Seeds of Doubt
How Comey’s hearing made trouble for Trump
JAMES Comey thinks, but did not say, that President Trump is going to be toast once the special counsel is done with him — and all because of three little words Trump might have sung in the manner of Elsa the Ice Queen: “Let this go.”
Comey clearly intimated that Trump’s conduct toward him was an effort to obstruct justice when it came to the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — and that special counsel Robert Mueller would be just the guy to get to the bottom of what is clearly an impeachable offense.
That was the key revelation of the former FBI director’s gripping Senate hearing Thursday. Comey said the president’s behavior at a February White House dinner — during which Trump cleared the room so he and Comey could have a private tete-a-tete about Flynn — had “stunned” him.
That was when, according to the document he released Wednesday, Trump said to him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”
Comey said he believed this was intended as “direction” and he found it “a very disturbing thing, very concerning” the president would say such a thing.
Republican Sen. Jim Risch sought to limit the damage from Comey’s words by pointing out that hoping for something would not be grounds for charging someone with a crime. Comey replied: “This is a president of the United States with me alone saying ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
Comey said that, “as an investigator” himself, “of significant fact to me is so why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office? Why would you kick the attorney general, the vice president, the chief of staff out to talk to me?” This was a clear suggestion that Mueller, his fellow investigator, would likely see the same significance he did.
Asked by Sen. Richard Burr if the president had sought to obstruct justice, Comey replied coyly, “I don’t think it’s for me to say ... That’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense.”
That “disturbing, concerning” thing is now Mueller’s bailiwick. Mueller, also a former director of the FBI, is, in Comey’s words, “a dogged, tough person and you can have high confidence when he’s done, he’s turned over all of the rocks.” Translation for Trump: Uh-oh. Now, Comey could be wrong. He’s been wrong before. He was wrong to give a press conference on July 5 last year that effectively indicted Hillary Clinton before announcing she wouldn’t be charged for mishandling classified information — a colossally unfair thing to do.
And he was wrong to go public on October 28 about reopening the Hillary investigation, an irresponsible declaration that may have had a material effect on the presidential election.
But in suggesting what a fellow investigator might find problematic in Trump’s behavior, Comey can probably be trusted.
There was some good news for Trump: Comey’s testimony effectively ended the speculation that the president was personally under investigation of any sort for collusion with Russia in the 2016 election.
On Wednesday, Comey acknowledged he had told Trump on three occasions the president wasn’t under counterintelligence investigation. After Comey released that written statement, Washington Talmudists read deeply into it to suggest Comey might have been signaling Trump was the subject of a different kind of investigation. Comey told both Sens. Marco Rubio and Susan Collins there was none.
“Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately,” said Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz. “The president was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. He also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference.”
The problem for Trump is that he’s under investigation now.
And this investigation, as the Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti pointed out, arose due to a strange tweet Trump issued right after Comey’s firing about how “Comey better hope there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
This triggered Comey’s decision to release, through a friend to The New York Times, his own contemporaneous memo about the president’s effort to pressure him. As Continetti writes, “By firing Comey and then tweeting recklessly about it, Trump elevated a long-running but manageable problem — the so-called ‘Russia thing’ — into an independent investigation that seriously endangers his presidency.”
Twitter giveth — and may taketh away. And all because Trump couldn’t let it go.