President faces most severe test of strength yet as he goes head to head with ‘bastion of integrity’
President Donald Trump must have thought it could not get any worse, but then it did. James Comey, the FBI Director he fired, waited just a week to serve a bombshell of a revenge dish.
Unlike other scandals, this one has potential legal implications for Mr Trump, and, as he watched the news shows, he will have been appalled to hear the word “impeachment” being bandied around, and experts discussing whether he had committed obstruction of justice.
At the centre of the row over Mr Comey’s sacking was a dinner the two men had at the White House in February. Mr Comey, as any member of the FBI might, made what is known as a “memorandum for the record”.
Ultimately, what Mr Trump said to him may be down to interpretation but Mr Comey appears to be in no doubt. He recorded Mr Trump’s words in relation to the Michael Flynn investigation as “I hope you let this go”.
While Democrats declared the Comey memo a “smoking gun”, a key question is whether senior Republicans stand behind Mr Trump, or drift away.
The initial signs for Mr Trump were not good.
The White House was defiant, dismissing the development as a “he said, he said” story, but in Mr Comey it faces a difficult opponent, widely regarded as a bastion of integrity. Not only that, he has a history of meticulous and accurate note-keeping.
If Mr Comey is to be believed, Mr Trump will hear further accusations of obstruction of justice – a charge that featured in previous impeachments.
However, it would have to be proved that he corruptly intended to influence the Flynn investigation and that would not be easy. The White House’s position is essentially that Mr Comey is either lying, or misinterpreted Mr Trump’s words. The burden of proof would lie with him to prove Mr Trump had tried to corrupt him.
Indeed, Mr Comey’s credibility could be damaged by the fact he did not report the conversation immediately. Should the matter progress legally, it would be possible to portray him as an embittered employee.
All this happened as the White House has been under siege with a new bombshell dropping seemingly every evening. Some insiders blame Mr Trump’s approach to the intelligence and law enforcement communities, now engaging in payback by leaking to the press. The FBI does not lie down easily, even for a president.
How serious this latest crisis will be, only time will tell. But John Dean, Richard Nixon’s White House counsel during Watergate, said it all seemed very familiar. “Oh boy does it,” he said.