James Comey thinks, but did not say, that President Trump is going to be toast once the special counsel is done with him — and all because of three little words Trump might have sung in the manner of Elsa the Ice Queen: “Let this go.”
Comey clearly intimated that Trump’s conduct toward him was an effort to obstruct justice when it came to the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — and that special counsel Robert Mueller would be just the guy to get to the bottom of what is clearly an impeachable offense.
That was the key revelation of the former FBI director’s gripping Senate hearing Thursday. Comey said the president’s behavior at a February White House meeting — during which Trump cleared the room so he and Comey could have a private tete-a-tete about Flynn — had “stunned” him.
That was when, according to the document he released Wednesday, Trump said to him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”
Comey said he believed this was intended as “direction” and he found it “a very disturbing thing, very concerning” the president would say such a thing.
Republican Sen. Jim Risch sought to limit the damage from Comey’s words by pointing out that hoping for something would not be grounds for charging someone with a crime. Comey replied: “This is a president of the United States with me alone saying ‘I hope this.’ I took it as, this is what he wants me to do.”
Comey said that, “as an investigator” himself, “of significant fact to me is so why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office? Why would you kick the attorney general, the vice president, the chief of staff out to talk to me?” This was a clear suggestion that Mueller, his fellow investigator, would likely see the same significance he did.
Asked by Sen. Richard Burr if the president had sought to obstruct justice, Comey replied coyly, “I don’t think it’s for me to say . . . That’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense.”
That “disturbing, concerning” thing is now Mueller’s bailiwick. Mueller, also a former director of the FBI, is, in Comey’s words, “a dogged, tough person and you can have high confidence when he’s done, he’s turned over all of the rocks.”
Translation for Trump: Uh-oh.
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My column: Comey may have Trump cornered https://t.co/LQXbr5LFrv
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 9, 2017
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