By Larry Klayman, Chairman and General Counsel Freedom Watch
It was last Thursday morning and I awoke at 4:30 am, showered, dressed and headed down to the Senate Hart Building on Capitol Hill to meet Freedom Watch's process server at 6 a.m. in front of the main entrance. Already in line to enter this office building were about 100 mostly young interns, students, and other concerned citizens from the DC area and around the nation. They were there to observe and thus take part in this "historic" hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, scheduled that day to receive the much anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.
The reason that I had asked our process server to meet me was to serve Comey with a summons and complaint, which my client Dennis Montgomery and I had filed the day before — a complaint which alleged, among other charges, that this highly "overrated" top law enforcement officer had himself obstructed justice by burying an investigation into illegal and unconstitutional surveillance on President Trump and millions of American citizens, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, hundreds of judges, and even yours truly. Years earlier, under grants of immunity to produce over 600 million pages of largely classified information contained on 47 hard drives, this former NSA/CIA contractor came forward to also testify under oath about these crimes to Comey's special agents. When I asked to meet with Comey about Montgomery, I was assured by then-general counsel of the FBI, James Baker, that Comey himself was fully briefed and would himself supervise this crucial investigation.
But as two and one half years passed by and I heard nothing back from the FBI, I began to inquire more forcefully about the status of the investigation. Despite my many inquiries to Comey's general counsel, I received no response. It became obvious that the reason I did not get a reply is that the FBI had also likely engaged in much of the illegal surveillance while Comey was FBI Director.
So it was that I felt that "We the People" needed to, once again, as I have done on our collective behalf over the last decades at Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, spring into action. However, not only did I want to serve Comey that day, as to do so at his home would be difficult, but as a member of the public I also wanted to observe "up close and personal" the hearing. As the doors to the Hart Building opened at 7:30 a.m., the process server and I rushed to room 216, where the hearing was set to take place. However, when we got there we observed a line ahead of us of about 2-3 hundred persons lining three hallways, nearly all wearing government IDs around their necks.
It was clear that these "privileged" persons had entered the building long before the public was allowed in, and were mostly all Senate staff. When it became apparent that we would not be able to take a seat much less enter the hearing room and serve Comey politely at the witness table before the "great event" was to begin, and later watch the hearing — as incredibly only tens of chairs were left for the public to occupy — even "cynical me" was shocked. Just weeks earlier the Senate Intelligence Committee had held a hearing, which I had attended, on alleged Russian hacking of our last fall elections in a hearing room four times the size of Hart 216, with literally about 300 seats for the public.
The reason that I had asked our process server to meet me was to serve Comey with a summons and complaint, which my client Dennis Montgomery and I had filed the day before — a complaint which alleged, among other charges, that this highly "overrated" top law enforcement officer had himself obstructed justice by burying an investigation into illegal and unconstitutional surveillance on President Trump and millions of American citizens, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, hundreds of judges, and even yours truly. Years earlier, under grants of immunity to produce over 600 million pages of largely classified information contained on 47 hard drives, this former NSA/CIA contractor came forward to also testify under oath about these crimes to Comey's special agents. When I asked to meet with Comey about Montgomery, I was assured by then-general counsel of the FBI, James Baker, that Comey himself was fully briefed and would himself supervise this crucial investigation.
But as two and one half years passed by and I heard nothing back from the FBI, I began to inquire more forcefully about the status of the investigation. Despite my many inquiries to Comey's general counsel, I received no response. It became obvious that the reason I did not get a reply is that the FBI had also likely engaged in much of the illegal surveillance while Comey was FBI Director.
So it was that I felt that "We the People" needed to, once again, as I have done on our collective behalf over the last decades at Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, spring into action. However, not only did I want to serve Comey that day, as to do so at his home would be difficult, but as a member of the public I also wanted to observe "up close and personal" the hearing. As the doors to the Hart Building opened at 7:30 a.m., the process server and I rushed to room 216, where the hearing was set to take place. However, when we got there we observed a line ahead of us of about 2-3 hundred persons lining three hallways, nearly all wearing government IDs around their necks.
It was clear that these "privileged" persons had entered the building long before the public was allowed in, and were mostly all Senate staff. When it became apparent that we would not be able to take a seat much less enter the hearing room and serve Comey politely at the witness table before the "great event" was to begin, and later watch the hearing — as incredibly only tens of chairs were left for the public to occupy — even "cynical me" was shocked. Just weeks earlier the Senate Intelligence Committee had held a hearing, which I had attended, on alleged Russian hacking of our last fall elections in a hearing room four times the size of Hart 216, with literally about 300 seats for the public.
To add insult to injury, the mainstay of Hart 216 was reserved for members of the mostly establishment media, with place tags carefully placed on tables so they could take their reserved seat with their laptops and in real time report on what Comey had to say. In short, it was obvious that this exclusion of the public by the establishment Republican and Democrat members of the committee was intentional. And, as later became clear from my then being forced to watch the hearing on television, the primary purpose of this Comey "dog and pony" show was to generate negative publicity in a continued attempt, by the establishments in both political parties and the primarily leftist media to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump. Indeed, what I witnessed were the likes of socialists and ultra-leftist reporters like Dana Milbank of the Washington Post and David Corn of The Nation prancing around in glee thinking that they would soon witness the political assassination of President Trump. Corn even slivered over to me and behind my back put his hand on my shoulder, proclaiming with a lisp "Don't say anything bad Larry," and walked away laughing.
Wanting still, before the hearing commenced, to serve Comey that day, the process server and I had approached the Capitol Police who were standing guard at the entrance to Hart 216 and asked them if they, or someone else of authority, could arrange to have the former FBI director accept service of the complaint quietly either before or after the hearing. These police, while polite and courteous, then called in the committee's director of security, James A. White, who with a tense voice and pained expression told us both, in so many words, to get lost. When we then suggested that White himself could simply deliver the complaint to Comey and ask him to accept service in a non-provocative and confidential manner, he refused, again with an expression of disdain that seemed as if he were about to come unglued.
Not to be deterred, the process server and I then walked across a long hallway to the Senate Russell Building where the establishment Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, has his office. There, I asked his scheduler, Molly Manning Harper, if she would ask the chairman, at the conclusion of the hearing, to provide Comey with the complaint and summons showing service and ask him to accept service. I also asked her to have the chairman call me to again attempt to arrange for my client, Montgomery, to be interviewed by the committee. I added that if Chairman Burr did not contact me, I would have to assume that he would be furthering Comey's cover-up of the ongoing illegal surveillance, as well as evasion of service of process.
Of course, to this day I have heard nothing back from Senator Burr or his staff. But this comes as no surprise: neither Burr nor anyone else on the committee are in my opinion interested in justice, much less conducting meaningful oversight of the FBI and the intelligence agencies and taking concrete steps to stop the ongoing unconstitutional surveillance on Trump and the rest of us. And, given Comey's hostile demeanor and conflicting and compromised testimony about the president, it comes as no surprise to me, and is ironic, that even their attempted bipartisan establishment lynching and "coup d'etat" of the president now appear to have failed miserably!
Senator Burr and the rest of his "bipartisan" colleagues on the committee are the gang of self-serving "Keystone Cops" who cannot shoot straight. Sadly, they are exemplary of your United States Senate!
The complaint against Comey can be viewed at www.freedomwatchusa.org.
Wanting still, before the hearing commenced, to serve Comey that day, the process server and I had approached the Capitol Police who were standing guard at the entrance to Hart 216 and asked them if they, or someone else of authority, could arrange to have the former FBI director accept service of the complaint quietly either before or after the hearing. These police, while polite and courteous, then called in the committee's director of security, James A. White, who with a tense voice and pained expression told us both, in so many words, to get lost. When we then suggested that White himself could simply deliver the complaint to Comey and ask him to accept service in a non-provocative and confidential manner, he refused, again with an expression of disdain that seemed as if he were about to come unglued.
Not to be deterred, the process server and I then walked across a long hallway to the Senate Russell Building where the establishment Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, has his office. There, I asked his scheduler, Molly Manning Harper, if she would ask the chairman, at the conclusion of the hearing, to provide Comey with the complaint and summons showing service and ask him to accept service. I also asked her to have the chairman call me to again attempt to arrange for my client, Montgomery, to be interviewed by the committee. I added that if Chairman Burr did not contact me, I would have to assume that he would be furthering Comey's cover-up of the ongoing illegal surveillance, as well as evasion of service of process.
Of course, to this day I have heard nothing back from Senator Burr or his staff. But this comes as no surprise: neither Burr nor anyone else on the committee are in my opinion interested in justice, much less conducting meaningful oversight of the FBI and the intelligence agencies and taking concrete steps to stop the ongoing unconstitutional surveillance on Trump and the rest of us. And, given Comey's hostile demeanor and conflicting and compromised testimony about the president, it comes as no surprise to me, and is ironic, that even their attempted bipartisan establishment lynching and "coup d'etat" of the president now appear to have failed miserably!
Senator Burr and the rest of his "bipartisan" colleagues on the committee are the gang of self-serving "Keystone Cops" who cannot shoot straight. Sadly, they are exemplary of your United States Senate!
The complaint against Comey can be viewed at www.freedomwatchusa.org.
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