The knee-jerk reaction to James Comey’s very credible and very serious allegations, which the former FBI director made under oath and has contemporaneous notes to back up, is the strongest proof point yet of the rising tribalism that has infected our politics.
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“It has been many years since a witness appeared on Capitol Hill and put a president in such potential jeopardy,” writes Dan Balz, The Post’s chief correspondent, in a smart take. “The investigation is far from its conclusion and, as with so much about the probe, the evidence is murky or disputable. But for the president and his White House … this was not a good day."
On the front page of the New York Times, Peter Baker calls it “the most damning j’accuse moment by a senior law enforcement official against a president in a generation.”
“Comey emerged as a superb institutionalist, a man who believes we are a nation of laws,” adds columnist David Brooks. “Trump emerged as a tribalist and a clannist, who simply cannot understand the way modern government works.”
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| Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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We’ll know soon if the hearing moves the numbers, but don’t hold your breath.
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| Stephen Crowley/The New York Times |
Trump has long been adept at muddying the waters by employing the crisis management playbook that he learned from Joseph McCarthy’s protégé Roy Cohn. The difference this time: He can count on the official Republican Party apparatus to do his bidding.
The Republican National Committee deployed a whopping 60 staff members as part of its rapid-response “war room” effort to counter-punch at Comey, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The RNC’s output was punchy, snarky and at times contradictory,” David Weigel reports. “It neatly captured the fog of confusion that the president’s defenders wanted to churn.”
Even Trump’s former political opponents, including Marco Rubio and John McCain, acted sort of like his political defense team, Paul Kane writes.
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There is a chicken-egg dynamic at play. Most rank-and-file Republicans look to their party leaders for cues about what to believe, but these same lawmakers are waiting on the base of the party to turn on Trump before they find the “courage” to say publicly what many of them already believe privately.
This window-dressing is unlikely to change until members of Congress conclude that the cost of standing with Trump exceeds the risk of defending him. Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) said during a private appearance last week that the president could cost her party the House. “Any Republican member of Congress, you are going down with the ship,” McSally warned, according to the Tucson Weekly. “And we're going to hand the gavel to (Nancy) Pelosi in 2018. They only need 28 seats...
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Legal experts, meanwhile, said Comey’s testimony clarified and bolstered the case that the president obstructed justice, Matt Zapotosky reports.
-- But sitting presidents do not get indicted on obstruction-of-justice charges. It is Congress that must ultimately determine if his behavior deserves impeachment.
There is a chicken-egg dynamic at play. Most rank-and-file Republicans look to their party leaders for cues about what to believe, but these same lawmakers are waiting on the base of the party to turn on Trump before they find the “courage” to say publicly what many of them already believe privately.
This window-dressing is unlikely to change until members of Congress conclude that the cost of standing with Trump exceeds the risk of defending him. Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) said during a private appearance last week that the president could cost her party the House. “Any Republican member of Congress, you are going down with the ship,” McSally warned, according to the Tucson Weekly. “And we're going to hand the gavel to (Nancy) Pelosi in 2018. They only need 28 seats...
Erick Erickson warns his fellow Republicans that their blind loyalty to Trump is going to damage the party bigly in the long-term. “If your goal is to stop the left, all Trump is doing is both emboldening them and driving independent voters to them,” he explains in a new piece for The Resurgent. “Soon he will be a catalyst for a leftwing resurgence if Republicans do not sort this out themselves.”
-- The challenge for the politicians who would like to make a break is that Trump supporters who dwell in the alternative-reality fever swamps of the Internet were thrilled by the hearing, which they believe somehow offered total vindication of their president.
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And it has not stopped at the water’s edge. When Barack Obama was president, a Post-ABC poll found that only 22 percent of Republicans supported missile strikes against Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against civilians. After Trump did it, 86 percent of Republicans supported strikes for the exact same reason.
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Whether there are tapes has become more significant than ever. ... If it turns out there were tapes, and Trump destroyed them, that could constitute a smoking gun of obstruction. It would also represent a tacit confession that Comey’s testimony is accurate.
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After that meeting, Comey said he told Sessions that he did not want to be alone anymore with Trump and “it can’t happen that you get kicked out of the room and the president talks to me.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) asked Comey how the attorney general responded. “I have a recollection of him just kind of looking at me,” he replied. “I kind of got — his body language gave me the sense like, ‘What am I going to do?’ . . . He didn’t say anything.”...
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| (Rachel Orr/Washington Post illustration; Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post; iStock |
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And it has not stopped at the water’s edge. When Barack Obama was president, a Post-ABC poll found that only 22 percent of Republicans supported missile strikes against Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons against civilians. After Trump did it, 86 percent of Republicans supported strikes for the exact same reason.
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Whether there are tapes has become more significant than ever. ... If it turns out there were tapes, and Trump destroyed them, that could constitute a smoking gun of obstruction. It would also represent a tacit confession that Comey’s testimony is accurate.
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After that meeting, Comey said he told Sessions that he did not want to be alone anymore with Trump and “it can’t happen that you get kicked out of the room and the president talks to me.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) asked Comey how the attorney general responded. “I have a recollection of him just kind of looking at me,” he replied. “I kind of got — his body language gave me the sense like, ‘What am I going to do?’ . . . He didn’t say anything.”...