Trump’s credibility on the line
Former FBI Director James Comey’s account of President Trump’s attempt to undermine the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election was devastating and convincing. In his much-anticipated Senate testimony, Comey would not offer an opinion on whether the president’s actions amounted to a criminal case of obstruction of justice. But the former director, fired by Trump last month, made plain that he took Trump’s words about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go” — as a directive.
Everything Trump did before and after that exchange at a one-on-one White House dinner would seem to validate Comey’s takeaway.
Comey came across as a calm, credible witness whose contemporaneous notes of his encounters with Trump, before and after inauguration, added to the authority of his words. He said he kept those detailed memos because of his uneasiness with the setting and the subject of those conversations, and his concern that Trump might lie about them.
Trump has emphatically denied the most serious allegations: that he asked Comey for a loyalty pledge, and that he tried to chill the investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russians who were attempting to interfere in the Nov. 8 election.
Several of the Republican senators tried to dismiss Trump’s plea on behalf of Flynn as a wistful wish, rather than an order, and thus not an effort to obstruct justice.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., cut to the chase in one of the hearing’s memorable lines:
“When a robber held a gun to somebody's head and said, ‘I hope you will give me your wallet,’ the word ‘hope’ was not the most operative word at the moment,” Harris said.
Here’s another analogy most employees would appreciate: When a boss says he or she hopes you will do something, workers who want to keep their jobs take it as an order.
Comey noted that Trump had raised the issue of the FBI director’s continued employment earlier in that same conversation. Comey did not call off the Flynn investigation — and was fired.
The day before Flynn was fired, Trump tweeted, “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” The day after the meeting, in a meeting with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, Trump told his guests that Comey was “crazy, a real nut job” and “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.”
Comey referred to that context in concluding that he was convinced he was fired because of the Russian investigation.
Trump’s defenders came away with two main talking points from the hearing. One, that Comey verified the president’s long-held contention that he was thrice assured that he was not a target of the investigation. However, his potential obstruction almost certainly will now be a focus of the special prosecutor. Two, they expressed outrage at Comey’s admission that he leaked memos recounting his conversation with the president. However, Comey emphasized that the memos were written to ensure they would remain unclassified.
For Trump, the most favorable interpretation of Comey’s testimony is that the president, whether through hubris or ignorance — or both — breached the bounds of propriety by taking aside the director of an independent law-enforcement agency to express his views on an investigation involving his allies.
So Americans are left to decide: Who is more trustworthy, James Comey or Donald Trump? One was testifying under oath, and the other has a penchant for speaking and tweeting falsehoods. One is not telling the truth.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” James Comey, former FBI Director
“I can definitively say the president is not a liar.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House spokeswoman