Thursday 11 May 2017

Washington Soap Opera Erupts Over FBI Director’s Firing

If you thought all the hysteria over alleged Russian interference in the US election had ended for good when Trump launched his 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria, guess again. It’s back now, and with a vengeance.
Yesterday President Trump fired James Comey. One could argue that that the FBI director’s public pronouncements last year in regard to the Clinton email scandal were clumsy and that his credibility had been damaged as a result, but accusations are now flying that the dismissal was aimed at quashing an alleged Comey investigation into supposed Russian meddling in the election.
“To put it mildly, the optics of firing Comey are terrible,” writes James Hohmann in the Washington Post. “Trump looks like he does not actually want to get to the bottom of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and the potential wrongdoing of his own staffers.”
Neocon pundit Max Boot is even hinting at the possibility of a Trump impeachment in 2018.
Prediction: If Democrats take control of Congress in 2018, the firing of Comey will form one of the articles of impeachment.
 Many members of Congress, including some Republicans, are calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump administration. One is Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA):
Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO):
Comey’s firing raises many questions. One thing is clear: an independent special prosecutor is necessary to investigate Russian connections.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI)
We are in a full-fledged constitutional crisis.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
No more excuses: We need an independent special prosecutor to investigate the Trump Administration’s ties to Russia.
Many others are posting tweets galore, while Politico is portraying a seemingly mentally ill Trump “fuming” about the Russian investigation and who even “would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe.”
And then there is the ever adorable “liberal” Elizabeth Warren, who endorsed Hillary Clinton while making no secret of her detestation of Trump–even back in the old days when the future president was championing the working class and talking about ending US wars in the Middle East.
It’s time for Congress to get their heads out of the sand. @realDonaldTrump cannot pick the person to continue this critical investigation.
 What is astounding (though not surprising) in all this, is that you will be hard pressed to find, from any of these people, any  acknowledgement of the US government’s long history of interfering in the elections, and even overthrowing the governments, of other countries. Was it not just three years ago that the US overthrew the government of Ukraine? You would not know it from listening to their soundbites on the news or reading their tweets.
You also will not hear any of them acknowledge that whatever influence Russia has upon US elections it is minuscule compared with that wielded by Israel.
Official Washington is truly living in an alternate reality. These people are like actors on a soap opera.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

No comments: