While much of what James Comey said at his testimony today was expected, there were a couple of surprises, including one extraordinary moment in which the fired FBI director explained exactly why he showed a friend the notes he had taken about his conversations with President Trump and told the friend to pass the information to reporters. It isn’t often that major political figures are so forthright in laying out the machinations they use to achieve their ends, but this time Comey was:
The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there’s not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn’t dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might a tape. My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square. I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. I asked a close friend to do it.
If that’s what Comey had intended with the release of that information, he’s a political samurai, because it worked. So let’s run through the chronology (accepting Comey’s basic version of events along with what we know to be true):
- Trump asks Comey to back off the investigation of Michael Flynn.
- Disturbed by the request, Comey takes careful notes of the meeting and subsequent conversations and tells a small number of FBI colleagues what occurred.
- Trump fires Comey on May 9; his spokespeople offer the absurd explanation that the firing was a result of Trump’s feeling that Comey had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly.
- The next day (May 10), Trump tells the Russian ambassador and foreign minister in an Oval Office meeting, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job…. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
- The day after that (May 11), Trump admits on national television that he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,'” he says.
- The day after that (May 12), Trump tweets, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
- Because of Trump’s tweet, Comey shows a friend the notes from his conversations with Trump and asks the friend to share them with the media, in the hope it will create enough of a controversy that the Justice Department feels it has no choice but to appoint a special counsel.
- Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from matters related to Russia after he was caught being dishonest to Congress in his confirmation hearings about his contacts with Russian officials, the decision on a special counsel falls to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who decides to appoint Robert Mueller to conduct a broad investigation of the Russia matter.
Not everything in this series of events was within Trump’s control. For instance, if Sessions had not recused himself from the Russia investigation, there may not have been any independent counsel (and Trump is reportedly livid about Sessions’s recusal). But again and again, Trump not only creates political and perhaps legal jeopardy for himself, but he also pushes the scandal into places where Republicans will not be able to protect him. While they might be able to do so in the context of the various congressional investigations, now that there’s a special counsel conducting an investigation, Trump becomes vastly more vulnerable, since they have no levers to influence what Mueller does or doesn’t do.
And even when Republicans try to help the president out, they find it almost impossible to do so — because of his own words and actions. Anyone watching today’s hearing would have been struck by how weak a defense of Trump the Republican members of the committee were able to mount. Let’s just take one example, in which Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) homes in on Comey’s assertion that he told the attorney general he didn’t want to be left alone with the president:
BLUNT: You said the attorney general said, I don’t want to be in the room with him alone again, but you continued to talk to him on the phone. What is the difference in being in the room alone with him and talking to him on the phone alone?
COMEY: I think what I stressed to the attorney general was broader than just the room. I said, I report to you. It is very important you be between me and the White House.
BLUNT: After that discussion with the attorney general, did you take phone calls from the president?
COMEY: Yes, sir.
BLUNT: Why did you just say you need to — why didn’t you say, I’m not taking that call. Talk to the attorney general?
I don’t know, maybe because when the president of the United States calls you, you can’t just say, “Tell him I’m washing my hair” and never get back to him? But that was about as much as Republicans could muster to undermine Comey’s credibility.
After the hearing, Trump’s personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, who is supposedly a real pit bull, released a statement repeating multiple times that Comey told Trump he wasn’t the target of an investigation, which falls under the category of “Things Trump thinks are super-important even though they really aren’t but Trump’s defenders have to act like they’re a big deal.” And he too offered only weak defenses of the president. For instance:
The President also never told Mr. Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty” in form or substance. Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration, and, from before this President took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.
The old “everyone’s out to get me!” defense. It always works.
As much as Trump’s defenders are tainted by their very association with him, you can’t really blame them for not mounting a more persuasive set of arguments. Trump may have gathered some questionable characters around him, but the worst blows to his administration come from the president himself. He’s the one who sets damaging events in motion, who says things he shouldn’t, who tells obvious lies, who hamstrings his lawyers and his defenders. This scandal has a long way to go, and we don’t know yet if it’s something this presidency can survive. But if it isn’t, there will be one person to blame.