Self Inflicted Crisis

Self Inflicted Crisis

D. S. Mitchell

What a difference a day makes. Not only has it gone from sun and fun here at the Oregon coast but a big storm has blown in, sending us all here at Calamity Politics, running inside to escape the heavy rain and driving wind.

To top it off, I have managed to lose my eyeglasses. How? I do not know, but that bit of stupidity has proved expensive, and inconvenient. I went into Costco and my prescription is good until July, so they ordered me another pair of glasses. Two hundred nineteen dollars later and a delivery date sometime next week, caused me a bit of frustration and irritation.

In my case, the lost glasses are a bad thing. I’m currently wearing my prescription sunglasses, trying to get enough light to my retinas to see what I’m doing. Considering the change in weather, the sunglasses look really dumb.

So, enough of my personal nonsense. As Calamity Politics’ blogger-in-chief I am frothing at the mouth to comment on the craziness of this week in U.S. political headline news.

Stories are emerging, of a raging and screaming President Trump reacting to the growing Russian collusion reports on television. The televised testimony of Yates and Comey seems to be the true cause of Trump firing the FBI Director.

After two days of lies and misrepresentations by the White House communication department, who aggressively pointed to the “recommendations” of acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and (recused Attorney General) Jefferson Sessions as the basis for firing James Comey. Many White House voices citing the firing of Comey was because he had “lost support of rank and file FBI personnel” and his poor “handling of the Clinton email controversy”.

On Wednesday night, Rod Rosenstein had reportedly announced his intention to “resign” if the White House did not back off its claims that it was Rosenstein’s assessment that created the basis for the Comey firing. It is suspected that Rosenstein’s negative reaction to him being made the central figure in the firing, led Donald Trump, on Thursday, to appear with Lester Holt on national television to discuss the dismissal.

‘The Donald’ chose to immediately toss his staff, Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway and VP Pence under the bus, by declaring that the Rosenstein and Sessions recommendations had no impact on what he intended to do.

Trump prefaces his defense of the firing with an immediate attack, calling Comey a “grand stander”, and a “showboat”. Trump told Holt in no uncertain terms that, “I was going to fire him (Comey) regardless of their recommendations. And 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. It is an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should have won.”

Holt pressed for details about the dismissal letter Trump had sent to Comey, in which he (Trump) famously thanked Comey for telling him “three separate times that I am not under investigation.”

Holt pressed on about the Russian investigation, to which Trump responded, “I am not under investigation. I’m not talking about campaigns. I’m not talking about anything else.”

When Holt inquired when exactly had Comey volunteered the information to Trump that he was “not under investigation”, the President began recounting a bizarre story of Comey wanting to keep his job, and had asked to meet with Trump to discuss the issue over dinner.

Keep in mind, this meeting (actually requested by the President and not Comey. An insider close to Comey described the request as more of a “summons”). Furthermore, this summons to the White House came on 1/27/2017, one day after Sally Yates had gone to the White House to warn them that Mike Flynn was probably “compromised” by the Russians and was a security risk.

Holt pushed Trump for more information on the “three times”. Trump said, the dinner was the first time Comey told him, and then on two other occasions, both during “phone conversations”. “I believe I called him once, and he called me once. And he told me, both times he stated you are not under investigation”.

During that dinner, according to Trump, he told Comey he would come to a decision at a later time, if Comey was to stay on.

The Democrats and most media outlets are looking at the Presidents comments as a possible Quid Pro Quo situation. In other words, a possible offer of “bribery”. The idea that President Trump is holding out the offer of a job in exchange for loyalty, looks really bad, if not illegal, the optics are terrible, but I am not lawyer, and it is being argued loudly on every network, by real lawyers.

For any readers who are unfamiliar with the details of the Comey firing I refer you to the LA Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. Each of these newspapers have done an excellent job of reporting on the circumstances of the firing.

The comments made by the U.S. President in the Holt interview have thrown this country into a state of “near” Constitutional crisis. Trump himself, admits the Comey firing was an attempt to derail the Russian probe. In addition, Trump may have admitted to attempting to obstruct justice and possibly attempted bribery of the FBI Director.

If that wasn’t disgusting enough, Trump went on Twitter and seemed to warn Comey in a series of tweets that Comey “better hope there were no tapes” of their conversations, before “leaking” stories to the press.

The erratic, irrational, incompetent thug, also known as Mr. President, then went on to thumb his nose at the American people by inviting both the Russian Foreign Minister and the Russian Ambassador to the White House for a photo op, but refused to open the meeting to U.S. journalists.

Even more alarming, Trump has threatened to stop daily White House briefings due to all the controversy. Trump has already stopped releasing White House visitor logs. It appears that the President is becoming more and more isolated within the protective bubble of the office and going further than any president in memory to separate himself from public scrutiny.

We will now watch as Jeff Sessions interviews prospective candidates for the job of FBI Director. Trump confirms he will have a nominee within the “next week”. Interviews were taking place Saturday, from a list of eight published prospects. My question is why is Jeff Sessions, (supposedly recused from anything regarding investigations of the Trump campaign) interviewing candidates that will investigate the Russian intervention in the 2016 election?

I am outraged that most of the candidates seem to be political candidates, rather than investigative candidates. Terrible situation where the investigated gets to pick the investigator.

It is time to pick an independent prosecutor. We need an independent investigation. We need complete independence in this inquiry, otherwise the American people will never be able to trust the results of this crucial investigation.

Competency, honesty and transparency must be the ultimate goal, and unfortunately, I personally doubt from what I’m seeing on television and reading in the newspaper is now possible.

Join the Resistance

Dar

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