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Popular vote loser Donald Trump believes federal employees—those who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution—should be pledging personal loyalty to him. That should be a massive problem for Republicans, and it should be enough for them to join with Democrats in demanding an independent investigation and special prosecutor to look in to Trump's Russia ties.
The potential public testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey might be the catalyst for that, or it might result in more aiding and abetting Trump's obstruction of justice from Republicans—if Democrats allow it. Greg Sargent writes about one senator's plan to force the issue.
Ron Wyden, a hard-charging member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, intends to use this moment to press Comey to detail what exactly happened in this exchange, a spokesman for the Oregon Democrat says.
“If and when Comey testifies, Senator Wyden will ask him if Donald Trump demanded a loyalty pledge,” Wyden spokesman Keith Chu told me this morning.
If Comey asserts in public that Trump did demand loyalty from him—which is plausible—consider what could happen then. Trump responded to initial reports of that demand with a threatening tweet that implied Trump may have been taping private conversations. If Comey goes public, the pressure on the White House to release these tapes—or admit they don’t exist—should intensify. Republican lawmakers—who already expressed discomfort with the firing and with Trump’s threat—will now be expected to comment about Comey’s on-the-record assertion that the president demanded a loyalty pledge from him.
Getting Comey on the public record about Trump's obstruction of justice and about his placing himself above the Constitution will be critical for making the case against a Republican Congress that is enabling him, and is absolutely necessary. But it's not sufficient to protect the interests of the nation.
The resistance has to start with Senate Democrats. That means shutting the business of the Senate down—on the floor and in any committee that is working to advance the Trump agenda. That should start with the Judiciary Committee, where Sen. Chuck Grassley has suggested that he's going to selectively ignore input from Democrats in the confirmation process for judges. Until there is a special prosecutor, Trump's agenda must be stopped.