Life in the Post Comey World
In a hearing hyped as the biggest thing since the Watergate Senate session with Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean, fired FBI director James Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence committee this week. While it was riveting viewing, in the end, we learned very little new.
Comey was fired by Trump. Trump himself has said it was about the Russia Investigation (interview with Lester Holt). Comey stated under oath that Trump wanted him to close the Michael Flynn investigation. Trump denies it, then says that even if he did say it, there was nothing wrong with it. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on the meaning of the word “hope.”
There is a scene in the movie Clear and Present Danger where Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) stands up to the President of the United States, refusing to be part of a cover-up by corrupt Washington (Clear and Present Danger). It’s a proud moment, the upstanding American against the wrong leader of the free world. It’s the moment we willed James Comey to have, as the President “hoped” that Comey would let Michael Flynn off the hook. Instead, Comey himself portrayed it as a time when the awesome power of the Presidency silenced him, when all he could do was to choose his answer carefully.
Or, for those of us with a more sinister bent, it was the time when the Director of the FBI, a seasoned prosecutor, was allowing a suspect to hang himself. Why would he stop the President from interfering in a Federal investigation, obstructing justice, a felony? If this is what the President was clearly intending to do, then why not let him go on?
Comey painted a picture of Donald Trump as a man that could not be trusted. From the first meeting, January 6, 2017, when Comey revealed the scandalous Steele document to Trump (the Trump “porn” the Russians supposedly have), he documented everything he said to Trump because he felt that Trump would lie. He then showed Trump as a man who manipulated those who worked for him, demanding loyalty while showing little in return. He also made it clear that he thought Trump knew that what he was asking was wrong, that the one-on-one meetings were intentionally to avoid witnesses.
He painted a picture of the President not as the “neophyte” politician that Speaker Ryan would have us believe, but as a scheming autocrat who was willing to circumvent the law.
The question that should be asked, is why would Trump go to such lengths to try to protect General Flynn? To a man with such a one-way concept of loyalty, do we truly believe that he would risk everything just to take care of a friend? Or is it more likely, that Flynn represents the key to the actions of the Trump Organization in league with Russian Intelligence. Getting Mike Flynn off the hook may well have more to do with keeping Flynn from taking a plea deal with Special Prosecutor Mueller than with helping a buddy.
The “John Dean” moment of testimony in this scandal is more likely to be the day that Michael Flynn takes the chair, surrounded by the comfort of Federal immunity, when he reveals the depth of the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian intelligence.
Comey had his “Harrison Ford” moment. He absolutely comes across as an honest public servant, who tried to do his job as he saw it. All attempts to tar him as a “leaker” or “liar” are doomed, he IS a real day Jack Ryan to many Americans. Even we Democrats, who lay the election of Donald Trump at Comey’s doorstep, have to admit that. But he is not the lynch-pin to this investigation. It will take more than just “he said, he said” and obstruction of justice to bring down this Presidency.
