One simple question. What the hell is going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? According to the Cheeto Prophet, the White House is running “like a fine tuned machine”. Yeah, sure. And Sweeney
Todd gave the closest shaves in town, but the nicks could be problematic.
At this point I’m really getting sick and tired of sitting here giving history lessons on the stunning similarities between the Trump White House and Watergate. So I think I’ll just let Nixon’s White House counsel, John Dean do that for me;
Rachel Maddow had a great segment on this last night, and highlighted the fact that after Watergate, new rules were instituted that restricted contact by the White House to either the Justice Department or the FBI regarding active or pending investigations. There are only four people in the White House allowed to make contact, the President, the Vice President, the President’s lawyer, and the lawyers deputy. That’s it. The last time I checked, Reince Priebus didn’t hold any of those titles.
The White House pushed back on the story that Priebus shoehorned the Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe to ask him and the FBI to publicly “knock down” the stories on an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the campaign. McCabe refused. The White House claims that it was McCabe who asked Priebus for five minutes in private and told him that the reports were bullshit, which led Priebus to ask him for help. After McCabe refused, Priebus called Comey himself and repeated the request, and was rebuffed.
There is so much wrong with this story. First, James Comey was pilloried publicly after his shameful conduct in the Clinton server investigation, both his ethics and his reputation. He has kept a tight zipped lip ever since, and has been doing everything in his power to make the FBI toe the line. Why would the Deputy Director pull Priebus aside to volunteer information? And even worse for Priebus, once McCabe told him the FBI would not play ball and publicly comment on the stories, why in the world would Priebus turn around and call Comey to repeat the request? Comey didn’t initiate contact with Priebus on the subject? You can argue whether the request to McCabe was proper if he brought the subject up, but this call could be nothing but a direct attempt to influence the activities of the FBI.
This episode draws a spotlight on another comment by Priebus. When Comey gave that classified briefing to the congressional committee, Priebus went on the Sunday shows to tamp down the embers. He told Chuck Todd on MTP that he wasn’t worried about what Comey told them because he already knew what Comey had said, because he had spoken to the FBI to be briefed on the investigation. How, and why?!? He isn’t on the short list of approved staffers to contact the FBI about an investigation, nobody at the Hoover building should have given him the time of day. Which leads to only two possible explanations. Either there was unauthorized contact from the FBI in response to Priebus’ call, or Priebus is full of shit. Considering the microscope FBI conduct is under for this investigation, I vote full of shit.
Trump has once again doubled down by refusing press access to the off camera briefing today to outlets that have reported on the collusion stories. All-pro moves there Donny. Give them extra free time to hone in on the FBI contact story and dig deeper. It really doesn’t matter if the contact was proper or not, it stinks of cover up, and Priebus is now walking the same tightrope that Mike Flynn found himself on a couple of weeks ago. If the press hammers this story, Trump will pitch Priebus like an old softball, he has no loyalty for him.
What happens to Priebus is not the important thing here, it’s what happens to the GOP as a whole. They’ve been burned like this once before, by Nixon, and they would not like to go through that again. But the longer this goes on, the more the pressure builds, the more heated the “cover up” rhetoric becomes, the more sane Republicans may begin to go along with the idea of independent investigations, especially if they keep getting heat over this from constituents, both to save themselves and the party. This just keeps getting better and better.