James Comey’s testimony is not going to break the impasse in
Washington and will satisfy neither side. Trump supporters are claiming that
the president was exonerated because Comey did not claim that Trump ordered him
to drop the Russia investigation and did not present an airtight accusation of
obstruction of justice. Trump opponents point to the fact that Comey stood by
his claim that the president asked him to drop the investigation of Mike Flynn
and that such a request is unethical, even if it doesn’t clearly rise to the
standard of obstruction of justice.
Whatever your opinion of the he said-he said dispute between
Comey and Trump, the matter underscores just how wrong Trump supporters were
about one thing: Character does still matter.
The fundamental question in the matter is who to believe. Do
Americans trust the former FBI director with an axe to grind and a reputation
for protecting himself politically or do they trust the sitting president with
a casual regard for the truth, a man who has a reputation for saying whatever seems
expedient at the moment and walking it back or pretending it was never said later.
When a president needs the benefit of the doubt from the
country, as Trump does now, it helps if he has a good reputation. Trump does
not. A Quinnipiac
poll from May found that 61 percent say that Trump is not honest. When
asked the first word that comes to mind about Donald Trump, the top three
answers were “idiot” (39 percent), “incompetent” (31 percent), and “liar” (30 percent).
Right now, given the choice of whether to believe Donald
Trump or James Comey, most Americans are going to believe Comey on the weight
of their reputations. That Trump realizes this is evident by attempts to smear
and discredit Comey with personal attacks. These attacks serve to make Trump
look more guilty and there is a good chance that they will backfire
disastrously for the administration.
The problem for Trump and the strategy of attempting to
destroy Comey’s reputation is that Comey is likely to have evidence. Comey
testified in his opening
statement that he shared Trump’s comments with the senior leadership team
of the FBI immediately after their dinner on January 27. If these other FBI agents
corroborate Comey’s testimony, then Trump supporters are left in the unenviable
position of either admitting that the president abused his authority and then
lied about it or believing that Trump is telling the truth and everyone else is
lying.
A second possibility is that Trump “taped” one or more of
the meetings and that these tapes, if found and released, would show who is
telling the truth. The odds are that it would not be Trump, given the rumors
that Trump made similar requests of other intelligence officials.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said at one point in his
testimony. So do I, because that is likely to be the only way to prove the
case to the Trump faithful. As if that would even do it.
Comey’s testimony won’t be enough to impeach Trump. The case
for obstruction of justice is tenuous enough that it probably won’t persuade
many Republicans in Congress to desert him.
What it will do is end his legislative agenda (such as it
is). Gone is almost any chance of working across the aisle for health care
reform, tax reform or the myriad other issues that are vital to the future of
the country. It is looking more and more like Obamacare is here to stay thanks
to President Trump’s poor judgment… along with the poor judgment of the voters
who made him the Republican candidate.
Originally published
on The Resurgent
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