Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Yes, It Is a Bigly Deal, But We Have To Let It Play Out....

Yes, Donald Trump firing the FBI Director James Comey is a big fucking deal.

It is unprecedented in a number of ways - but not in the worst way. That is, it Richard Nixon did a similar thing when firing Archibald Cox.

Here is what I mean. There are some active investigations into the Russia / Trump Campaign collusion over the election results.

1. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates (also fired by Donald Trump) was investigating the Russia / Trump Campaign collusion. She had reported to Pres Trump's Presidential Attorney that Gen. Michael Flynn had lied to the campaign and was in contact with Russia. The President fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates but didn't fire Gen. Flynn until 18 days later when the information leaked to the press.

2. After the Yates kerfuffle, Jeff Sessions was approved by the Senate as Attorney General.  He said the Russia / Trump Campaign was bogus, until it was shown that he had contact  with the Russian Ambassador that he did not disclose to the Senate - so then US Attorney General Jeff Session was forced to recused himself.

3. Congress is, supposedly, investigating this, but after the lead Republican Chairman colluded with the White House, held a news conference about "news" before telling his colleagues, he had to recuse himself. The Congressional "investigation" is now not really doing anything.  They are focused on who is leaking information, not the substance of the charges.

4. The lead Chairman of the House Representatives Ethics committee, Chafitz, just announced he was retiring because it wasn't a pleasure to investigate a Republican President.

5. So, the last remaining real investigation into the Russian / Trump Campaign collusion was the FBI's investigation under independent Director, Jame Comey. Trump fired this head of the FBI yesterday (only the second time in history, and the first time the Director was under investigation for corruption) and the President will appoint the successor.

There IS a possibility of getting to the bottom of this, but only if the Republicans in Congress can agree to a special prosecutor.

MY 2 cents. And only mine. It is a stupidly important time for our country, on a purely artificial matter. This should never have gotten this far.  President Trump could have stopped all things by admitting the Russians helped his campaign, with knowledge of some people in his campaign staff, but not him. Fired some guys and it would be over. BUT, by doubling down he is demanding that the Republican Congress put partisan politics ahead of the Country forever - or grow a backbone and demand a special prosecutor. The last thing we really need is a Constitutional Crisis - and we are hours away form one. Keeping our government depends on the backbone of Congressional Republicans - Yikes!

My 3rd cent. World, get ready to rumble....  My guess is that there will be an attention shifting war with North Korea or a big announcement of a lot more troops to Afghanistan, depending on how much he needs to change the subject.