The nation was gripped recently by the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey to the Senate Intelligence Committee, as viewers waited with bated breath to hear Comey swear that President Donald Trump had obstructed justice. Alas, Comey never formally accused the president of this, and advance previews of his testimony confirmed this.
Essentially, Comey didn’t give Democrats the “smoking gun” they were seeking that would have allowed impeachment proceedings against the president to immediately commence. Instead, the process of figuring out whether the president actually did anything wrong will get dragged out further by Special Counsel (and ex-FBI Director) Robert Mueller.
As opposed to President Trump looking like he had egg on his face, one might be able to say the opposite may have been true as Comey dramatically admitted to leaking memos he wrote to himself in the wake of his meetings with Trump to a law school friend, who then passed them on to the media outlets such as the New York Times.
Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz also accused Comey of misstating the date of the leaks, saying that Comey insisted they came after a tweet Trump wrote on May 12, despite a New York Times article sourced from them running on May 11.
Furthermore, even if Comey wrote the memos to himself, they are technically considered property of the government, so there’s some question as to whether Comey may have violated the law in leaking these documents. Indeed, this testimony from Comey could be further confirmation that Trump was right not to trust him, as Comey’s own admissions prove that leaks from the Trump administration have been coming from people at the highest levels of government. There were also questions as to why the fact that the president wasn’t under investigation was never leaked, as Republican Senator Marco Rubio pointed out.
An astonishing 20 million viewers tuned into the hearing to listen to Comey speak, many of them Democrats holding out hope that his testimony might be able to start the impeachment ball rolling against Trump. But as opposed to the Watergate hearings during the administration of former President Nixon, this public hearing was held in the Hart Senate Office Building, a smaller and less majestic venue that’s more suitable for the accommodation of media journalists than numerous legislators and/or the public.
It should be noted that prominent Democratic Representatives Brad Sherman and Maxine Waters of California and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas sat in reserved seats. In addition, two Democratic senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Bill Nelson of Florida, were also present, despite their not sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara — a man known to be a harsh critic of the president — was also present. Bharara later made a statement that he believed that an obstruction of justice case should begin immediately against the president, but since Trump fired him and 45 other U.S. attorneys (a common practice when federal administrations change), he no longer has a say in any government matter.
Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that Comey never really had more on Trump than the fact that Trump asked to speak to him alone and expressed to him personal opinions, and whether this is enough to charge or even censor Trump is a matter of extreme argument. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland was quoted as saying the important question to examine was President Trump’s intent as regards his remarks to Comey, and likely, this is a matter for Robert Mueller to explore more over the next several months.
To be sure, Comey wasn’t pleased with being fired and was unhappy that President Trump had given conflicting reasons for why he was terminated. Most irksome for Comey, it seemed, was the Trump administration’s apparent suggestion that the FBI was “in disarray — that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader” as Comey recalled when asked about such statements. Comey accused the president’s administration of trying “to defame me and the FBI” and forcefully disagreed with those assessments, saying, “The FBI is honest and strong; the FBI is independent.” But as opposed to anything that’s a prosecutable offense, those words from Trump and his officials were merely a matter of opinion, and even if Comey vehemently disagreed, all such statements merely create a “he said, they said” conflict; there’s no crime in expressing opinions.
Comey called the Trump administration’s accounts of himself and his organization “lies, plain and simple” and said that he wrote down notes after talking to Trump because he was extremely worried the president “might lie” about particular events or what was said between the two men. These statements produced probably the greatest stir during Comey’s testimony, but once again, Trump’s words, even if they were made exactly as Comey stated, have no bearing on a case of obstruction of justice.
For the record, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied Comey’s accusations of Trump’s lying about the FBI, saying, “I can definitively say the president is not a liar.”
Comey also said he took Trump’s private musing to him that “I hope you can see your way to letting this go — to letting Flynn go” as a ‘directive,’ despite a simple reading of these English words showing that Trump was merely expressing his opinion. Comey quoted Trump’s saying to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Trump thought Comey’s firing would “relieve the pressure” building up from the FBI’s Russian connection investigation.
These statements came the closest to establishing culpability for Trump, but most observers, including the senators who were present, didn’t believe they crossed any red lines. Comey himself commented that “I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to find out the intention and whether that’s an offense.”
It remains to be seen what Special Counsel Mueller’s take on the entire affair will be. There have been some suggestions, particularly from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, that Mueller may not be considered a fair or partial investigator due to partisan (Democratic) donations made in the past by at least four of Mueller’s underlings.
For now, though, Trump is likely safe from punitive action, and by many accounts, he dodged a bullet with Comey’s testimony. But for Trump, the greatest problem is that Comey’s testimony doesn’t resolve the case; instead, it will continue, and Mueller can keep poking around until or unless he doesn’t find anything.
A larger problem in the short-term may lie with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Comey believes could have had improper dealings with Russians such as Kislyak. Sessions recused himself from the investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia, so Sessions’ own contacts with people such as Kislyak may be a way Democrats could attempt to force the attorney general from office if they push hard enough. It’s expected that Sessions and his Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will testify separately before the Senate about these matters shortly.
~ American Liberty Report
