WILL DONALD TRUMP EVER UNDERSTAND HOW U.S. DEMOCRACY WORKS?

…The Trump White House should be called the House of Chaos

 

This info came from 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill.

 

Well, once again a very ignorant Donald Trump has no Idea what his position as the American president is, how the government works, and who is supposed to report to whom.

 

The President got rid of the Director of the FBI because James Comey wasn’t following the president’s false claim that the former president had wiretapped Trump Towers.  In addition, that Comey was spending too much time on the Russian connection, and not enough time on the FBI leaks.  And that Trump was furious that Comey was too focused on the investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election.

So, how is it that I can make such damning statements about the reasons for the FBI Director’s dismissal?
 

 

Well, this is all based on the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans.  All those interviewed painted a story centered on the president’s growing negative attitude toward James Comey. Of course, most spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to openly discuss these internal White House issues.
 

It has become obvious that the president was pissed at Comey because Comey wasn’t following the president’s priorities.  President Trump is still going on his interpretation that the FBI and everyone in Washington works for the president. (You know, like it is in Russia.) Not that the FBI and the Justice Department are independent organizations that were purposely designed to not be involved with the nation’s politics.

 

Please note: There is a pointed reason that the FBI director has a 10 year term that is longer than two terms for a president, and more than any US senator.  The FBI is not to be influenced by the president or any political party.

 

According to White House officials, at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump grew more and more impatient with what he viewed as Comey’s sanctimony.

 

It was obvious that early on, Trump had questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, but lately Trump was becoming furious whenever Comey appeared in public.  Comey always brought up the topic that Trump is most desperate to avoid: Anything that connects Trump to Russia.
 

After Comey’s comments in his latest congressional testimony, by last weekend, the president had made up his mind: Comey had to go.

 

Based on the inputs by those officials at the White House, Trump told Vice President Pence and his senior aides of Reince Priebus, Stephen Bannon and Atty. Donald McGahn, probably Kellyanne Conway, that he was ready to move on Comey. However, first he wanted to talk with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, to whom Comey now reported directly.

Why he wanted to have official input from the AG that had to recused himself from the Russia case (due to his falsehoods to the Congress) is quite bizarre.  But Trump summoned the two of them to the White House for the meeting.  This is all according to a person close to the White House.
 

 

The president already had decided to fire Comey. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein the requirement of explaining in writing the case against Comey.
 

 

Of course, these two jumped at the task and they quickly did their boss’s bidding.  The next day, Trump fired Comey.  It was a move that threw the White House, a location accustomed to Trump chaos, into a new level of uproar.  But this time it had to deal with both a legal and a political outcome.  (BTW: The Justice Department officials have declined to comment on any of this.)
 

What is interesting, is that apparently at this meeting, Rosenstein had threatened to resign after the White House was originally going to cast him as the prime mover of the decision to fire Comey.  The story was to be that the president had acted only on Rosenstein’s recommendation.  This was the story from one person close to the White House, who like everyone else, spoke on the condition of anonymity.  One must agree that this was a very sensitive issue.  The story then changed to what was offered by the Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders the next day at the daily White House press briefing.

 

That reason was that Comey had “committed atrocities in overseeing the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as Secretary of State”, this in turn had hurt the morale in the bureau and had compromised the public trust.

 

However, when asked in the Oval Office the next day, all the president would say was, “He wasn’t doing a good job.  Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.”

 

How much the timing of Trump’s decision was shaped by those events that were spiraling out of his control? 
 

That being such as the testimony of Russian interference by former acting attorney general Sally Yates…?   Or was it the fact that Comey last week requested more resources from the Justice Department to expand the FBI’s Russia probe?  In the weeks leading up to Comey’s firing, Trump administration officials had instead repeatedly urged the FBI to more aggressively pursue leak investigations, according to people familiar with the discussions.

 

My personal question that is still baffling is “Why was AG Jeff Sessions involved in these discussions about the fate of the man leading the FBI’s Russia investigation?”  Especially after he had recused himself from the probe because he had falsely denied under oath his own past communications with the Russian ambassador?

 

According to multiple White House and Washington officials, over time, administration officials had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the FBI’s actions on the Russian probe. Comey’s appearances at congressional hearings caused even more tension between the White House and the FBI.  Trump administration officials were highly angered that the director’s statements increased, rather than diminished the public’s attention on the Russia probe.
 

 

Within the Justice Department and the FBI, the firing of Comey has left raw anger, and some fear, according to multiple officials. Thomas O’Connor, the president of the FBI Agents Association, called Comey’s firing, “…a gut punch. We didn’t see it coming, and we don’t think Director Comey did anything that would lead to this.’’

 

Many agency employees said they were furious about the firing, saying the circumstances of his dismissal did more damage to the FBI’s independence than anything Comey did in his three-plus years in the job.
 

In a message to FBI staff late Wednesday, Comey wrote: “I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”

 

One real issue is that is becoming as usual, the Trump team did not have a communications strategy for how to announce and then explain the firing decision.  Trump, who had retired to the residence to eat dinner, he sat in front of a television watching cable news coverage of Comey’s firing and he noticed another major flaw of the firing: Nobody was defending Trump!

 
 

“This is probably the most egregious example of press and communications incompetence since we’ve been here,” one West Wing official said. “It was an absolute disaster. And the president watched it unfold firsthand. He could see it.”

 

 

Advisor Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning for her combative interviews. “Especially on your network, you always want to talk about Russia, Russia, Russia,” Conway told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday.  The Trump White House just continues to try and change the TV networks and the American public as to what we should be concerned about.  Sorry White House, it doesn’t work that way.

 

Sarah Huckabee Sanders went Tuesday night to the friendly confines of the Fox News Channel, but on Wednesday she had to deal with questions from the more hostle hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe ” program.  She didn't do well.

 

When will this administration, this White House, and yes, this president begin to understand that this is a democracy with three equal houses of government and that they all are supposed to be working for the American people, not the president.

 

It has been disgusting to watch the first months of this poorly managed administration.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017