Crying Wolf on "Impeachment"

So now President Trump has been in office for about four months.  Calls for his impeachment, which literally started before his inauguration, have been echoing in the echo chamber that is the left, the congressional Democrat caucus and the media.

Now, the fact that they started screaming the "I word" before January 20 is relevant, in that it supports the point of this piece.

You see, to date there has been no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians as far as interference with the 2016 elections is concerned.  None.  And that was what all the impeachment talk was about then and, for the most part, since.  As I've pointed out this week -- Tuesday, in fact -- there needs to be a point at which that set of investigations dies for lack of anything discovered that presumes guilt, let alone suggests impeachability.

Since the president's inauguration, there have been further cries for impeachment, whether for not releasing taxes when the left wants him to, or for not firing James Comey, or for firing James Comey, or for parting his hair on this side or that.

That's pretty much the problem.  Donald Trump does not appear to have done anything remotely suggesting an impeachment, yet the left screams and yells for his head on an hourly basis.  And that brings us to Aesop's Fables #210, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

That boy, as we recall, was long ago digested by a wolf, having falsely cried that a wolf was near too many times.  When there really was a wolf, no one paid attention and the boy got eaten.  He learned his lesson, all right, but a few bites too late.

That's pretty much what we have here.

The latest, of course, is that after James Comey was fired, he decided to release a memo he is supposed to have written after a private chat with the president.  The memo was from notes to himself wherein he noted that the president had in some form asked him to end an investigation into Gen. Michael Flynn, who had been paid by Russian television for some service or appearance, and failed to mention the fact to the Trump campaign before being named National Security Advisor, whereupon he was eventually fired.

Now, what the FBI is investigating in regard to Flynn, I don't really know.  To date, the only thing that he appears to have done wrong is to fail to disclose having done a paid service to the Russian TV company (RT).  That is certainly a bad thing, but at this point we all know it.  What else is there that rises to the level of a full-on FBI investigation as far as Flynn is concerned?

If President Trump actually did send the other attendees at the meeting that day out of the room, and privately asked Comey to slow the investigation, then where are we?  The "high crime" the left is screaming about would be "obstruction of justice", and we are left with (A) what Trump actually said to Comey; (B) what words Trump remembers saying to Comey about Flynn; (C) what Comey wrote down after the meeting about what Trump said; and (D) what Comey actually thought he heard.

If there were to be an investigation and even a trial about all that, you would be left with A, B, C and D, and it would all come down to two things -- the credibility of the president and the FBI director, and the extent to which what was actually said falls on the spectrum between "I hope you'll not grind the reputation of a good man who served his country" and "You need to stop this investigation right now."

Unfortunately, it is pretty likely that neither was actually said in so many words.  From what we have learned about this president, it is likely that he could have said words meaning to express the former sentiment, that is, that he was trying to express a personal feeling for the reputation of the general.  It is very unlikely that he would have grossly overstepped the law by telling Comey to stop the investigation.

And Comey's memo would likely reflect what he thought he heard and what he thought the president was trying to express, which may not reflect what he was trying to express.  His word, the president's word.  You're going to get an impeachment on that?  Unless Comey testifies under oath that he thought that the guy who, by the way, had since fired him and thus would have an axe to grind, had told him to stop an investigation, there is nothing there from a prosecutorial sense. 

(And, since a month or two went by with him holding that note, Comey risks prosecution under 18 USC Section 4 for having not reported immediately an obstruction of justice.  Which means he didn't see it, right then and there, as obstruction -- get it?  If it wasn't then, it isn't now.)

So then what?  The left will have "cried wolf" yet again, and nothing will have been there to show for it.  With no tangible evidence, this irresponsible series of impeachment calls will go flat.  And the left will have played its impeachment card and lost.  That card is gone, folks, if they do that.  The wolf will come and eat the boy, and come 2018 the Democrats will again get their butts handed to them, because they will have been nothing but obstructionists for two years with absolutely nothing to offer the USA.

So sure, left, you do all that impeachment stuff, because it is simply seen as an attempt to delegitimize the president and the presidency, and it is not going to resonate when we are still stuck with Obamacare and high tax rates in 2018.

Growl.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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