President Trump summarily dumped James Comey, the FBI director whose July admonishment of Hillary Clinton and October surprise may have affected the outcome of the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. These were the reasons Trump gave yesterday when he dispatched Comey by public letter, shocking and humiliating Comey while he spoke with a group of Los Angeles agents. That’s no way to treat the guy who helped him get the job.
Trump fired Comey the week following his testimony before a Senate committee investigating Russia’s hack of the 2016 election. Comey said that the investigation was ongoing, which pretty much rang the President’s bell. Comey was on death watch since last July. The timing of his professional demise nevertheless is suspicious. After all, based on the particulars given,Trump could have dumped him months ago, along with Preet Bharara and Sally Yates, two other Obama appointees held over temporarily and then booted for political reasons. Comey’s takedown of Clinton earned him a couple of extra months on the chopping block. Think of it as severance.
In a rare showing of bipartisanship, calls for a special investigation are coming from both sides of the aisle. Trump’s standing with Congressional Republicans is shakier than his relationship to the truth. The 2018 midterm elections are not far away. The incumbent’s party usually takes a licking in the midterms. Because of the Trumpcare fiasco, they’re shaping up as a debacle already. Add the Russia investigation to the mix and you’ve got the makings of epic disaster.
Forcing Trump from office in favor of Mike Pence would be a balm for the GOP but it can’t happen quickly enough to salvage the party’s hopes. In fact, Trump was elected because of the decomposition of the Republican Party. These “halcyon” days of the new administration have proven that Trump is not one to unite the party, any more than he is fit to govern.
The daily jolts landed to the body politic bear frightful reminders of Watergate. When Nixon’s ordeal finally was over, relieved citizens proclaimed that the Constitution worked. Paraphrasing an AA program slogan, the Constitution works if you work the Constitution.
It falls to the Republicans in control of Congress to speed the end of America’s electoral disgrace, even if it means Mike Pence in the Oval Office. We would all be better off with a more conventional lunatic running the asylum.
Evan Sarzin is the author of Hard Bop Piano and Bud Powell published by Gerard & Sarzin Music Publishing. He writes and publishes Revolted Colonies (http://revoltedcolonies.com).