Donald Trump's Cratering Credibility

FBI Director James Comey finally did his duty this week when he testified under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that no evidence exists that Barack Obama wiretapped Donald Trump’s phone last year. It took Comey more than two weeks to say what everyone with a lick of sense knew was the truth all along, that Trump’s tweet three Saturday’s ago accusing his predecessor of a crime worse than Watergate is a lie.

Contrast Comey’s glacial response time with that of British intelligence. Last week, Fox News host Judge Andrew Napolitano said the reason no one can find any evidence that American intelligence agencies tapped Trump’s phone is because the British intelligence agency GCHQ did it. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer repeated the claim the next day. Without delay, GCHQ released an extraordinary rare public statement. “Recent allegations made by media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

The very next day, Spicer and Trump’s National Security Advisor HR McMaster effectively apologized. Fox News suspended Napolitano indefinitely for sparking an international incident with fake news.

That’s the proper way to handle libelous allegations—with instant contempt, and in public.

Compare the results. American journalists and government officials spent more than a week pretending to take Trump’s tweet semi-seriously. Members of Congress said they’d look into it. Reporters asked the White House when they’d see evidence. As if there was anything to look into. As if any evidence might actually be provided some day in the future.

Meanwhile, the British government slammed the case closed in 24 hours. No one will ever ask another question about it again unless they wish to embarrass Sean Spicer.

Comey shouldn’t have waited two and a half weeks to say what he must have known he’d have to say from the very beginning. He should have called a snap press conference within the hour, or at the very least issued a terse statement as GCQH did, rather than let a toxic allegation from the highest level of government stink up America’s air for so long.

Donald Trump is indeed an “unconventional” president, and he takes some getting used to. That’s fine. We’re all going through an adjustment period here. The proper response isn’t instantly obvious to those of us accustomed to giving the president of the United States, no matter who he or she may be, a little deference and respect. I spent eight years politely criticizing the Obama administration and expected to spend the next four or eight years politely criticizing Hillary Clinton’s administration. When Trump eked out a narrow Electoral College victory, I promised myself that I’d do my best to criticize him with the same respectful tone I had used in the past.  

Hundreds if not thousands of journalists and government officials made the same decision I did even as others dug in on day one for total political warfare. I am a moderate by ideology and by temperament. Total political warfare doesn’t suit me, at least not at home in the United States. Finding my footing hasn’t been easy, and it still isn’t. It’s obvious, though, that Britain’s response was the correct one.

Comey’s response, while serious and polite and respectful, is a vestige, an anachronism from an earlier era. “With respect to the president’s tweets,” he said in his testimony, “I have no information that supports those tweets. We have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

He looked carefully inside the FBI? Really? He was under oath, so he probably did, and if so, what a mistake. GCHQ didn’t look inside its own agency carefully, I assure you—it didn’t have time—any more than NASA would look seriously inside its own organization if Vladimir Putin accused it of fomenting international terrorism.

Important men and women with dignified jobs have better things to do than go on a snipe hunt.

The FBI shouldn’t have spent more than five minutes “investigating” Trump’s ludicrous claim that Obama wiretapped his phone for the same reason that they never investigated Trump’s equally ludicrous claim that Obama was born in Kenya. Despite what Trump has said on the subject, law enforcement will not waste its time looking into whether or not Senator Ted Cruz’s father participated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, nor will the Federal Election Commission bother proving or disproving the president’s boast that he won the popular vote because three million people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. The American Medical Association certainly won’t look into Trump’s claim that vaccines cause autism. It was thoroughly debunked years before the president disgraced himself by repeating it.

Serious people can’t take the president of the United States seriously. He is a compulsive liar and a crackpot conspiracy theorist and must be treated accordingly without delay.