Quid Pro Quo (to get something for something)
President Donald Trump, through his newly appointed Deputy Attorney General, fired the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, Tuesday night. Doesn’t seem to be quite fair, not a “quid pro quo,” considering many feel that Comey was instrumental in getting Trump elected to the Presidency in the first place with the “October Surprise” announcement.
Sonny Corelone(the Godfather) once said “…the goddamned FBI don’t respect nothin’…” Clearly Donald Trump felt the same way, as his letter from Tuesday night shows:
“While I appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nonetheless concur with the judgment in the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”
Trump’s own letter made it clear that his focus was on the possibility of an FBI probe into his own behavior in the 2016 election. He took the opportunity to get rid of the man leading the investigation that could end up there. As the noose grows tighter around Flynn, Manafort, Stone and the others; the path to Trump himself may be opening. What better way to delay and deflect, than to decapitate the agency doing the investigating.
The details are ridiculous. Comey was fired ostensibly because he bungled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The Deputy Attorney General’s critical letter could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. It states that Comey should not have held a press conference about the Clinton emails in July, should not have released the “October Surprise” and should not have commented on any of it.
Trump, of course, rejoiced in all of those actions at the time, praising Comey for being fair and above the political process. Now that investigation has turned to him he has the “quid pro quo:” “You’re Fired.”
So what now? Clearly the firing will have a chilling effect on the career officials of the FBI and the Justice Department who are investigating the Trump campaign. The message is clear: start getting close and you’re out. Ask Comey, or Sally Yates.
But just as clearly, this firing will have a galvanizing effect on the Democrats and the Press, and place more pressure on the key group in this whole mess: the Republican moderates in the Senate. McCain, Portman, Collins and the like are being pushed to take a side. They don’t like Trump anyway, and they are also the ones who saw the center of the Republican party slip away. Now they are the key to what happens next. The same is true from the “Tuesday Group” in the House of Representatives; they have the future of the Republican Party, and perhaps the nation, in their hands.
Like the Watergate investigation, a Special Prosecutor should be appointed to oversee the investigation. That would require Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (since Attorney General Sessions has recused himself from this issue) to make the appointment, but it seems unlikely he would do so after he followed Trump’s lead to fire Comey.
If a Special Prosecutor is unattainable, then the investigation will be left to the Republican dominated House and Senate. The question then is the same question former President Obama asked on Sunday night:
As everyone here now knows, this great debate is not settled but continues. And it is my fervent hope and the hope of millions that regardless of party, such courage is still possible, that today’s members of Congress, regardless of party, are willing to look at the facts and speak the truth even when it contradicts party positions.
We are left to hope that those moderate Republicans will find their Profile in Courage, not for a quid pro quo, but what’s right for the United States of America.
up next – “When will the money turn?”
