RNC sets up "war room" to destroy Comey

James Comey's much anticipated book, A Higher Loyalty:   Truth, Lies, and Leadership, will not be officially published until next Tuesday.   But copies have been leaked to the media, and it has been a major topic of discussion already for two days now.

Not only that, the Republican National Committee, apparently designated to take the lead in trying to destroy Comey's credibility as the chief Republican defense, has set up a "war room," and a web site dedicated to slamming Comey through personal attacks.

President Trump jumped into the fray Friday morning with tweets, calling Comey a "weak and untruthful slime ball" and "a proven LEAKER and LIAR."   "Time has proven . . . that he was a terrible Director of the FBI.   His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case .  . . will go down as one of the worst 'botch jobs' of history.  It was my great honor to fire James Comey."

In a sense, Comey set the tone with some of his language criticizing President Trump.   If you really want to have a book that takes the high road, worthy of your vaunted reputation for probity and integrity, you probably shouldn't say that the president reminds you of a mob boss in the way that he runs his organization.  Or comment about the size of his hands and the "realness" of his hair.

Remember that it was Comey who rushed to the hospital where his boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, lay gravely ill and was about to be pressured by President George W. Bush's chief of staff and White House counsel, to sign off on a reauthorization of surveillance techniques that he and Ashcroft both felt were outside the law.   Comey's refusal, as Acting AG, to sign it led to a strong stand by top figures in the Justice Department joining him in threatening to resign -- and ultimately to Bush backing down and bucking Cheney himself.

When President Obama later (2013) appointed Comey to be FBI Director, I thought it was a great choice, based on the above proven principles of integrity and willingness to speak truth to power.

But in the whole episode involving Comey's handling the public statements about the Hillary Clinton email investigation -- while refraining from saying that Donald Trump was also under investigation -- showed another side to the man that is less attractive.

I do not think Comey is a bad guy.   I think his reputation for integrity is deserved.   But there is a streak of having his 'saintliness go to his head' that leads him to do things like the different handling of the Clinton and Trump investigations.

In his mind, he saw it that the Clinton investigation was already closed and had so told the congressional committee.   So when he reopened it on finding Anthony Wiener's computer with some of his wife's correspondence with Clinton (whom she worked for), he felt he had to "correct the record" of what he himself had told congress.   Otherwise, he might later be accused of covering up something.

It's that certainty that his integrity must remain so unblemished that it becomes more important than anything else, even if it means -- as Hillary Clinton put it --"changing the course of history."

That's the complex moral conundrum that is James Comey.   Of course that's much too subtle and complex for the Trump base, as well as not nearly damning enough.   So they're setting out to destroy his credibility and his integrity.

The James Comey that the RNC and the Trump White House have gone into full war to destroy is something else.  When asked about it this afternoon, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was well prepared.  She usually has notes she glances at from time to time in her press briefings.    But, when asked this, she read from a long written statement that had obviously been prepared with talking points -- the same that are coming from this RNC War Room.   It's obviously a coordinated, carefully crafted narrative.

Sanders accused Comey of leaking classified information [not true] and of lying to congress under oath [not sure what that is a reference to, but congress doesn't seem to think so.] . . .  "Instead of being remembered as a dedicated servant in the pursuit of justice . . . Comey will be forever known as a disgraced partisan hack that broke the sacred trust with the President of the United States . . . "  

She also said:   "One of the few areas of true bipartisan consensus in Washington is Comey has no credibility" [not true].   Kellyanne Conway added her talking point:  "We find Mr. Comey has a revisionist view of history and seems like a disgruntled ex-employee."   She followed this canned statement with that fake smile that says 'we both know I'm lying through my teeth;  just grin and bear it because I've got the upper hand here.'

Of course a lot of Democrats are angry at Comey for what they feel was his role in robbing Clinton of the election;   but their anger and the Republicans' anger are not exactly a consensus.   They're for entirely different reasons.

As reported by CNN, the RNC War Room has a "battle plan:"   They will brand him as "Lyin' Comey" using their website, digital advertising and talking points, which were to have been sent out to Republicans before the book's publication date.   Maybe the publisher got wind of it and leaked the book to get the jump on them.

No doubt they'll stoke up the base and maybe even cast doubts in many more about the veracity of Comey's book.    But their concerted, pre-planned efforts are pretty good evidence of how scared they are of the effect of this tell-all by the man at the center of obstruction of justice charges against the sitting president.
    And well they should be scared.  It's a strong case.   But even that may be overshadowed by the jeopardy for the president of Michael Cohen's records that the federal prosecutors in New York now have.   

Ralph