"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III
Friday, May 12, 2017
Nixon, loyalty oaths, tape recordings, firings, tweets, and comtempt for the law...I wish I had stayed in the catacombs.
The legitimate reasoning behind FBI Director James Comey’s firing this week has been debated ever since the axe came down. There will probably be many more conflicting statements from the White House and various sources before everything is sorted out, but until then the precipitating event that led to Comey’s dismissal can’t be unanimously identified. Whether it was that he mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, didn’t reveal important information to the White House when it was requested, or voluntarily end the investigation into Trump and Russia, one thing that is sure is that Trump had his mind set on firing Comey and followed through on it. Now, a new report from the New York Times offers up another theory: that Comey refused to put his full loyalty behind Trump and for that he paid the price. According to the report, Trump and Comey sat down for a private dinner together at which Trump pressed the director to swear loyalty to the President and his administration. As a member of government who is traditionally, and rightly, supposed to be outside of any presidential loyalties that arise in the administration, Comey correctly declined to do as asked. According to the Times, he told the president that he would give him honesty but not loyalty, to which the president asked whether it would be “honest loyalty” and the answer from Comey was reportedly that he would not be “reliable” in the way that Trump was asking him to be. The White House, naturally, is disputing these facts with deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee saying, “We don’t believe this to be an accurate account. The integrity of our law enforcement agencies and their leadership is of the utmost importance to President Trump. He would never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty, only loyalty to our country and its great people.” One interesting additional point is that this supposed dinner is alleged to have taken place the night that the first travel ban was signed, which makes the idea of pressuring an FBI Director for political loyalty all the more unsettling. Earlier, Trump claimed that “regardless” of the recommendation he did or did not get from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he was planning on firing Comey anyway. This could be the reason why a recommendation for or against the move didn’t really matter in the end. From some left-fascist at the Boston Globe comes an attack on the right-fascist Clump. Let us hope these two groups of totalitarian shits never realize they are more alike than different. They are mirror images of each other. Of course, that doesn't mean this commie creep is wrong. He just won't look in a mirror.
President Trump went on national television Thursday and openly admitted that he committed an impeachable offense. In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump said, “When I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.” Let’s put aside the fact that the FBI’s focus on possible collusion by Trump and Russian officials began in the summer of 2016 (well before the election); the real story here is that Trump is acknowledging that the Russia investigation was the key factor in his decision to fire Comey. That’s a clear admission that the president of the United States actively sought to interfere in a criminal inquiry and thus obstruct justice. That this investigation is one that touches directly on Trump’s actions makes it that much worse, but even if it didn’t presidents simply cannot seek to stop the FBI from conducting a criminal inquiry. Even were this not an indictable crime, it is certainly grounds for impeachment.
Indeed, it’s worth remembering that when Richard Nixon was eventually forced to resign the presidency, in 1974, he did so because of the release of White House tapes that recorded him telling his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to get the CIA to pressure the FBI to stop its investigation of the Watergate break-in. But in that case, bipartisan congressional pressure, an independent special prosecutor, and federal court decisions that forced Nixon to turn over White House tapes made clear his law-breaking.
In Trump’s case, he went on television and brazenly volunteered the information.
What’s perhaps most remarkable about Trump’s comments is that they directly and unambiguously contradict his own White House staff, and even his vice president. For two days, Trump’s willing accomplices and professional enablers stood before the American people and lied. They claimed that Trump fired Comey because of a recommendation from the Department of Justice related to his handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. No one with half a brain actually believed that, and if there is any solace to be taken from Trump’s admission, it’s that we can at least stop pretending that the firing of Comey had anything to do with something other than Russia. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Trump woke up Friday morning and spewed out a remarkably unhinged (even for Trump) tweetstorm, capped off by a clear threat against Comey: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” This now appears to be the second time this week that Trump has taken to Twitter in order to intimidate a possible witness against him. Let’s be clear: None of this is remotely normal. The president’s behavior is erratic and deeply unstable. He has no understanding of, or respect for, the rule of law, basic democratic norms, or even common decency. His continued presence in the White House is a black mark of shame for this country. In nonbizarro America, Congress would be in the process of drafting articles of impeachment against him. Instead, gutless and enfeebled congressional Republicans can’t muster up the political will to push for a nonpartisan, independent investigation of Trump’s Russia connections. They won’t even subpoena Trump’s tax records, which would shed important light on his financial connections to Russia. Instead, from alleged moderate Susan Collins to libertarian Rand Paul and chief water carriers Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, Republicans seem intent on doing nothing as Trump degrades and diminishes America. Over the next several days, the cable news networks will feature wall-to-wall talking heads parsing the president’s latest statements. The White House press secretary will head to the briefing room and once again try to turn the sow’s ear of this presidency into a silk purse. Members of Congress will be renewing calls for an independent investigation of Trump, seeking to block one or expressing their crocodile-tear “concerns.” The conveyor belt of routinized outrage, analysis, and enabling will continue. But here’s the only thing that we should be talking about: What is the process for removing Donald Trump from the nation’s highest office? That we’re not focused exclusively on this question is turning May 2017 into one of darkest moments in American history. I doubt this tough guy will buy a gun and fight for his beliefs. How about you?
TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.
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