J. Edgar Comey strikes
S OMEWHERE, J. Edgar Hoover is smiling. And why not, for the memo that James Comey reportedly wrote about a meeting with President Trump is positively Hooveresque in its potential implications.
Hoover died in office as the FBI director in 1972 because none of the six presidents he served under dared to fire him. They all feared he had too much secret information on them, so they kept their distance and he kept his job.
Maybe Trump didn’t know that history but he’s suddenly getting a big nasty taste of it. A little more than a week after he fired Comey, Comey is firing back.
The New York Times report that Comey wrote a memo to himself after a February meeting saying that Trump asked him to drop the federal investigation into Gen. Michael Flynn could be political dynamite.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump said, according to the memo read to the Times. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
The White House denies that Trump made any such request, saying in a statement, “The president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn.”
That would seem to leave zero wiggle room. The memo, according to the Times, says the two men were alone in the Oval Office for the meeting.
The lack of witnesses could mean a he-said, he-said standoff, with no clear resolution. But that wouldn’t stop the issue from creating a media feeding frenzy and doing more serious damage to Trump.
Although his approval ratings among Republican voters remain high, his overall public standing is the lowest for any modern president at this stage. Even worse, the stream of offtrack controversies appears endless and could scare off congressional Republicans and doom his America First agenda.
Already this week, the White House had to devote much of Monday and Tuesday to putting out fires about whether Trump gave Russian officials topsecret classified information last week. The press, based on anonymous leaks, insisted he had, the White House denied it, then said what he did was “wholly appropriate.”
And now comes a far-more-sensational charge, a gift-wrapped bonanza for Democrats determined to bring down the president.
Imagine the scene when Comey, as is inevitable, tells his tale to Congress in public testimony. It will be an international sensation. Watergate comparisons will be as thick as molasses and Carl Bernstein will be relevant again.
Moreover, the Times says Comey wrote other memos following other meetings with Trump, so it is possible the former FBI boss will make additional charges.
If it’s true the men were alone during the meeting, there is only one way for the White House to produce definite evidence that refutes Comey’s version.
Did Trump secretly tape the conversation? Recall that the president warned Comey in a tweet last week that he “better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Even though the White House has refused to say whether there are any tapes of any conversations, Congress wants to know and some members are threatening subpoenas. One way or the other, we’re likely to learn the truth now that Comey is leaking to the press.
It is noteworthy that he never complained about Trump until he was fired. He learned his Hoover lessons well, which is why I called him J. Edgar Comey two months ago. Maybe he really was, like his famed predecessor, too big to fire.
Ironically, one reason Trump fired him is that Comey refused to investigate leaks from within the administration of classified material, some of it bearing on national security. My view is that Comey may have been hesitant to investigate because he knew some of the leaks came from the FBI.
Indeed, it is highly likely that he or people close to him were a source on some occasions, such as when all the major Washington newspapers reported that Comey was furious that Trump had accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower.
How did all the papers know at the same time, without a public announcement, that Comey wanted the Justice Department to deny Trump’s charge? Because “sources close to Comey” said so, that’s how.
Perhaps the media shares Comey’s fury ata his being fired because ththey lost a good source, or at least someone who knew how the insider game was played and wouldn’t get in the way.
Trump, in that context, remains a refreshing change. He was elected to smash the status quo and has not lost sight of that promise, though he sometimes follows hhis disrupting instincts too far.
Whether his meeting with Comey was one of those times is about to become the question of the hour.