A Turning Point for Trump
The reports of the Comey memo have thrust the country into a full Presidential reckoning.
Every Presidential scandal generates a dramatis personae—heroes, scapegoats, opportunists, and bitter-enders whose roles are unknowable at the outset.
.. Trump’s lieutenants and associates will have to decide which information to volunteer. In some cases, Trump is making their decisions easier, by humiliating them. “In terms of achievement, I think I’d give myself an A,” the President said on Fox News. He was less generous to his communications staff, giving them a “C or a C-plus.”
.. Trump, in the meeting with Russian officials, called Comey “crazy, a real nut job,” adding that firing him had relieved a “great pressure.” The Washington Post added its own revelation: the F.B.I. is investigating a current senior White House official—“someone close to the President”—as a “significant person of interest” in the Russia case.
.. Trump’s aides are acquiring a strange new power over him, because they will decide when to protect him and when to protect themselves.