Hoping to damage James Comey's credibility before his memoir "A Higher Loyalty," a book highly critical of Donald Trump, is published, the Republican National Committee released a one-minute montage of Democrats lashing out at the former FBI Director.
The video ends with Rep. Maxine Waters' famously damning statement, "all I can tell you is the FBI Director has no credibility," and the URL of a new RNC website, LyinComey.com
They did not yet know the FBI was investigating the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Comey revealed in March 2017. When Nadler called for Comey to be fired, it was November 2016 and Barack Obama was still president. Murphy's quote is cut off before he said, "it's true that Democrats were critical of Comey, but the reasons that we're critical of Comey don't seem to be the reasons why he was actually fired, and that's the problem."
RNC officials would likely argue the context of the quotes is not relevant; all that matters is that politicians in both parties have said Comey is not credible, and therefore, we should not take his book at face value.
If Democrats could go back in time, they might wish to have phrased their criticisms without challenging Comey's character, so their words couldn't be so easily used by the RNC against themselves.
Schumer, Pelosi, Other Democrats Seen Slamming James Comey
We see Sen. Chris Murphy on MSNBC say, "Democrats have been very critical of James Comey and many of us did call for his resignation." Sen. Chuck Schumer says during a 2016 Senate debate "I was appalled by what Comey did" and "I found it hard to believe that Comey, who I thought had some degree of integrity, would do this." "Comey acted in an outrageous way," says Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Maybe he's not in the right job," snarks House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Rep. Jerry Nadler calls for Comey's firing, "the president ought to fire Comey immediately and he ought to initiate an investigation."The video ends with Rep. Maxine Waters' famously damning statement, "all I can tell you is the FBI Director has no credibility," and the URL of a new RNC website, LyinComey.com
RNC Leaves Out Key Context
The video includes no narration and provides no context alongside the Democratic quotes. But nearly all of them come from before Trump's inauguration, when Democrats were upset at Comey for publicly announcing a re-opening of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified emails a few days before the 2016 election.They did not yet know the FBI was investigating the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Comey revealed in March 2017. When Nadler called for Comey to be fired, it was November 2016 and Barack Obama was still president. Murphy's quote is cut off before he said, "it's true that Democrats were critical of Comey, but the reasons that we're critical of Comey don't seem to be the reasons why he was actually fired, and that's the problem."
RNC officials would likely argue the context of the quotes is not relevant; all that matters is that politicians in both parties have said Comey is not credible, and therefore, we should not take his book at face value.
If Democrats could go back in time, they might wish to have phrased their criticisms without challenging Comey's character, so their words couldn't be so easily used by the RNC against themselves.