Paul Ryan, as speaker of the House of Representatives, is the leader of his party’s caucus in the lower chamber. He’s also a constitutional officer of the United States, with obligations to the Congress and the country that transcend party. Here is his take on former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony that President Donald Trump repeatedly sought to intervene in an ongoing criminal investigation in an inappropriate way: “He’s just new to this.” Ryan told reporters on Thursday that he “probably wasn’t steeped in long-running protocols.”
Meanwhile, virtually every Republican celebrated the news that, at the time Comey was still in office, Trump was not personally under investigation from the FBI.
This is part of an ongoing process of Republicans lowering the bar for Trump’s statements and conduct in a way that is both nonsensical and dangerous. The president of the United States is not supposed to interfere in criminal investigations. There’s no “he only did it with a light touch” or “it was to help out a buddy, not himself […]
As is often the case, Vox cherry picks its news bits and gets its analysis wrong. The most intriguing thing about the Comey hearing was that the Republicans _didn’t_ rake him over the coals or generally grandstand in favor of Trump. Several of Comey’s Republican questioners were even complimentary towards and generally respectful of the former FBI director. In most partisan Congressional hearings of late the partisanship has been palpable with lots of bluster and grandstanding on whichever side has its shorts in a ringer while the other side twists it. In this case even the Democrats were surprisingly (and atypically) calm and un-blusterous (if I can invent that word!)–probably because the Republicans largely feel the same way they do about Trump. It was striking how tepid the Republican defense of Trump was, which puts the lie to this Vox analysis. (continued below)
(continued) There was the obligatory “stand by your man” lip service that either party has to give their embattled chief executives (you heard it in spades from the Democrats during Bill Clinton’s troubles while in office), but it was lukewarm at best. This reflects my own engagement with most fellow Republicans (excepting the most diehard irrational Trump supporters). The average Republican, whether rank-in-file or legislator, knows a pig in a poke when he or she sees one. But since it’s _their_ pig, they have to figure out how to make the best of it while doing the least amount of damage. Sometimes that equates to trying to find excuses for the bumbler in chief, in hopes that he will develop some ethics and common sense before the end of his term (I, though, am not holding my breath). Vox, predictably, is merely flogging its agenda at the expense of more thoughtful analysis.