Left desperately trying to pretend Comey testimony contained anything they can use against Trump

In the investigation about nothing, the left and the media are now stuck with the testimony about nothing on a day when they desperately hoped to get the bombshell that would bring down a president. Let's review:

James Comey thought President Trump was trying to give him a directive to drop the Mike Flynn investigation, and thinks he was subsequently fired for not dropping it. Ooh. Watergate. Right? No, because firing Comey wasn't coupled with the dropping of anything, and his incoming successor can do whatever he wants with the investigation.

Not even Comey claims Trump was trying to get him to drop the entire Russia investigation, although Trump is clearly irritated by it, as he should be because it's a complete waste of time without any apparent point.

Comey admits he leaked his infamous memo to the media through a friend, which as Rob points out may have been illegal in its own right.

If Comey thought Trump was trying to obstruct an investigation, the law requires him to report that to his superiors. He never did so.

And oh by the way, the Obama Justice Department was awfully aggressive in deciding to investigate Flynn for contact with a Russian diplomat that, even now, no one claims was illegal or improper.

So where's the meat here? There is none. We're left with Comey's opinion that Trump lied about why he fired him. We're left with conflicting reports about what went on in that meeting in the Oval Office, since Trump's denies much of Comey's account through his lawyers. And we're left with a possible ham-handed attempt by the president to get the FBI director to lay off a guy who they both knew hadn't done anything wrong. There's your scandal? I guess it was "riveting" if you're into that sort of thing, but all we really got out of it was that Comey doesn't like Trump, didn't want to be alone with him and doesn't think he told the truth about why he fired him. That's not a scandal, although the left and the media are trying awfully hard to say it is. The accounts of the New York Times, Washington Post, Business Insider and USA Today are little more than assessments that this looks bad for Trump because they, they media, will make sure it looks bad for Trump. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, actually dealt with the substance, such that it is, and found it more than a little wanting:

---

Mr. Comey confirmed that Mr. Trump never tried to block the FBI’s larger probe of potential Russian entanglement in the election and even encouraged the FBI, noting that “if some of my satellites did something wrong, it’d be good to find that out.” Despite this probative evidence, Mr. Comey claims that in an Oval Office meeting in February Mr. Trump importuned him to close the case on Michael Flynn, the National Security Adviser who had recently been fired for misleading the Vice President. Mr. Trump, according to Mr. Comey, defended Mr. Flynn, saying “he is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Mr. Comey explained that “I took it as a direction to get rid of this investigation.” But he wouldn’t answer when Senators asked if such a direction was illegal. “I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct,” Mr. Comey said. “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but 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.” Mr. Comey also admitted that after he was fired he leaked his personal memos about his Trump conversations, via a cutout at Columbia Law School, “because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” So Mr. Comey triggers Robert Mueller’s new assignment and then tosses him responsibility while still intimating that Mr. Trump violated the law.

---

Support Canada Free Press

---

This legerdemain is an awfully convenient self-defense. The important question is whether Mr. Comey believed Mr. Trump was obstructing justice at the time, and Mr. Comey’s behavior then doesn’t confirm his Senate tale. Mr. Trump had expressed the same sentiments about Mr. Flynn’s bona fides in public and on Twitter , so his preferences were no secret. But if Mr. Comey really believed Mr. Trump was trying to block the Flynn probe, then he had a legal duty to report Mr. Trump’s conduct to his Justice Department superiors or the White House counsel. Obstruction of justice—intentionally attempting to impede an investigation—is a crime.

Perhaps most astonishing in this whole thing is Comey's apparently belief that the FBI doesn't answer to anyone. The FBI is part of the executive branch of the government, and everyone in the executive branch ultimately answers to the president. The FBI director doesn't report directly to Trump. He reports to the Attorney General. But contrary to what people have been suggesting, the president is the nation's top law enforcement official. The FBI is not some independent agency with no political accountability. If that were the case, after all, it wouldn't even be possible for Trump to have fired Comey. And when the FBI is going all out on a matter that has little substance behind it - like the Russia thing - while its direct is refusing to take the leaking of national security secrets as seriously as the president wants him to take them, then the president has every right to fire him for it. This is a classic example of the political class trying to hang a "process crime" on the president. There was no underlying crime as far as anyone can see, but in the course of the investigation you can often catch people acting in a manner contrary to what's expected during an investigation. Then you nail them for that violation of the process. Trump clearly wants the Russia investigation over. Why? His enemies insist this must mean he has something to hide. Trump says he has nothing to hide, and that the whole thing is a gigantic waste of time and attention. He is certainly right about that. He's trying to pursue a governing agenda and all anyone in Washington wants to talk about is "Russia" and "collusion," even though by Comey's very words we have no reason to believe there was any. Trump wants the Beltway to get serious about serious matters that affect the country. They want to concoct an excuse to take him down. You can't blame Trump for wanting that to stop. But if all there is consists of what we heard from James Comey yesterday, then this matter can't possibly survive much longer. The media will try their best to keep it alive by presenting the testimony as some sort of bombshell, but unless there's a whole lot more than what we heard yesterday, there's nowhere for Congress to go with this and nowhere for Robert Mueller to go with it either. At some point, perhaps people in Washington would like to consider trying to govern this nation. It's what they were actually sent there to do.