James Comey’s testimony adds to the credibility crisis: Our view
The millions of Americans who watched — from homes and businesses, bars and classrooms across the USA — James Comey’s extraordinary congressional testimony on Thursday saw several sides to the 6-foot-8 lawman from Yonkers, N.Y.
They saw the seasoned federal agent, who quickly sized up the newly elected President Trump as a liar and memorialized their every encounter.
They saw the savvy operator, who had a friend leak the unclassified notes about Trump to the The New York Times as a way to engineer appointment of a special counsel.
They saw the all-too-human careerist, who failed to directly challenge improper requests from Trump and who, a year earlier, acceded to the attorney general’s desire to characterize the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email as a mere “matter.”
And they saw the unapologetic patriot, who expressed outrage about Russian meddling in our democracy that Americans should be — but aren’t — hearing from their president.
What they most assuredly did not see was “a real nut job, ” as Trump is said to have described Comey to Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after unceremoniously firing the FBI director less than four years into his 10-year term.
During Comey’s breathlessly awaited sworn testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he calmly and credibly laid out a case that the president has lied repeatedly — about why Comey was fired, about who invited whom to dinner at the White House, about whether Trump sought his “loyalty” and, most damning, whether Trump sought to derail a criminal investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
All this adds to the credibility crisis surrounding the White House that has undermined the president’s agenda at home, stymied the administration’s efforts to recruit top talent, and frayed longstanding alliances abroad.
Whether Trump is a criminal as well as a liar is a more complicated matter, one that will depend on legal definitions of obstruction of justice and additional evidence to be uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigators.
While the inquiries unfold, two supreme ironies stand out:
One is that Trump wasn’t a target of the Russia investigation, but because of his own actions in the Oval Office, the president is surely now in Mueller’s crosshairs.
The other is that Comey, who helped Donald Trump become president with an October-surprise announcement that the Clinton email inquiry had been re-opened (only to find nothing) , could turn out to be the man most responsible for hastening Trump’s departure from office.
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