A Review: Peggy Noonan: What Comey Told Us About Donald Trump

A Review:

Peggy Noonan,

What Comey Told Us About Donald Trump

by

R.E. Prindle

 

This is a review of the Comey/Trump Affair around Peggy Noonan’s WSJ article in the Wall Street Journal of 6/10-11/17.

 

First let’s put the Comey Affair into its set and setting.  The current Pres., Donald Trump has caused the greatest political uproar since the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Roosevelt too was hated and vilified by what he called the ‘economic royalists’ that now hate Trump; different faces but same class.  Former Pres. Obama prior to the election stated that Donald Trump would never be president.  Trump’s political adversary, Hillary Clinton, thought her election in the bag only to find that the triumph went to her rival.

The news was crushing for these people who considered themselves an elite appointed by God to do His work.  Looking down on Trump’s base that they had given many derogative names such as the Deplorables, ignoramuses and whatever they now found themselves led by a man they despised personally who was the leader of this despicable mob of unwashed peasants, to use an antique term.

Their disappointed rage was so terrible that many government employees quit their jobs  while there was a near universal refusal by the remaining to cooperate in any way with the new President.  They put on their pussy hats and through a snit in the very streets.

Comey himself had a very questionable role in the election releasing potentially damaging information concerning Hillary Clinton.  The timing was suspicious.  Clinton was accused of much more damning activities than Trump is being accused of but that has been swept under the rug.  She is a Liberal.

So, while investigations have been going on for months and months now with absolutely no show of conclusive evidence, or indeed, any evidence at all, Congress chose to call a hearing at which the star witness was the FBI head who had already come up with nothing hence had nothing to report and in fact reported nothing.

So, really, what we have here is a show trial after the Soviet fashion.  Also what we have here are essentially fictional narratives meant to amuse and entertain.    Just before his appearance, Mr. Comey released publicly a seven page propaganda paper he titled:  Statement For The Record:  Senate Select Committee On Intelligence. 

Mr. Comey opens his short story, for that’s what it is,  with the words:

I was asked to testify today to describe to you of interactions with President-elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you.  I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but to the best of my recollections I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

Reading this one comes to the conclusion that this meeting has no other relevance than perhaps a discussion of the Pres.’ personal habits.  Trumpian curiosities.  In other words, the Committee is frivolous.  Isn’t the real intent of the hearing to see if the Pres. is somehow criminally lacking.  Comey is the man who is conducting this investigation to find Trump criminally liable for something, anything; the Committee doesn’t care what just so long as they can get rid of him.  They think his election is a fluke and therefore doesn’t count.

And then Comey advises that he has carefully edited his testimony.  To give his edits credibility, apparently knowing that one day he was to be called to testify something about the Pres. he ‘took notes.’ Apparently Comey’s conversation with the Pres. was so far beyond Comey’s experience, and he is a man who should have seen everything, that:

To ensure accuracy I began to type (the conversation) up on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.

Hmm. An FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower?  Was Comey wired?  Was the FBI vehicle a surveillance truck?  Hmm.  Does the FBI have tapes of this meeting.  That might be illegal.

Sure, there are enough weasel words in those comments that mean Comey has effectively said nothing.  He has determined what the Committee wants to hear and presumably selected  the most juicy passages throwing the rest of the edits on the cutting room floor.  I wonder if Mr. Comey has ever been to law school where he would learn to talk in circles?

Now, Mr. Comey works direct for Mr. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s personally selected Attorney General and Mr. Sessions reports directly to Pres. Trump.  Whatever information that Mr. Comey uncovers should have been made aware to AG Sessions.  Was it?  And, if not, why not?  Sessions in his turn should have reported to the Pres.

But Mr. Comey does not speak through his boss Sessions.  No.  He says instead:

The IC (Intelligence Community) thought it important for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence  of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.

Unquote.

I see, what we have is water cooler talk, a rumor jest and smirk.  In fact, the story that Trump pissed on a prostitute in Moscow several years ago.  One imagines the Committee members smiling inwardly at their recollection of the rumor.

As morally reprehensible as pissing on prostitutes may be, as a sexual perversion it is fairly common, even has a name:  Golder Shower.  And when it comes to minor sexual perversions, let the innocent stand up.

Wow, isn’t the country overjoyed by Trump’s exposure. (smirk, smirk, allusion intended.)

Now, perhaps I’m wrong but the FBI’s jurisdiction doesn’t extend to Russia.  CIA maybe, but not the FBI.  Yet, Mr. Comey was asked, not by AG Sessions but the Director of National Intelligence to deliver these remarks to the Pres.  ‘because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities.  Oh.

And Mr. Comey said, holding up his right hand, this is the carefully edited selective truth, so help me God.

So, then, Peggy Noonan of the WSJ examines Mr. Comey’s selected and edited testimony.  Now, remember, Comey is no callow youth.  As Peggy describes him:

Whatever Mr. Comey’s reputation, and it’s mixed- an intelligent accomplished professional  who is plenty slick; state-of-the-art Beltway operator with an image of integrity, yet trailed with suspicions of slight smarm- he’s a careful man.

 

Then Peg quotes Comey’s relation of the face to face meeting on January 27, 2017 a week into Trump’s term of office when it might be said he is feeling his way in his new surroundings.  Already under extreme attack, rioting in the streets, hateful MSM media coverage,  Trump knows it’s going to be a tough haul.  Comey has had a questionable record prior to the election.  Sitting on this side of the screen I had to ask myself what Comey was doing?  What was his agenda?  Which side was he on?  His own?

Wouldn’t it be reasonable then for Trump to want to get a feel for where Comey was coming from?  We have Comey’s version of what he’s seeing in Trump but we don’t have Trump’s idea of what he’s seeing in Comey’s behavior.  The other side always gives balance.  What Trump does already know is that the civil service is up in arms against him, rabid Democratic Senators and Congressmen are obstructing every move he makes, if he jaywalks the MSM reports it as a major crime.  So is Comey working for him or against him?

The Pres. levels with Comey, according to Comey’s notes written down later when he has time to compose a narrative, the Pres. says:  ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’  Right!  Who doesn’t?  Damn right, he doesn’t need a smiling back-stabber; which is Comey, he wants to know, staring at him intently to capture his reaction.

This man of the world, Comey, this state-of-the-art Beltway operator, is struck dumb by Trump’s desire to know if he is going to back stab him or not.  Well, my God, Comey is speaking to Trump, the Liberals idea of the reincarnation of  Adolf Hitler.  Why wouldn’t Comey come to the conclusion that Trump was asking for a Hitlerian loyalty oath, hey?  It doesn’t seem he was to me, but what was Comey’s reaction to the simple statement of fact.  Why, Comey this Beltway operator was struck dumb.  This so far exceeded anything Comey had seen or heard deep in the Swamp of DC:  ‘I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression (No! He was a deer caught in the headlights)  in any way during the awkward silence (getting a little purple here) that followed.  We simply looked at each other in silence.’

Does anyone with experience and sense believe Comey’s reaction?  I don’t.  Trump didn’t ask for criminal collusion as Comey implies, he wanted to know if Comey was a back stabber.  All Comey had to say was I do my job without fear or favor from anyone.  I will deal with you with integrity.  I will not be influenced by the hatred that I know surrounds you.  I am not your man but I will protect your administration from any unlawful assaults.  You will have no reason to find fault with me.’

Bingo! That’s it.  What does Comey do, he says and I mean I do not believe him, that he froze in the headlights.  Some Beltway operator.

Peggy runs through the right or wrong arguments through the rest of the article.  Then gives away the farm.  She says:

Then again, a conservative intellectual with small town roots wrote, during the testimony, that he thought this might be a break point, a moment when Trump’s supporters would listen close and think he’s not so much like them, and not so different from the swamp he means to drain.  I myself don’t know.

Let me help you, Peg, didn’t you describe Comey as smarmy and slick at the beginning of your article?  Didn’t you say he was a state-of-the-art Beltway operator?  Do you not think us small town rubes saw that immediately?  Trump is doing his best against terrific odds and that is clear to everyone but Trump’s enemies.  No, we are not breaking, the deal hasn’t gone down, he may not survive the beatdown but he would still be a better man than all the people in the Swamp for all that.