New information lacking in James Comey memoir
THE new memoir by James Comey, former FBI director, is light on new information but heavy on petty insults. It is being marketed by a typical rage-fest on President Trump’s Twitter feed. A bestseller is guaranteed.
But Comey’s name-calling makes for an unpersuasive condemnation of this presidency. It won’t convince Trump supporters, or wavering conservatives, or Democrats to change their minds
Comey’s observations about Trump’s orange-ness, his hand size, and the length of his tie, aren’t even original, let alone amusing except to that corps of haters who giggle at any show of disrespect to the chief executive. Perhaps the only impact they will have is to engender among disaffected conservatives a certain sympathy for a president whose substantive policies have been a pleasant surprise.
Trump fired Comey partly out of annoyance, as he said, with the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. But improbable conspiracy theories and suspicion about cover-ups and obstruction of justice are unnecessary to explain why Trump, a vain man, wanted it made public that he was not a target of the investigation. They aren’t necessary, either, to explain why he dislikes news that deflects public admiration away from what he regards as the greatest presidential victory in history. He also believes, not without justification, that the collusion narrative is driven in large part by his opponents’ inability or unwillingness to accept that voters chose him and not their preferred presidential candidate.
Partisans are still trying to persuade themselves that Trump came to power through a nefarious plot. But Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has proceeded along the course we expected last year, focusing on two major issues that have little to do with Trump himself or the result of the 2016 election per se.
The first is former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s pre-Trump dealings in Ukraine, which were known about, and were understood to be shady, when Trump hired him. The second is an elaborate Russian intelligence operation to influence public and voter opinion online in the U.S., which had been going on before Trump won the GOP nomination and even before he entered the presidential race. The Russians probably influenced the election outcome, but only in the broad sense that they have been subtly and effectively shaping American public life at the edges for years, perhaps generations.
That answer is no good for Democrats, whose Senate candidates are even telegraphing their desire to impeach Trump. So it comes as a fortunate let-off for them that Stormy Daniels arrived on the scene just in time. The payoff by Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, to the former porn actress is a serious matter that could lead to criminal charges and is far more likely than any other scandal to touch Trump himself. It is completely unlike the Russia investigation in that it isn’t 95 percent the product of fevered progressive imaginations.
Comey was fortunate Trump fired him early enough that his book got out on shelves before Democratic partisans lost all interest in Russia’s perfidy. That will happen soon — just as quickly as they acquired it less than two years ago.