comprehension and ability to absorb important information from his own intelligence agencies, whatever the reason, is impaired. If he cannot protect the nation against a hostile force that has attacked us, it also points to dangerousness. While a criminal act (actus reus) could not be established beyond reasonable doubt, a criminal intent (mens rea) is extensively well documented in the discussion of the intentions behind many of the President’s actions in Volume II. This, combined with the evidence of mental incapacity, heightens dangerousness.

The mental health professionals believe the Mueller report indicates that Trump is "predisposed to rash, short-sighted, and dangerous acts, without consideration of consequences, motivated by self-protection to the degree that he does not appear capable of considering national vulnerability; and surrounded only by the most informal and personal resistance around him to curtail those acts, until the pressure of his predisposition pushes out the advisors. It is clear that the course of events could have gone either way if those surrounding the President had yielded to the pressures to fire Mueller, or if they had spoken directly to Attorney General Jeff Sessions about limiting the scope of the Special Counsel instead of Sessions’ Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn pocketing the message. The President’s investment in a certain “reality” (that the Russian attack was insignificant) and his refusal to accept critical information or advice hence augment the dangers that our nation faces.

...After refusing for more than a year to be interviewed by the Special Counsel (p. C-1), the President finally agreed to respond to questions only in written form. Even with the help of his lawyers, however, his responses were not able to bring up substantial details that would be useful for the investigation but mostly state that he “on more than 30 occasions ... does not ‘recall’ or ‘remember’ or have an ‘independent recollection’” (p. C-1). By contrast, he rarely lacks certainty in his public statements, even with highly questionable content, and touts himself as having “the world’s greatest memory” or “one of the great memories of all time.” Making oneself impossible to indict by failure or refusal to recall does not prove innocence or guilt but can be valuable data: overall, in his remarkably brief answers (often the questions are longer than the answers), there is not a single question or part of a question that he answers without some variation of “I do not recall” or “I do not remember” (pp. C-11 to C-23) — to the point that his testimony merely demonstrated “inadequacy of the written format” (p. C-1).

Again, the patterns are more informative than individual instances, and the form of his testimony is significant in terms of: (a) the near absence of content, which indicates an extreme reluctance or inability to offer information; (b) a written language so starkly removed from the president’s ordinary manner of parlance, that it reads like “legalese” (or a lawyer’s language, which is a client’s legal right, but in mental health is a possible indication of high levels of contrivance and therefore likely unreliability); and (c) with his failure to “recall” substantial information (regarding Donald Trump Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting, Russian hacking that includes WikiLeaks, the Trump organization’s Moscow project, and Russian contacts during the campaign and the transition), there are only two possibilities: either he truly does not remember, or is making a total fabrication—and either is pathological and highly worrisome with respect to a president’s capacity to serve, warranting an evaluation.

Avoiding interviews or answers that would make oneself indictable is comparable to a mentally impaired person avoiding doctors and hospitals at all cost so as not to be diagnosable. Whereas in criminal justice it is a legal right, in mental health it is valuable information regarding one’s mental state. A lack of genuine effort with respect to an issue of national security, when the country was unequivocally and effectively attacked by an enemy nation, is alone a sign of severe incapacity to fulfill the duties of the presidency.

...Tendencies that place oneself or others in danger are also core components that indicate a lack of capacity to serve. We know of numerous reports of the President placing the nation and the world in danger, with empirical studies documenting an unprecedented rise in hate crimes, schoolyard bullying, white supremacist killings, assaults directly implicating the President, and the extraordinary pipe bomber who sent sixteen explosives to the President’s most prominent critics, and most recently the mosque shootings in New Zealand citing “common purpose” with the President. In addition, the emotional characteristics noted above, including impulsivity, recklessness, and an inability to consider consequences of his actions, created a particularly dangerous situation in the nuclear age, where thousands of thermonuclear weapons are under his sole command without an adequate set of formal checks or balances. Apart from these, and apart from the minimization of Russia’s attack on the United States’ 2016 elections, including siding with the enemy nation’s leader over his own intelligence agencies and the attempt to block investigations into Russia’s attack, there is evidence from the Report that indicate general evidence of danger.

We know, from the first months of the Trump administration, in response to concerns about his potential for rash and dangerous acts, there was much talk about the protection provided by key associates such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Reince Priebus’ replacement as White House Chief of Staff, John Kelley, and Michael Flynn’s replacement as National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster. The Report corroborates these claims and further confirms that the country has been protected against directions to the Assistant Attorney General to fire the Special Counsel or directions to the Attorney General to announce that the Special Counsel limit his investigation to future elections, not by forceful assertion of national interest, but by the passive resistance of those around the President, often in an attempt to protect the President from himself. Still, the President has ousted these moderating forces rather than listen to them. Former President Ronald Reagan, who some have suspected of having suffered from the early stages of dementia while still in office, at least surrounded himself with capable personnel. The current President seems unable to do this; rather, only a few capable staff remain in spite of the President. With the President’s apparent symptoms worsening in plain public view, such as his “tweeting” angry messages over fifty times over the course of twenty-four hours a few days ago, a departure from his already escalating pattern of “tweets,” the likelihood of grave danger to national and international security can no longer be overlooked.

We know, from the first months of the Trump administration, in response to concerns about his potential for rash and dangerous acts, there was much talk about the protection provided by key associates such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Reince Priebus’ replacement as White House Chief of Staff, John Kelley, and Michael Flynn’s replacement as National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster. Without the limitations on the President’s rash, impulsive and sometimes downright dangerous decision-making that the Report attributes to these individuals, generally regarded as distinguished and formidable, the national interests of the United States and, indeed, the world, would have been placed at much greater risk by the mental functioning of the current President.

Mental capacity does not relate simply to a person’s specific psychiatric diagnosis; in other words, the presence of a mental disorder does not render a person incapable of making rational and realistic decisions. This is the most dangerous kind of leadership possible. Given the clear documentation we have summarized in the Special Counsel’s report of the President’s impaired capacity to make responsible decisions free of impulsivity, recklessness, manipulation of advisors, a degree of suspiciousness that leads him to believe that he needs to defend himself against betrayal or persecution, an absorption in self-interest that precludes attention to the national interest, inability to consider consequences before taking action, detachment from reality, paranoid reactions, creation of dangerous conditions, and cognitive and memory difficulties, there is compelling medical evidence that he is lacks the capacity to serve as president. We would still recommend a proper, in-person evaluation, which the President should be able to agree to, if he believes he is fit to serve. Otherwise, we find the information in the Report to point overwhelmingly toward incapacity.

Democrats Complicit in Advancing Christopher Wray Confirmation as FBI Director

Constituents giving Hero of the Resistance Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse a piece of their minds after his vote to confirm pro-torture Mike Pompeo as CIA director

by Gaius Publius

It seems "our" Democrats never learn.

During the earlier rounds of confirmation on Trump cabinet nominees, a group of early votes to confirm some of the worst and least qualified included far too many Democrats saying Yes.

One of the worst votes was the confirmation of torture advocate Mike Pompeo as CIA director 66-32-2, with such Heroes of the Resistance as these...

• Diane Feinstein
• Maggie Hassan
• Tim Kaine (Clinton's VP nominee)
• Amy Klobuchar
• Brian Schatz
• Chuck Schumer
• Jean Shaheen
• Sheldon Whitehouse
• Angus King

...voting to install him. (See "Mike Pompeo, Torture, and the Future of the Democratic Party" for more.)

For their trouble, Democratic senators like Sheldon Whitehouse were subject to their own angry town halls. (See "Democrat-Supported CIA Chief Hires a Torturer of Muslims as Deputy" for more.)

Now our Heroes of the Resistance (including Sens. Whitehouse and Franken; see below) are at it again, this time on the recent vote to confirm Trump nominee Christopher Wray to replace James Comey as FBI Director.

From Huffington Post and Reuters:

Senate Panel Unanimously Approves Chris Wray's Nomination As FBI Director

All 20 members of the committee voted to advance the nomination.

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously approved the nomination of Christopher Wray to be FBI director following the dismissal of the agency’s former chief, James Comey, by President Donald Trump.

All 20 members of the committee voted to approve Wray, a white-collar crime lawyer and former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, sending his nomination to the full Senate for a vote.

Trump nominated Wray last month after firing Comey during an FBI investigation into whether Trump campaign associates colluded with the Russians to help him with the 2016 presidential election.

Needless to say, Trump would not have chosen Wray in the first place if Wray were going to operate in the recent James Comey mode, meaning independent of White House direction.

Who Is Christopher Wray?

According to Reuters, Christopher Wray is lawyer who specializes in prosecuting and defending white collar crime. He's also Chris Christie's personal lawyer "in a political scandal."

As a bonus, Wray also has a nice connection to the Russian energy giant Gazprom: "Wray works as a King & Spalding litigation partner and represents companies and individuals in a white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters. King & Spalding has represented Russian companies including state gas monopoly Gazprom, according to its website. According to the website, the firm's energy practice also has represented businesses taking part in deals involving Russian entities including state-owned oil major Rosneft."

In other words, Wray is connected to all the right right-wing people. As we'll discuss at another time, part — or maybe most — of the Trump-Russia battle over sanctions may well be related to the U.S. attempt to corner the E.U. LNG (liquified natural gas) market for struggling U.S. suppliers and freeze out Russian suppliers and pipelines that would deliver Russian LNG to the West.

That may be good or bad, depending on whether you think U.S. military policy should protect U.S. fossil fuel corporations. But with Trump and Tillerson firmly in the "let Russia sell their natural gas" camp, you can be pretty sure which side Christopher Wray will be on — Trump's.

A Loyal Trumpie?

Do you think Trump will expect the same "loyalty" from Wray that he expected from Comey? Reuters again:

In written testimony released by the panel on Wednesday, Comey said Trump told him on Jan. 27 that "I expect loyalty," and in a Feb. 14 meeting asked him to back off from a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn's ties with Russia. ... In a statement, Trump called Wray "an impeccably qualified individual" who will serve "as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity."

I think it would be foolish to think otherwise.

"Heroes of the Resistance"

And these fine members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted (pdf) to send the nomination to the Republican-dominated Senate floor, making confirmation a bipartisan certainty:

• Al Franken
• Sheldon Whitehouse (again)
• Amy Klobuchar
• Patrick Leahy
• Dick Durbin
• Richard Blumenthal
• Mazie Hirono

As CREDO Political Director Murshed Zaheed put it, "Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee just failed the resistance. ... Every Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee should be ashamed of themselves for rewarding Trump by rubber-stamping his pick to fill the role. If Senate Democrats don’t have the backbone to stand up to Trump’s dangerous regime they might as well go home and find a new line of work."

A New Leaf, or the Old One?

They never learn. How do they expect us to think they've turned a new leaf if they keep showing us the old one?

So we're back to the question we asked earlier — how much Democratic complicity is too much? It seems that Democratic senators are determined to help us find out.

GP