Donald Trump’s threatening tweet to James Comey Friday morning isn’t scaring Comey, but that’s not to say there’s nothing scary about it. Trump tweeted that Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations.” CNN reports:
Former FBI Director James Comey is "not worried about any tapes" of conversations between him and President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the matter told CNN Friday, adding that "if there is a tape, there's nothing he is worried about" that could be on it.
If we lived in a world where Congress was willing to hold Trump accountable, Trump might be the one to have something to worry about:
In this case, however, the Twitter comment comes in the context of an F.B.I. investigation, and some experts said the president was skirting a legal line. Samuel W. Buell, a Duke University law professor and former federal prosecutor who led the Enron task force, said that although it was ambiguous whether firing Mr. Comey in the first place amounted to obstruction of justice, Mr. Trump’s threats on Twitter to quiet Mr. Comey could more clearly fall into that category.
“Obstruction of an obstruction investigation is also obstruction,” Mr. Buell said. “If this were an actual criminal investigation — in other words, if there were a prosecutor and a defense lawyer in the picture — this would draw a severe phone call to counsel warning that the defendant is at serious risk of indictment if he continues to speak to witnesses. Thus, this is also definitive evidence that Trump is not listening to counsel and perhaps not even talking to counsel. Unprecedented in the modern presidency.”
That is not, however, the world we live in. Obstruction, lies, threats … these are all things congressional Republicans are fine with as long as they get their far-right judges and tax cuts for rich people.