By Jeffrey Toobin
President Trump appears to be guilty of obstruction of justice. That’s the only rational conclusion to be reached if James Comey’s opening statement for his planned testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Thursday, is to be believed. The lurch of the Trump Presidency from one crisis to the next scandal produces a kind of bombshell-induced numbness, but that should not prevent us from appreciating the magnitude of Comey’s statement.
The statement, alongside other established facts, doesn’t just lay out evidence; it tells a story. In this tale, the President knows how much power he possesses and dangles it before those who serve him. The F.B.I. director was in the middle of a ten-year term, which was designed to give him some insulation from political pressure, but there was a catch: Trump could still fire him. And Trump clearly knew it, as he repeatedly demanded Comey’s personal loyalty. An early conversation, on January 27th, over dinner in the Green Room of the White House, set the tone: Comey was to answer to Trump, or the F.B.I. director would be gone. As Comey put it, he saw that Trump was trying to set up a “patronage relationship.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/james-comeys-remarkable-story-about-donald-trump
Would you like to know what a "patronage relationship" means to Donald Trump dear readers?
Well -- it pretty much looks like this:
No -- really -- that is how Drumpf views himself -- he is the powerful mob boss Tony Soprano, and everyone who has aligned themselves with him and his criminal enterprise is his wholly owned servant and foot soldier who must kiss his ring and pay constant homage to their master.
Drumpf has hung around enough mafia thugs over the span of his shady business career that he couldn't help but be influenced by their debauched way of life and much more so their depraved ways of doing business. As such, it is not at all surprising that he has carried that hooligan attitude and unscrupulous mindset with him right in to the oval office, fully believing that he could behave that same ruffian way with law and order guys like James Comey and actually get away with it.
Fortunately for all Americans there still are a few straight shooting, law and order guys like James Comey around who aren't afraid to speak out when they see viable threats to the constitutional foundation of our republic and our democracy. Comey demonstrated that today with his testimony under penalty of perjury where he more or less labeled Donald Trump, president of the United States, a lying, conniving weasel and quite possibly a ratfucking traitor.
The Gadfly has no illusions here -- Drumpf and his clan are going to go down kicking and screaming and blaming and slandering which portends a long, hot, ugly summer. But if unconfirmed reports that The Gadfly has heard about are true, a couple of folks in the original circle of Drumpf's Russian flunkies are just a few negotiating sessions away from turning state's evidence on the short-fingered vulgarian - and that dear conservative friends would most certainly culminate in the ignominious end of your dashing, pussy-grabbing savior.
----TFG
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