Charles P. Pierce: We Were Close to a Eureka Moment During James Comey's Testimony [View all]

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55541/comey-hearing-renegade-presidency/


We Were Close to a Eureka Moment During James Comey's Testimony
This has been a powerful two days.

By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 8, 2017


WASHINGTON—So, James Comey asked the Senate Intelligence Committee and, through it, the nation, paraphrasing the old joke, who're you going to believe, me or your lying president*?

If there was a single theme running through Comey's much anticipated star turn in the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday, it was that, as far as Comey is concerned, nobody should buy an apple from the president*, who cannot be trusted as far as one can throw an over-leveraged Fifth Avenue skyscraper. Right from the very first minutes of the hearing, Comey was careful to call Donald Trump a liar every time the opportunity presented itself.

Comey eschewed the reading of the prepared statement that was released to the media on Wednesday in favor of beginning his appearance with a scathing denunciation of the president* who fired him, and who then proceeded to lie to the nation about why.


"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader...Those were lies plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI work force had to hear them and I am so sorry that the American people were told them."

snip//

There were very few eureka moments in Comey's testimony. The closest we came to one was Comey's admission that he had arranged the leak of one of his memos concerning a meeting with the president* in the hopes that its publication would result in the appointment of a special prosecutor, which eventually happened. (Comey also said that Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was appointed, has copies of all of Comey's memos.) This, of course, is further proof that James Comey is quite the instinctive bureaucratic gut-fighter.

snip//

In one sense, the release of Comey's opening statement on Wednesday, while serving his purposes admirably, sucked some of the drama out of Thursday's proceedings. But, taken as a whole, the two days represent a powerful indictment of a renegade and corrupt presidency of which we do not yet know the worst. That's going to be discussed only in private, for now, anyway.