JUNE 8, 2017
It was showtime on Thursday morning as the Senate Intelligence Committee met to question former FBI Director James Comey about the FBI’s investigation of possible ties between Russia and President Trump’s administration.
The prospect of fireworks at Comey’s hearing resulted in packed bars across the country and countless Americans playing hooky from work to watch the proceedings. Those who were expecting a “Perry Mason” type bombshell — such as Trump running down the aisle, tearfully admitting “I’m guilty!” — might have been disappointed, but there was enormous drama nonetheless.
The White House managed some victories in the Comey testimony — the former FBI director asserted that Trump never once suggested that he stop the FBI investigation of Russian ties to his administration as was widely reported and that Trump was correct in saying that he was not personally under investigation.
And Comey gave right-wing radio a talking point when he explained that, after he was fired and Trump threatened him in a tweet saying he had better hope that there are no tapes of their conversation, Comey collected his contemporaneous diaries of his interactions with Trump. He then gave the diaries to a friend to offer to The New York Times in hopes that the publicity might trigger a special counsel investigation. “He’s a leaker!” chortled Rush Limbaugh on Thursday afternoon, still presumably clutching his pearls.
But despite these few crumbs of success, there was no reason for Trump to be happy.
To begin with, for the first time, Comey, under oath, unloaded the dreaded “L” word.
No longer did the very careful Comey hide behind words like “misspeak” — on Thursday, Comey asserted that Trump out-and-out lied to him. Trump’s assertion that the FBI was “in disarray,” was a lie. Trump’s explanation that Comey was fired because of how he bungled the Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy was a lie. So, as a result, Comey wrote every interaction with Trump down in a diary, because he was convinced that in their one-on-one conversations, Trump was going to lie to him. Calling someone a liar under oath can be risky, except of course, when it’s true.
On the accusation that Trump tried to get Comey to drop an investigation into his fired national security advisor Michael Flynn with Trump’s plea of “I hope you can see your way to getting this go…to letting Flynn go.” GOP Senators tried to argue that, rather than ordering Comey to drop his investigation of Flynn, the use of “I hope” was just a wish. Comey would have none of that, asserting that Trump’s tone indicated that it was a “direction,” presumably along the line of using “I hope” in the sense of “Nice job you have here. I hope nothing bad happens to it.”
Probably the most devastating takeaway from Thursday’s session was not any one statement but the cumulative portrait that Trump is solely in this job for himself, a kind of “how can this benefit me?” mindset with regard to his policies, both foreign and domestic. And when he’s caught, never mind the country, he’s all about saving himself. (His pathetic pleas to Comey to tell the world that he’s not under investigation is Exhibit 1.)
The White House is still trying to admit the the Comey testimony “completely vindicated” Trump (keep drinking that Kool-Aid, kids), but when you have to push your high-priced New York lawyer out to face the cameras to clean up the accusations against you, you’ve had a pretty terrible day.
