Love him, or loathe him, James Comey’s story is just too good to ignore.
Is there Russian influence over U.S. President Donald Trump? The former FBI director told USA Today there’s a “non-zero possibility.”
Did Donald Trump obstruct justice by asking him to let former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn go? There’s “certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice,” Comey told ABC News.
His book is even more salacious. He addresses everything from rumours of a “pee tape,” to Trump’s haircut and tan lines.
It might all seem like a devastating blow to the president, delivered by America’s former top law enforcement official, but in this highly-polarized world, it’s probably not.
“The president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey writes.
“One of the president’s great achievements will go down as firing James Comey,” explained White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
Them’s fightin’ words.
The tale will sell a lot of books and fill a lot of airtime — but here’s the thing: it’s not going to move the needle of public opinion or consequence in any meaningful way.
But there is one story that will.
The raid on the offices of Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen promises to be deeply problematic for the president and those close to him – even more dangerous than Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion with Russia.
Michael Cohen essentially has the keys to Trump’s kingdom. He’s perhaps the only person with intimate knowledge of Trump’s professional, political and personal lives.
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He’s often described as Trump’s personal “fixer” — a guy who makes problems go away.
“It looks as though he may have handled a lot of sensitive, delicate transactions for Mr. Trump,” explained former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Thomas Dupree, “and once we take the lid off of that pot and start looking in there, who knows what they could find.”
The FBI opened the pot when it raided Cohen’s office and hotel room last week. Investigators gathered documents, emails and possibly recordings of phone calls with Cohen’s clients.
Simply put, If this was all started by the investigation into Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, it almost certainly will not end there.
WATCH ABOVE: ‘Some documents’ seized in Michael Cohen raid by FBI were about Stormy Daniels, lawyer says
“I strongly suspect that before the dust settles it will go off into directions that many of us have not even thought of at this point,” Dupree told me.
President Trump’s immediate reaction to the raid on Cohen was anger.
“They broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it’s a disgraceful situation,” he told reporters at the time.
WATCH ABOVE: Donald Trump slams FBI raid on lawyer Michael Cohen, saying ‘attorney–client privilege is dead!’
Since then, Trump has reportedly been rattled by the developments, with his mood said to be “growing darker.”
Cohen’s legal team has already fought to suppress materials gathered by the FBI, arguing they’re protected by attorney-client privilege. In response, federal prosecutors have argued Cohen is performing “little to no legal work.” A judge is now deciding whether the evidence can eventually be used.
Clearly, this hit close to home for the president.
Trump once warned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would cross a red line if he looked into his business and finances.
Suddenly, the most intimate details of Trump’s business dealings risk being exposed by a completely separate criminal investigation. Worse for Trump, this isn’t the Mueller probe, which he has the power to stop or curtail. This is an outside investigation, led by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“It’s not something where you can say we’re simply going to shut down this investigation in the same way that he potentially could shut down the Mueller investigation by terminating the special counsel himself,” Dupree explained. “Someone else would come in and take it over.”
No one fully understands how this will all play out. All we know is that the man at the centre of Trump’s world, with all that he knows, is suddenly outside the president’s grasp.
Jackson Proskow is Washington Bureau Chief for Global National News.
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