The head of the FBI works for the Attorney General, who is a member of the President’s cabinet. His agency conducts investigations for, and makes recommendations to, the Justice Department. It has no authority beyond what that department grants it. The director of the FBI is hired, and can be fired, by the President.
J. Edgar Hoover wanted his agency to be free from any control, and this dangerous legacy lives on in the person of James Comey. A federal agency, like the FBI, which is unaccountable is incompatible with the Constitution.
When Hoover retired his deputy director, loyalist Mark Felt, was offended that he was not named to replace him. He had no respect for the new acting director named by President Nixon, Patrick Gray, who was not a law enforcement professional. At the end of his life Felt admitted that he, indeed, was “Deep Throat.” He had destroyed Nixon’s Presidency, and he wanted that understood. You don’t mess with the FBI.
James Comey is no Mark Felt, and the issues surrounding his dismissal by Trump are trivial. Far from being another Watergate, this is nothing more than a political red herring. The media will obsess over it for a while, and then the story dies.
What concerns me is that some within the Deep State may be so opposed to our normalization of relations with Russia that they have seized on this story to stymie it. It’s not going to work. Trump knows what he wants with the Russians, and he’s going to get it. The stakes are too high to be deterred by fake news.
Trump may be tweeting a lot in response to Comey’s testimony. He’ll feel better after firing off a few tweets, and he’ll have some valid points to make. His Twitter account is partly responsible for his election, and it’s hard to give up.
On some level, it’s as though Trump doesn’t realize what the American people expect from a President, any President. And that is decorum. We’re a conservative people, and we traditionally expect our Presidents to abide by certain norms of behavior. What’s acceptable in a Presidential candidate is not proper for a sitting President. Tweets just aren’t presidential.
Bill Fruth, National Co-Founder of the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, has the Phoenix Convention of States website up and running. It’s at bbaplanningconvention.org. I urge you to visit and learn more about it.
We haven’t had a national Convention of States since before the Civil War, and this is a major political development. Bill is working in close consultation with a committee of the Arizona legislature, led by Speaker J. D. Mesnard. I’ll be announcing major decisions concerning the convention here at the Reagan Project, or you can check the website.
I’m very excited about the direction the Convention is taking. These Arizona legislators, particularly Speaker Mesnard, get it. This will be a meeting with vast implications, and everyone involved is taking it very seriously.
Three months from now, history will be made in Phoenix, Arizona.
reaganproject.com 