Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Republicans to impeach Donald Trump for saying, “I hope you can let this go,” to then-FBI Director James Comey, allegedly referring to Comey’s investigation of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. This is the Washington, D.C., version of what we saw in Maine after Paul LePage was elected. Protests! Outrage! Calls for impeachment!
Re-election.
There will be no impeachment, but there’s plenty of memo drama.
Comey finds himself smack dab in the middle of the latest Washington crisis, again. Surprise, surprise. The two-page memo Mr. Comey apparently typed up following an alleged conversation with President Trump about Flynn, “the nice guy” who resigned after getting caught lying to Vice President Mike Pence, will be enough fodder for the voracious Washington press corps for several news cycles, if not days.
If “Comey, the People’s Warrior” were a Netflix series, this week’s episode would open showing Comey – calm, handsome and scrubbed – receiving the news he was being fired because of a memo written by Rod Rosenstein, the well-respected deputy attorney general. At the mention of the Rosenstein memo, the TV camera would zoom in to Comey’s face, showing for a split second a knowing glimmer in his eye. The audience would hear Comey say confidently to himself, “What they don’t know is that thanks to my impeccable integrity, I have a better, stronger memo I’ve been keeping semi-secretly in my proverbial back pocket.”
Rosenstein memo meet the Comey memo, Act 1.
A battle of memos written by federal prosecutors? Be still, my beating heart. Memo drama out of D.C. is every wonk’s delight. Lawyers write memorandums like artists paint portraits. The good ones are so good they look real.
Forget about impeachment. Curiosity about the metadata of the memos is killing people who write memos for a living. How do these two legal giants compare when it comes to revising and editing? My money says Comey is the alpha-editor with superior political instincts. I bet Comey stays up late polishing his carefully chosen words knowing some day they might be at the center of the world’s attention.
And, voila, as the French would say, but not type up in a memo.
Rosenstein’s memo is textbook. He identifies the issue – lack of public trust in the FBI after Comey influenced the 2016 presidential election – and the conclusion that because Comey can’t understand the gravity of his mistakes he lacks what it takes to restore it.
Every word of each memo will be carefully scrutinized by international media. Imagine an embarrassing typo or the careless misuse of a word or, God forbid, a dangling participle or all three.
The Freedom Caucus and other Republican House members are too busy enjoying their work making America great again to quibble over memos. These guys think justice is repealing Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood and deporting refugees. Memo-gazing is off their radar. Donald Trump has helped Republicans achieve their goals. Immigration arrests and detention are up. Funding for crazy liberal things like contraception is down. White guys are back in charge. The odds of them voting to impeach Donald Trump for obstructing justice for saying “I hope you can let go of this” are like the odds you are going to lose 10 pounds and read more.
After he denigrated Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan and called federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel a “hater” who the presidential candidate claimed to be unfair because he is “Hispanic” and “Mexican,” Republicans supported Donald Trump. After the “Access Hollywood” tape of then-candidate Trump showing him boast about his privilege and proclivity to grope women, they supported him. Trump said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose votes before he was elected president. “I hope you can let this go” seems practically innocent and one of the nicer things that’s come out of the guy’s mouth.
Lyin’ Ted Cruz and Lil’ Marco Rubio jumped in line behind Trump after being spanked and humiliated by him. Didn’t Trump accuse Ted Cruz’s father of murder? And the contorted about-face of John McCain on Trump was painful. These Republican senators did not suddenly have an epiphany that Trump is crazy like a fox or misunderstood. They are conditioned by their political careers to follow the money, as they say, or follow the power.
Previews for next week’s episode of “Comey, the People’s Warrior” are as predictable as the day is long. The audience sees Rosenstein pulling another memo. This one newer, sharper and appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate the Russian connection. The memo of all memos. For now, anyway.
Stay tuned.
Cynthia Dill is a civil rights lawyer and former state senator. She can be contacted at:
Twitter: @dillesquire
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