Scanning the New York Times right now…
Comey Accuses White House of ‘Lies’
Mr. Comey said that President Trump lied to the American public when he said that the F.B.I. was in disarray.
Is this worth a citizen’s attention? The first headline, about a politician allegedly lying, sounds a lot like gambling in Casablanca. The second headline sounds purely subjective (see “FBI Admits It Missed Opportunities to Stop Tamerlan Tsarnaev” (Boston Magazine, 2014); was that because of “disarray” or due to some other reason?)
Readers: What’s interesting about Mr. Comey and/or what he has said recently?
In his testimony, Comey reported that a foreign power conducted a significant hostile operation against the United States and the current President seemed completely unconcerned about it.
There’s a couple reasons to pay attention. Back in May 2016, Benjamin Wittes described what he thought the most vulnerable part of the US government would be: law enforcement. Trump and the Powers of the American Presidency (Part I):
The duty of US law enforcement officials is to uphold the law. Matthew Yglesias quotes the FBI website:
According to Comey’s opening statement, Trump pressured Comey to declare that he would be loyal to Trump personally. Apparently he thought that’s what Comey said (“that’s what I want, your honest loyalty”), and then asked Comey to act accordingly, to get the word out that Trump wasn’t personally under investigation, and to drop the investigation into Flynn. And when he wasn’t happy with Comey’s lack of response, he fired Comey.
That’s the first reason.
The second reason to pay attention, of course, is the political impact. This is exactly what brought down Nixon.
Neal: We should be afraid of Russia taking over our country and imposing their laws and customs on us? Because it would be so painful to pay a flat 13 percent of income in tax? Because Americans who had brief sexual encounters wouldn’t be able to collect more than about $300/month in child support? Because we wouldn’t be able to relax in subway stations with trains ripping through every minute? Because they would stop us from running around the world starting wars?
Russil: We should care about this one Flynn guy and Trump wanting the investigation into him stopped? Didn’t Trump also want the investigation into Hillary shut down so that the country could move on to address other challenges? What is that evidence of other than Trump didn’t want the entire country of 325 million focused on investigating a couple of out-of-power individuals?
The political impact? There are Hillary voters who, absent this investigation, were coming around to the idea that Trump was wise and intelligent? If not, what is the potential impact?
@philg: Tax rates, child support, and subway operations have nothing to do with it. Mr. Comey’s testimony bears directly on the President’s willingness to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” as required by the U.S. Constitution and the oath he swore before becoming President.
In contrast to a few other commenters, I have not followed this story.
It is long overdue to discount NYT as an unbiased news source . Their reporting is slanted towards their narrow political objectives and while they do report some truth whenever actual event fits their worldview it seems to be a fairly minor segment. Comey’s testimony confirmed that when he mentioned that NYT lied in its leak reporting.
Often NYT is just incompetent describing events in other places they seem not to have any beef with, based on my first-hand knowledge from local sources.
Joining the Herrings already in Progress …
Philip: Regarding the political impact, I’m thinking that Republicans may end up deciding that Trump is doing so much damage to their brand, they’d rather have Pence in the Oval Office than Trump. Trump’s obviously feeling under siege – he just had his personal criminal defense lawyer issue a statement responding to Comey’s testimony, denying that he asked for Comey to pledge his loyalty and that he directed Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. They would both put him in legal jeopardy. Plus there’s the ongoing investigation directed by Mueller. It’s not looking great for Trump.
If you want to troll your liberal Facebook friends, you could tell them that you’re convinced Trump should cut his losses and step down, and that you’re looking forward to four years of President Pence.
Regarding obstruction of justice: Equality under the law means that even when you’re the President, you can’t shut down an FBI counter-intelligence investigation into your friends and associates. As President, you’re committed to upholding the law!
Stephen Marche:
The question on the table is whether the checks and the balances in the system are working well enough to withstand someone like Trump. The chances that Trump will be impeached are still relatively low, as long as Republicans stick with him. Nate Silver: Will Donald Trump Be Impeached?
The juiciest bits of Comey’s testimony was leaked to the press weeks ago. The hearing is just the live performance.
If you’re going to do some sort of revisionist thing where you brainlessly pretend Trump’s “disarray” statement somehow relates to the Boston bombing, you should probably at least note that Comey wasn’t even at the FBI until months after.
The word “lie” appears to have a new meaning , i.e. ” saying something I disagree with.”
Conversation (e.g. “a conversation about race” ) means “sit quietly while I lecture you on what is right.”
philg: “We should be afraid of Russia taking over our country and imposing their laws and customs on us? Because it would be so painful to pay a flat 13 percent of income in tax? Because Americans who had brief sexual encounters wouldn’t be able to collect more than about $300/month in child support? Because we wouldn’t be able to relax in subway stations with trains ripping through every minute? Because they would stop us from running around the world starting wars?”
Well, let’s see:
A flat 13% of income tax, plus whatever bribes, kickbacks, or protection money you have to pay to not have the Russian mafia disappear you? (Yes, I know you were just in Moscow, and probably didn’t see any such things going on yourself. Does the term “Potemkin village” mean anything to you?)
The limitations on child support would be fine with me, provided they aren’t exchanged for some other kind of corruption that’s even more damaging (see bribes, kickbacks, etc. above).
The subway thing, I agree with you–all US cities have incompetent mass transit compared to other countries. I have no direct experience with the Moscow system, but I have experienced the London Underground and the Paris Metro, both of which put any US system to shame. (FWIW, some US commuter rail systems do appear to be more competently run.)
Russia invaded the Crimea and in general doesn’t seem to be shy about starting wars with countries weaker than them. So I don’t see much potential benefit here.
Peter: Does it make sense to compare Russia’s re-taking of the Crimea to our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq? The people who lived in Crimea spoke Russian and had been part of Russia as recently as the 1950s. Crimea is adjacent to Russia (well, part of Russia now). Wikipedia says that the “war” you cite was over in 24 days at a cost of 3 lives lost on both sides.
The Iraq war involved hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops traveling to the other side of the planet to a country where people speak Arabic. Iraq was never part of the U.S. The cost of this war has been estimated as high as $3 trillion (maybe including Afghanistan and certainly including long-term disability payouts). The war started in 2003, 14 years ago, and is far from complete (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/world/middleeast/iraq-mosul-isis.html in today’s New York Times about the U.S. military fighting in Iraq). As many as 600,000 people are estimated to have been killed (Lancet) including roughly 6,000 Americans and American contractors.
The war in Afghanistan started 16 years ago, in 2001. English is not the native language anywhere in Afghanistan as far as I am aware. At least 100,000 people have been killed or wounded in this war.
philg: “Does it make sense to compare Russia’s re-taking of the Crimea to our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq?”
As an isolated comparison, probably not. I only mentioned the Crimea as a recent example.
“The war in Afghanistan started 16 years ago, in 2001. At least 100,000 people have been killed or wounded.”
The Soviet Union (I don’t see any real distinction between the Soviet Union and Russia as far as the present topic is concerned) was in Afghanistan only 9 years, but according to Wikipedia more than half a million people were killed.
And of course if we bring in the Soviet Union the US isn’t even in the same ballpark as far as total body count is concerned.
In short, looking at the overall historical tendencies of the two countries and their respective cultures, I don’t see any reasonable basis for thinking of Russia as “less warlike” than the US.
From the Wikipedia:
“On Friday, 14 September 2007, ORB International, an independent polling agency located in London, published estimates of the total war casualties in Iraq since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.[1] At over 1.2 million deaths (1,220,580), this estimate is the highest number published so far.”
The Wikipedia is credible to me, so the Lancet study is not the study with the highest death count, and of course neither study covers even half the war. And both studies divide the war between Iraq and Afghanistan. Thinking of George Bush’s war as just one crime, the full number of causalities could therefore be as much as four times the 1.2 million mentioned above (4.8 million) once both halves of the war in both the chronological and territorial dimensions are considered. Quite comparable to Hitler and the Jews.
Many more were maimed.
And of course, with the CIA destroying so many torture records, ostensibly to protect the identities of their agents, we will never know how many were tortured, but surely that too must be several millions.
“Russia invaded the Crimea”
That was undoubtedly an act of aggression on Russia’s part.
An interesting and probably the closest in its similarity historical event was Sudetenland annexation by Hitler.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26488652
Similarly to the Sudetenland event, a substantial majority of the Crimean locals were in favor of the annexation. The main motivation I imagine was pecuniary and , secondarily, patriotic fervor. I met some ethnic Ukrainians who were in favor of being part of Russia. If it’s any excuse, their motivation was solely pecuniary.
Having spent part of my life trajectory on the Crimean peninsula and sharing no particular affinity for either side in the game, I think I know folkways and mores of the locals quite well.
Ivan: I didn’t mean to imply that the Russians were pacifists. But I do think that, at least within the past few decades, they have been more judicious in their use of military power than we have. Evaluated against a “don’t start pointless wars” standard, I would say that Russian political governance is far better than American.
ZZAZZ: I would disagree with the characterization of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as “George Bush’s war”. They were funded by Congress and continued by the subsequent president, who, as Commander-in-Chief, could have ended those wars on January 20, 2009 (Congressional authority is necessary for starting a war, not ending one, as far as I know). It is too convenient to say that we are 325 million wise and peace-loving people plus one bad guy who started and continued these wars.
“I do think that, at least within the past few decades, they have been more judicious in their use of military power than we have”
Regrettably, I tend to agree, Iraq, WMD, “Arab Spring”, etc immediately jumping to my mind.
As a very crude analogy, Putin may be “good” for Russia inasmuch as Saddam was for Iraq. Some peoples may benefit less from democratic governance, the official dogma notwithstanding.
The response to Hillary Clinton asking if they could “just drone” Assange was uneasy laughter. So while the technical and (possibly) legal capability is there, I think there is still some way to go.
I think we’re seeing a failure mode of democracy right now, with an entrenched clique of entitled weirdos and creeps who really want to run things their way. (I’m talking of Sweden, of course.)
Tom:
Sweden is a mystery. Germany too.
Maybe not if you treat ideology as a mental virus, e.g. Nazism/Communism.
Tom:
I disagree about the “clique”. Sweden is a democracy.
Crimea has been part of Russia since 1783. It was only in 1954 that Crimea became part of Ukraine because Nikita Krushchev (a Ukranian btw) made it part of Ukraine (in the name of friendship).
Ivan: Oh, so how did you find the climate on the ground, so to speak, prior to the last election? Not to mention the oddities after the election, such as the infamous DÖ. Nor the openly unprofessional attitudes of our bureaucrats great and small.
GermanL:
Your claim contains some factual errors:
1. Krushchev was not an Ukrainian: “Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia’s Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin”
2. The Soviet Union republics were nominal entities without any real autonomy. Thus, whatever was decided in Moscow was implemented at a local level and there was no need to please anybody. The reason for the peninsula transfer to Ukraine was purely practical: the peninsula does not have land border with Russia — it is attached to Ukraine. Implication for railway, road traffic, administration etc are obvious.
However, more importantly, your historical argument, as any argument of this nature, has little if any practical value. If one accepts that argument at its face value, then the Crimea must be transferred to Turkey from whom Russia grabbed it in 1783 rather than to Russia. Likewise, Hitler was fully entitled to repudiate the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 and take back Sudetenland.
For a peaceful separation, it is much more reasonable to accept the random reality existing on the land at the time of the separation (e.g. Czechoslovakia). The Ukraine in general and the Crimea in particular geo reality was accepted and “guaranteed” in 1991. Th rest as they say is history.
Tom:
I know very little about Sweden although I have some distant family ties with the country.
It appears that the situation is caused by extreme political fragmentation in the country rather than evil bureaucrats.
https://www.stratfor.com/situation-report/sweden-elections-result-political-fragmentation
If so, the population does not have anybody but themselves to blame for the fact that their is no unity on how to proceed. Hence, the “December Agreement”.
Note that the DÖ was basically the so-called right promising to obey the left as long as they cut the newcomers off from power. So all the mainstream parties got into a sort of coalition. We hope you enjoyed voting, citizen.
(DÖ has fallen apart by now, but it exposed the rot.)
It should be noted that the political fragmentation (mostly illusory) is longstanding, except for the Sweden Democrats. The latter party has become increasingly popular because the rest of the parties, left and right, wanted open borders at almost any cost. During the 2015 bum rush of the border they had to come to their senses, but it seems the voters still don’t quite trust their future intentions.
The good bureaucrats of course expressed their good political leanings by having known evil-voters fired etc. No platform! The Massachusetts puritan would have been proud.