Comey paints a portrait of Trump: 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?' - Jennifer Rubin

By Jennifer Rubin June 8 at 1:05 PM

In an extraordinary hearing, former FBI director James B. Comey told a compelling tale of a president trying to pressure and sway the lead investigator — first to lay off Michael T. Flynn and then to “lift the cloud” of the Russian investigation. What Comey confirmed was a point we have made frequently — President Trump is in peril for abusing his powers, perhaps obstruction of justice, not for the underlying collusion investigation. Comey supplied a big part of the picture and made clear that here is substantial evidence from Comey and others to support that conclusion.

Comey focused on the Feb. 14 meeting when Trump cleared the room and then said he “hoped” he would let go of the Flynn probe. As Comey pointed out, when a president sends everyone out, looks the FBI director in the eye and says he hopes a case will go away, that amounts to an order. “I took it as a direction,” he said. That in and of was itself was inappropriate in the extreme. As Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) put it, clearing the room and making the “ask” was wrong. Playing defense, Republicans on the committee tried to shift the issue to Comey’s failure to immediately rebuke the president. “I was stunned,” he said. He also explained that in essence there was no one to report it to, given Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s impending recusal. Republicans did their best to deflect the question as to Comey’s failure to raise a red flag. While politically predictable, their questioning implicitly recognized that Trump had acted improperly, if not illegally.

In response to questions about Trump’s public comments. Comey said bluntly that Trump had not told the truth when he said Comey had requested the infamous dinner meeting and when he said he never asked for Comey’s loyalty. This is more significant than one might imagine. In essence, it is part of a coverup of conduct that may be illegal and certainly was improper.

Comey made clear that Flynn is under investigation for allegedly lying to FBI investigators. He did, however, confirm that Trump was not personally the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. Interestingly, he noted that one person in his executive team was concerned that this was problematic, since the campaign was under investigation and so the candidate of that campaign might be part of that.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) led Comey in a series of questioning that made clear that in all these questions Trump didn’t inquire about the danger to the United States posed by Russia as a result of interference with our electoral system. The lack of concern about an investigation into a hostile power’s cyberattack on the United States contrasts with Trump’s insistence on clearing himself from a “cloud.” Trump looks upon the entire Russia investigation as a “cloud,” a political problem for him. The lack of concern about the nature of the underlying Russian meddling confirms what many knew already — this is a deeply narcissistic man who cannot help but put himself first.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/08/comey-paints-a-portrait-of-trump-will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-meddlesome-priest/?utm_term=.46905d7dc869