It蘑菇视频 impeachment time!
聽“My friends, it’s a sad state of affairs when truthtellers have no place in Trump’s Washington.”
– Sen. Charles Schumer, (D-NY), during a floor speech on Dec. 10
Last Tuesday was a momentous day in the presidency of Donald Trump, and, in fact – America.
In the morning, Trump became only the fourth U.S. president in the 243-year history of the United States, to have been slapped with articles of impeachment.
By nightfall, even the ominous specter of a president facing charges of obstructions of Congress, and abuses of power, was nearly relegated to an afterthought.
Mr. Trump had spoken. And with such vicious hostility aimed at his own FBI, that even the possibility that he could be forcibly removed from office seemed less significant.
Perhaps, that was his goal.
He’s a master of political sleight-of-hand.
A dubious achievement – but effective.
Trump had learned the previous day that the 18-month investigation by the Inspector General of the Justice Department concerning the origins of the FBI probe of matters leading up to the 2016 presidential election – hadn’t suited him.
That there was no so-called “Deep State.” And, according to the long-awaited report, there was no illegal spying on his presidential campaign by Barack Obama’s administration – or anybody else – for that matter.
So, in the morning, while articles of impeachment were being put in motion, he spent his time fuming on Twitter, about his FBI director, who had agreed with the report’s findings.
Christopher Wray (Trump’s hand-picked FBI Director) admitted that there were some FBI failings, but that there hadn’t been any targeting of Trump, or his campaign.
“I think that it’s important for the American people to know that when the FBI opens an investigation, it does so with proper predication; with proper authorization, based on the law and the facts – and nothing else,” Wray told a CBS report.
That shot a hole in one of Trump’s go-to complaints when somebody doesn’t agree with him. That people are unfairly picking on him.
Yet, he’d publicly attacked the FBI, Justice Department and intelligence agencies 277 times, because they weren’t willing to submit to his bullying about the Russia investigation being conjured up out of thin air.
He’s the perpetual bully-in-chief, who frequently goes out of his way to announce that somebody is trying to make his life miserable.
Add to that the fact that Wray also gave an interview in which he said that the Republican narrative about Ukraine meddling in the 2016 presidential election is pure fiction.
“We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election,” Wray matter-of-factly explained.
That morning, when Trump took Wray to task on Twitter, he did it by name.
“I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI…” he wrote.
He wasn’t finished.
He took his roadshow to Hershey that night, and he made it clear to his energized rallygoers that he isn’t worried about those two pesky articles of impeachment.
He’s now engaged in a brand-new crusade against his own Justice Department.
In fact, during one of his fierier diatribes, he complained that members of the FBI are destroying lives and that they’re “scum.”
Scum?
So it’s come to that?
Wray had already responded to the frequent Republican claim about there being a “Deep State” among government workers, slinking about in the dungeons of the halls of the American government.
“I think that’s the kind of label that is a disservice to the 37,000 men and women who work at the FBI, and who I think tackle their jobs with professionalism, with rigor, with objectivity, and with courage. So, that’s not a term I would use to describe our workforce. And I think it’s an affront to them,” Wray has said.
You’d have to wonder what he would say publicly if he was told the President of the United States of America called his charges “scum.”
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.