“Will he tell the president ‘no’?”
This question was at the heart of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s opening statement at Wednesday’s confirmation hearing for Christopher Wray, President Trump’s nominee as FBI director. Wray was there because the man who appointed him had fired James Comey for failing, as Feinstein put it, to “pledge his loyalty” to Trump and to soft-pedal inquiries involving Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.
The test for Wray, Feinstein said, will be his “willingness to stand up in the face of political pressure.”
There is good reason to feel uneasy about having anyone appointed by Trump lead the FBI at this moment. It is obvious to all except the willfully blind that we now have a president who observes none of the norms, rules or expectations of his office and will pressure anyone at any time if doing so serves his personal interests.
We also know beyond doubt that this team will lie, and lie, and lie again whenever the matter of Russia’s exertions to elect Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton arises.
Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer connected to the Putin regime after he received an email from an intermediary promising “sensitive information” about Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” His decision exploded the president’s claims that neither he nor his campaign had anything to do with Russia’s efforts to tilt our election his way.
The son’s response to the invitation, “I love it,” will become the iconic summation of the Trump apparat’s attitude toward the assistance the president received from Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Almost as instructive were the number of outright lies the Trump camp concocted to try to disguise the real motivation behind the encounter. Their story changed as New York Times reporters developed more information as to what happened. The White House initially seemed to think it could get everyone to buy its fiction that the conversation—which also involved Trump’s then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—had focused on policy toward Russian adoptions.
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