It is becoming more and more obvious that Republicans are being driven to distort the truth, whether to thwart the Russia investigation or to protect their own electoral prospects by providing a defense to Donald Trump. Three Republican House committee chairmen have issued a joint statement arguing that there has been no obstruction because Comey, in his memos, "never once mentioned ... whether he felt obstructed in his investigation". How Comey felt is of no legal significance. The test is what Trump intended and even if he failed to achieve his goal, of ending an FBI investigation, his direction may still constitute the crime of attempted obstruction.
In furtherance of this latest assault on truth Republicans are abetted by cable news commentator and presidential advisor Sean Hannity, who falsely claims that the Comey memos, at the time they were shared with a Comey friend, contained classified information. This inaccurate assertion is of a piece with Hannity's untruthful description of the Steele dossier as being filled with unverified lies authored by a foreign spy and based upon Russian propaganda. In fact, much of the dossier's content has been corroborated, and none of it has been disproven. It was compiled by an ex-intelligence officer of a close ally whose reliability has been established and whose sources in Russia, at great risk, provided information which was clearly not in the interests of Putin. To suggest that Comey misused the dossier further demonstrates the groundless nature of the attacks upon him.
No comments:
Post a Comment