Can we
have a crisis-free day? That’s all I’m asking’ said Republican senator Susan Collins from Maine today.
Since the Comey firing last Tuesday, there was Trump’s admitting on Thursday that Comey was fired for persisting with the Russia investigation (making instant liars of Trump’s aides, and of the Vice President, that insisted on Wednesday this was not the reason).
On Friday Trump tweeted out a veiled threat: James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! As of today the White House has refused to admit or deny there was such a tape.
Then there was the unsettling news from yesterday (Monday), that Trump blurted out top secret ‘code word’ information (obtained from Israel) to the Russians in the Oval Office last Thursday. This completely bypassed intelligence protocols, angered the FBI and CIA – and surely the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) – and could even put the lives of agents at risk.
Today news broke that Comey has a memo of a conversation with Trump from February, documenting that Trump asked him to end the Michael Flynn investigation. All of Washington DC and cable news was abuzz today with talk about obstruction of justice. (Side note: Nixon was impeached for obstruction of justice. But for Trump it could very well be that the 2018 mid-term elections will be needed, for the Dems to perhaps take back the House, before impeachment proceedings can start. That’s another 18 months!).
And also today, Trump received Turkish President Erdoğan (a dictator, in my book) in the White House. American Kurdish demonstrators outside the Turkish ambassador’s house were attacked by Erdoğan’s bodyguard goons before the Washington DC police intervened.
What will tomorrow bring?