Three scandals were on display in Monday's hearing by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. One involves allegations that may not pan out. Two others already have.
The one in dispute is whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russian hackers. Only a proper investigation can answer that. Openly admiring, pandering to and clumsily imitating Vladimir Putin is one thing. Illegally colluding with his hackers would be another.
The second scandal on display was the outlook of the GOP majority on the committee. It was the same outlook the party had in President George W. Bush's administration. Party loyalty is one thing, but blind party loyalty is another.
The GOP majority did not adequately check and balance Bush. You were either for the president or against him, and they were for him. The result was disaster followed by severe political defeat for the GOP. Yet as misguided as Bush was, I still see him as a decent person who had what he thought was the interest of his country at heart.
Trump does not have Bush's personal qualities, and his worldview is even more misguided. If there was ever a president who needed a healthy dose of skepticism from even his friends, it is President Donald J. Trump.
Monday served up a truly frightening level of "see no evil" from the Republican participants. The recently resigned national security adviser was an informant for the Russians. Yet the GOP members wanted to focus on who let news of his divided loyalties out, forcing that resignation.
Part of this pitch that the "real" scandal was the leaks had to have been posturing. If this particular secret had not gotten out, adviser Michael Flynn would have access to every secret the nation has. He could have forwarded anything. Even assuming Flynn is completely loyal, only misguided, he is still clearly a man with terrible judgment and worse ability to keep secrets from foreign clients. Monday's concentration on leaks was like complaining about some dripping when it was the first sign a pipe had burst.
Flynn never would have set foot in a Bush White House.
Some of the congressmen must know better, but are in a tight spot. Their voters, the party faithful, have closed ranks around the president. They demand he be protected. Those voters have forgotten that unquestioning loyalty is a weakness. "Trust, but verify," to quote the apparently now-forgotten President Ronald Reagan.
Then there is the third scandal. The president of the United States made a serious allegation out of thin air. The director of the FBI confirmed there was no evidence backing Trump's claim he was wiretapped by President Obama.
The president had smeared his predecessor with a fiction. The sad and revealing reaction to the news was a collective shrug. The public already knew. Trump's claim was absurd on its face. There would be no point to wiretapping a man whose every thought goes out on Twitter.
Related to the wiretapping claim were the truly bizarre actions of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., on Wednesday. He's the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the one that's supposed to be investigating the Russia-Trump allegations. He rushed out with news that some members of Trump's team had been caught on surveillance. Clearly, he thought this lent some credence to the wiretapping. What he revealed is that Trump team members had, indeed, been recorded -- during court-ordered surveillance of foreigners.
To recap: Trump's team is under FBI investigation for being too cozy with foreigners. Trump team members were recorded during surveillance of foreigners of interest. Nunes thought this was a good thing to announce. He called news conferences -- two in the same day, in fact. One was after he briefed the president on the topic. Let me repeat that: after he briefed the president.
"Investigators don't normally brief the people they're investigating," as the wildly liberal Huffington Post tactfully put it, practically grinning as it did so.
And Nunes thought all this was a good thing for his side. This is stupefying. But wait. There is more.
"As Republicans including Nunes complain about unauthorized leaks of classified information to the press, he has come forward to publicize anonymously obtained intelligence community materials." Thank David A. Graham of the Atlantic magazine for that crisp summary.
Forget the Democrats. They are as defeated as a major party can be. Your worst enemy, Republicans, is yourself.
Commentary on 03/25/2017