James Comey Testifies to Congress: Ex-FBI Director Tells All Against Trump
Finally, the moment we’ve been waiting for: James Comey was brought in for the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. We all know the former Director was waiting to tell his side of the story since being fired by President Trump on May 9th. Comey was set to appear in front of the group of Senators to answer questions on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election [1].
The hearing gathered a real who’s who of old white guys and grumpy politicians. The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr (R-NC), led the questioning. Notable Trump enemy and former Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio (FL) and top Republican John Cornyn (TX) highlight the right in the committee. Former chair and current member of the Judiciary Committee, Diane Feinstein (CA), and Angus King (ME) asked notable questions from the Democrat side of the committee. The hearings weren’t spared from surprise guests either, as everyone’s favorite Senator, John McCain (AZ), came ready with an interesting list of questions [2].
Unfortunately, James Comey couldn’t just come out and say “Trump’s guilty, lock him up.” Y’know, there are legal processes and systems in place; we can’t just start chanting it to make it happen… It has been hypothesized, and then confirmed by the tiny hands themselves, that Director Comey was fired in response to the Trump-Russia investigation. Trump has been publicly bashing him since his firing and constantly trying to discredit him. So what did Comey have to say about that?
We heard quite a few interesting things during the hearing, most of which we already assumed. The big one, of course: Comey would not give a clear answer to whether or not Trump committed an obstruction of justice. It certainly came up several times, but he denied it was his place to make the declaration. He may not have said the words, but he implied it several times.
Remember when Trump threatened Comey with potential “tapes” of their conversations? When asked about the tapes and his memos, he replied with “Lordy, I hope there are tapes” (seriously) and that he wants it all released to the public. Comey is not backing down (mostly because he’s 8 feet tall).
The best part of the entire hearing was the number of times James Comey said Trump was lying. Countless times did he say that allegations from Trump were false and that his versions of certain events were also false. Does anyone even believe the President anyway? Comey greatest clap-back came when his memos were first brought into question. When asked why the memos were written, he replied “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document” [3] So he knew that Trump was going to lie about what actually happened, so he decided to put it in writing. Sounds like he knows Trump pretty well.
While there weren’t any shockingly revealing moments in the hearing, there are some bright spots. Surprisingly enough, we actually got to see a decent example of bipartisanship. The Senate Intelligence Committee did a great job of keeping the country’s well being in focus, minus the ramblings of John McCain. In a serious investigation like this with actual repercussions, there needs to be control of the partisan influence. We also had a chance to hear from, what appears to be, a trustworthy, sane James Comey. And what he did was paint the President as the complete opposite [4].
Yes, Donald Trump did not fare well at the hearing. Luckily, if he were actually present, he probably would have made it worse. I assume that he was repeatedly told by his handlers to not tweet and say anything stupid during the hearings. Trump kept quiet as long as he could before saying at a press conference that he is “100%” willing to testify under oath. OATH! He obviously doesn’t understand what that means… If Donald Trump is brought in to testify under oath, you are all invited to my viewing party!
As with Comey, Trump isn’t backing down either. One of his first tweets after the hearing was touting his “vindication,” while also calling Comey a liar again. Hopefully it isn’t too long before concrete evidence is released that will settle this whole thing. So far, it’s been mostly he-said- он-сказал. I hope we can all agree that in a hearsay yelling match, that James Comey has to be the more reliable source.
Written By: CJ Wilcox (@CJWilcox7)
3: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/james-comey-hearing-takeaways/index.html
4: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/comey-testimony-trump-winners-losers/index.html
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