Comey may get the last laugh

Comey may get the last laugh

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.Com

Times-News Online

June 18, 2017

Today Washington is paralyzed at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue by uncompromising zealots in both parties. And worse, they hold sway because there has been an analogous shift among voters. The political center has been systematically hollowed out as the ranks of uncompromising zealots have swelled in both parties.

Who comes to exploit America’s vulnerability? Russia with its sophisticated, substantial, and clandestine effort to undermine our free elections. Make no mistake about it, the Russian attack on our election is right up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 in terms of its malevolent, destructive purpose.

And what about the 2016 election and its stunning result and surreal aftermath? The good thing about the election is that it got rid of one of the two horrible candidates. The bad news is that it it put the other horrible candidate in the White House.

The FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in our 2016 election began last July. In March of this year then FBI Director Comey confirmed that the investigation included an effort to determine if there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also said that such an investigation would necessarily require, “a credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe that an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”

Since then, thanks to leaks, Trump’s tweets, his interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, hearings before Congressional committees, and the sworn testimony of private citizen James Comey, we know much more.

We know the President was obsessed with two, and apparently only two, aspects of the FBI investigation, whether he was under investigation and whether he could convince Director Comey to lay off his former National Security Adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn.

According to Comey’s recent sworn testimony we know that the president urged Comey repeatedly to state publicly that he was not under investigation, and to lay off Flynn because he was a “good guy.” We also know that he implied that failure to comply would cost Comey his job. When Comey didn’t comply Trump fired him on May 9. The next day in the White House he told the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job.” And the following day he said, “You know this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election.”

Is it reasonable to assume that Trump went to bat for Flynn out of loyalty? I doubt it. Trump’s loyalty begins and ends with himself. Much more plausible is that Trump wanted to prevent the investigators from “squeezing” Flynn to see if he would incriminate bigger fish.

We also know that the president attempted to divert attention from the investigation by claiming that the real scandal was an effort by President Obama to wiretap the Trump campaign, a claim wholly without merit and flatly denied by intelligence officials from both administrations.

We know that there are credible reports that the president urged the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, and the Director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, to push back against the FBI inquiry into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Both refused, but would not further discuss the matter in recent open testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Their silence will not stand.

We know that former FBI Director Comey has testified that he leaked the notes of his meetings and phone calls with the President. Comey has testified that he believed the release of their contents would lead to the appointment of a special counsel to lead the investigation. Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed two days after the leak.

The incredible irony here is that Comey told Trump several times that he was not under investigation. But Trump’s firing of Comey and the way he both did it and described it have now almost certainly caused the special counsel to open an investigation of the president. At issue will be whether or not the President obstructed justice. Comey’s notes and testimony lay a trail of crumbs from Mueller’s office to the Oval Office. If Mueller makes that case, Trump’s a goner. In the meantime Trump has emasculated his ability to govern.

If Mueller charges the president with obstruction, the delicious irony will be that Jim Comey may well have brought down both Clinton and Trump, not a bad day’s work!

If you want a clue concerning the public’s reaction to of all this, watch the special House election in Georgia this Tuesday. It’s a heavily Republican district where the outcome Tuesday is uncertain. It shouldn’t be.

Times-News columnist LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:

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