Comey Surrenders to House Republicans, Calls It ‘Striking a Deal’

WASHINGTON, DC – Former FBI Director James Comey surrendered his attempts to block a subpoena to testify under oath before the U.S. House shortly after it became likely that a federal judge was going to humiliate him by rejecting his “brazen demand” because Supreme Court precedent makes clear that federal courts lack the authority to block such a subpoena from Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee has been asking for months for Comey to testify under oath. Lawmakers have serious questions regarding the FBI’s decisions regarding investigating Hillary Clinton and the campaign of President Donald Trump, including what Comey announced and did not announce, when he announced it, and why he attempted to usurp the role of the U.S. attorney general in deciding whether to charge Clinton with a crime.

After Comey refused to cooperate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) issued a subpoena requiring Comey to appear for a closed-door session under oath on Wednesday, December 5. The reason for a closed-door hearing is that lawmakers have only five minutes each in open hearings, during which time an experienced politician and lawyer like Comey can often wait out the clock for items they do not want to fully disclose. There are no time limits in a closed-door hearing, so each lawmaker or committee lawyer can keep drilling until he or she gets a full answer.

Republicans added that they would release the entire transcript of the hearing this week, so there was no good reason not to agree to the full-length questioning session.

Comey’s lawyers nonetheless filed a motion to quash – the technical term for a filing to get a court to block a subpoena – on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Congress came back with massive firepower, as the U.S. House general counsel – former U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Thomas Hungar – responded to Comey’s filing. Hungar began by calling Comey’s motion a “brazen demand” that is “so extraordinary and frivolous that … no district court in the history of the Republic has ever granted [it].”

Hungar also made the point that the motion violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and thus was not actually even a legal case for the court to rule upon. He further argued that sovereign immunity protects Congress against such a lawsuit.

Even if none of that were true, the U.S. Supreme Court has made explicitly clear that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause deprives federal courts of the power to intervene here. That provision, Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution, confers legislative immunity, which makes Congress immune from hostile actions from the executive branch or the courts with regards to any words uttered by lawmakers during congressional sessions, or congressional investigative activities.

In 1975, the Supreme Court held in Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen’s Fund that “the Speech or Debate Clause provides complete immunity … for the issuance of this subpoena.”

“Issuance of subpoenas … [is] a legitimate use by Congress of its power to investigate,” the Court explained. “The courts should not go beyond the narrow confines of determining that a committee’s inquiry may fairly be deemed within its province.”

The House Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over all components of the U.S. Justice Department, including the FBI. With that minimal requirement satisfied, the Constitution does not permit any federal court to quash the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/03/comey-surrenders-to-house-republicans-calls-it-striking-a-deal/

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Comey’s lawyers agreed over the weekend to dismiss the matter. Most media outlets have misreported the dismissal, saying that House Republicans and Comey have reached an “agreement” or a “deal” regarding Comey’s testimony.

Rather than an agreement or a deal, this was an unconditional surrender on the part of Comey, every bit as definite and complete as Japan’s surrender to the United States on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in 1945 to end World War II.

Calling this a “deal” is like comparing it to negotiations between a grizzly bear and a peacock. (The part of the peacock is played here by Comey). The peacock either does what the bear (Tom Hungar) says or things do not end well for the peacock.

Hungar is one of the most accomplished Supreme Court litigators in the nation and talked up as a possible future U.S. solicitor general. With skills of Hungar’s magnitude representing the House and such clear Supreme Court precedents on this issue, it was impossible for Comey to beat Congress in court. Otherwise put, the peacock prudently decided not to blitz the grizzly.

That raises the question of why Comey would ever file such frivolous papers in court. It appears that perhaps he hoped to get a left-wing judge who might rule in his favor despite the Constitution being on Congress’s side, and hoping further that the House’s inevitable appeal would not be decided before Democrats took control of the House on January 3. House Democrats would surely drop their demand for Comey’s testimony by the close of business that very day.

Some liberal federal judges have acted in such unprecedented ways since President Trump’s election: from the travel ban litigation where the Supreme Court ruled 100 percent in the president’s favor (Trump v. Hawaii), to the current litigation involving the DACA amnesty program for illegal aliens, to the asylum/caravan litigation on the U.S.-Mexican border. Comey hoped to get such a judge.

Instead, this legal matter was assigned to a mainstream conservative federal trial judge in Washington, DC. Comey and his lawyers evidently concluded that they had zero chance of getting that judge to ignore binding Supreme Court precedent, and agreed to immediately dismiss the suit.

Comey will testify in closed session before the Judiciary Committee on Friday, moved later in the week because President Trump has proclaimed the originally scheduled day of Wednesday as a National Day of Mourning for President George H.W. Bush. Republicans will release the transcript later this week, as they had always planned to do.

The matter is In re Subpoena of James Comey, No. 1:18-mc-174 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/03/comey-surrenders-to-house-republicans-calls-it-striking-a-deal/

DS PANIC, DS MAD…

Obama Henchman John Kerry Warns Brits Should Submit to EU Deal or ‘Reignite’ Northern Ireland Terror

Former U.S. Secretary of State and Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry is in Northern Ireland threatening that Brexit could trigger a new terror campaign in the Province.

Kerry, who replaced Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama’s foreign policy supremo in the wake of the Benghazi fiasco in 2012, offered his implicit support to Prime Minister Theresa May’s “worst deal in history” with the EU — which keeps the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland open by surrendering large swathes of the former’s economy to EU control under a so-called “backstop” arrangement — in an interview with the BBC’s Sunday Politics Northern Ireland programme.

“Under the Stormont Agreement, the last 20 years have been characterised by a border which people have been able to cross easily,” said the 2004 presidential election loser.

“If you have a certain kind of Brexit with a hard border you could see great difficulties emerge as a consequence of that,” he claimed.

In an echo of President Obama’s threats about Britain being sent to “the back of the queue” for a trade deal with the United States in the event of a Leave vote — now utterly repudiated by the Donald Trump administration, which has put Brexit Britain “at the front of the line” — Kerry warned he had “concerns that depending on what kind of Brexit takes place it could have a negative impact on the progress made” in Northern Ireland.

“It could re-heat passions one way or the other or both depending on what it is. We have to see how this is going to be resolved. It’s imperative that it’s resolved in a way that it does not reignite the Troubles,” said Kerry, suggesting the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) could easily recommence its long campaign of assassinations and terror bombings again British soldiers, police officers, politicians, and civilians — despite its claims to have disarmed as a result of the 20-year-old peace deal.

A clear majority of Northern Ireland’s people endorsed the Union with Great Britain in a 1973 referendum, so suggestions that the British government should bow to EU demands on customs and regulation in order to appease any potential terrorists are controversial in the Province.

The idea that it could erupt into violence over something as trivial as customs checks has also been called into question by some, including Brexit-supporting Labour’s Kate Hoey, a London MP with Ulster roots.

“[I] wish Chuka Umunna would stop using the Belfast agreement as [a] reason the stay in the [EU] Customs Union,” she wrote in February 2018, after the Remain diehard made similar allusions to Kerry about Brexit undermining peace in the Province.

“[It is] insulting to people in Northern Ireland and sends a signal to men of violence,” she added, indicating that it was not helpful for Remainers to legitimise the idea of Irish nationalists carrying out attacks in response to Brexit.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/03/john-kerry-brits-should-submit-eu-deal-reignite-northern-ireland-terror/

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/20/dup-slams-despicable-low-and-rotten-irish-pm-for-using-ira-terror-as-brexit-leverage/

Yellow Jacket Protesters Pull out of Meeting with French Government

Representatives from the Gilet Jaunes protest movement have said they will not meet with French President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

Two members of the Yellow Vests confirmed with Agence France-Presse Monday evening that they will not be going to the Hôtel de Matignon, the official residence of the Prime Minister of France, on Tuesday as planned.

Le Figaro reported that the group spokesman cited “security reasons.”

French party representatives were supposed to meet with the Yellow Vests in attempts to resolve the ongoing protests against an increase in fuel taxes inspired by President Macron’s environmental agenda.

According to sources, a ministerial meeting took place Monday evening at the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the President of France, to address the crisis.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, and the Minister of Public Accounts, Gerald Darmanin, are all said to be present.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/03/yellow-jacket-protesters-pull-out-meeting-government/

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/03/anti-macron-protests-spread-ambulance-workers-join-rebellion/

Anons noticed the date??

The civil unrest began on November 17th when the Yellow Vests protested across the country against rising fuel costs, inspired by Macron’s climate change agenda, with tax on diesel rising 23 per cent in just 12 months.

NOV. 17th

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/03/anti-macron-protests-spread-ambulance-workers-join-rebellion/

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NOTABLE.