When bullying breaks down
D.C. politicians and media people are all now dusting off those law books, trying to come up with a good definition of obstruction of justice — and whether President Trump’s plea to shut down the FBI investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn fits that definition.
The allegation itself is based on a memo that fired FBI Director James Comey wrote to himself to document an Oval Office meeting with Trump. Various media accounts are based on reports by Comey associates who have seen the memo, even read portions of it to reporters, but the memo itself has not been made available.
Members of Congress are now clamoring to get the original and to hear directly from Comey’s own lips what his impressions were and whether there was any implied threat in what the president is reported to have said.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump is quoted as saying in the memo of a Feb. 14 meeting. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
Now there is indeed a certain credibility even to an internal
contemporaneous memo. It is what FBI agents are trained to do. And because they are, such memos are often admissible as evidence in court.
The White House issued a blanket denial, saying, “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”
But then, of course, how many times in the past several weeks has the White House insisted something never happened — only to have the president himself later contradict those statements.
Of course, if the president actually does tape his Oval Office conversations — as a threat to Comey implied in a post-firing presidential tweet — then surely it’s time for Congress to inquire about those too and get past the he said/he said loop.
The Russia/Flynn investigation is proceeding, however — now under the leadership of special counsel Robert Mueller (see above). If indeed Trump’s intent was the obstruction of justice — at least we know it failed.