Trump’s Game of Limbo Will Be Overwhelmed by Clarion Call to Exercise Constitutional Duty

Richard Levick, Chairman and CEO, LEVICKThe tipoff that the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey might pose a mortal threat to the Trump presidency is that the chief executive spent the last ten days playing a game of Twitter-fueled limbo.Just how low could this president go? Cede America’s moral leadership on climate issues by pulling out of a non-binding global pact to reduce carbon emissions? Nope, not low enough.Eviscerate the credibility of his legal and communications counsel by describing the administration’s efforts to strengthen immigrant vetting as a Muslim “travel ban” – the very thing his lawyers and aides have spent months trying to debunk? Despicably low, but still room to go lower.Attack the mayor of our historic ally’s capital city in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack? Since the man happens to be of Middle Eastern ancestry, Trump apparently felt it was fair game to maliciously distort the mayor’s words and impugn his integrity. Really, really low, but still not rock bottom.Rock bottom will likely come as Trump desperately tries to defend himself in the wake of Comey’s explosive allegations. The White House’s first salvo came right out of Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” playbook, with Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claiming that “The president is not a liar.” It will play just as well as Nixon’s notorious comment.Repeated efforts to thwart or short-circuit a criminal investigation get people into deep trouble in our society. Ask six top executives at Volkswagen, all of whom are or will soon be serving time.The classic response for any institution caught in a crisis is to try and change the conversation. Trump’s crisis team (the right idea, but to date, somehow never executed) is trying to proclaim, “See, no smoking gun with Comey!”But there was no smoking gun in Whitewater or Iran-Contra. Even Watergate lacked a singular ah-ha! moment – at best there was Nixon’s almost inaudible approval of trying to get the CIA to obstruct the FBI investigation. Trump will keep trying to raise the burden of proof bar to claim victory, but this strategy will ultimately fail for three reasons:

• The Trump-Russia special prosecution doesn’t need a smoking gun, just a constant drumbeat of investigation, accusations, leaks, damning testimony, and, from a legal point of view, intent. Within the first few minutes at the microphone, Comey had provided highly damaging fodder on all these fronts.
• Building a legal case is a brick-by-brick affair. This will likely take months, and to its ultimate completion, years. There will be many proof points along the way. Few, if any, will be smoking.
• There will be blood. This is likely to take years and could result in tremendous collateral damage. Lives will be ruined, careers ended, and fortunes toppled by legal bills and shame.

As a lawyer and former professor of the politics of U.S. Constitutional law, I take great interest when the world’s longest-lived constitution is threatened. This is not a partisan question, but a way-of-life query: If we do not stand by our Constitution, what does America stand for?Trump’s heavy-handed, let’s-talk-alone attempts to persuade the head of the FBI to drop the federal probe of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s dealings with the Russians, already forces the question of obstruction of justice. Whether legal scholar and commentator Jeffrey Toobin is already correct that, “Comey’s statement establishes obstruction of justice by Trump. Period,” it has changed the questions from proving improper or illegal relations with the Russians to one of intent. In other words, we are back to the cover up, not just the crime. It’s the same thing that forced Nixon, a far more sophisticated and experienced politician, to resign. President Trump has inadvertently lowered the bar of a potential crime. There may not yet be a smoking gun at the scene, but he is doing his best to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.Trump is trying to claim that the June 7 testimony of the other intelligence agency heads demonstrates that they didn’t view his attempts to meddle as necessarily criminal. But obstruction of justice is not a crime of actual intimidation – it’s a crime of attempted intimidation.If that standard holds, Trump’s presidency is in jeopardy.What separates the Comey testimony from such epic Capitol Hill moments as Anita Hill and Ollie North is the enormity of what’s at stake. The Anita Hill appearance was about the moral fiber of a Supreme Court nominee. Ollie North’s testimony was about the wisdom of a controversial intelligence scheme that went sideways. Both were important, but neither cut to the heart of a president’s fitness to serve.That fitness was called into question by House Speaker Paul Ryan before the hearing was even over. In a tepid attempt to defend Trump, Ryan said “The President’s new at this. He’s new to government, and so he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between the DOJ, FBI, and White House. He’s just new to this.”The question hovering over Comey’s testimony is: Has the president violated his oath of office to uphold the Constitution? And if so, does that violation constitute a “high crime and misdemeanor” – the constitutional threshold for impeachment?This is the rule of law versus the rule of a man – a man prone to authoritarian tendencies, erratic behavior, and contempt for democratic norms.Washington hasn’t waited with bated breath like this since former Nixon White House counsel John Dean testified before the Senate Select Committee on Watergate 44 years ago. Dean told the nation that he had warned President Nixon there was a “cancer” on his presidency. The criminality of the Watergate cover-up was far worse than the venality of the original burglary, Dean said.Comey in his own way was sounding a similar warning about cancerous deceit inside the Trump White House. The former FBI director described waking up in the middle of the night after Trump tweeted that there might be tapes and realized there “might be corroboration” about their meeting. This spurred him to leak his notes to a friend at Columbia Law School, who in turn leaked them to the press. As a result, a special counsel was appointed, fulfilling Comey’s ultimate goal.To Donald Trump, all of this is a game, an extension of his reality TV show that aired on NBC and continues to run between his ears. If Trump was bluffing about the existence of tapes, Comey called him on it, giving his full consent and urging to release them. Trump, in effect, challenged Comey to a game of chicken, and it appears now that Trump has been trampled. His frenetic tweeting is about salvaging the “ratings,” in this case his standing with core supporters.Right now, those ratings are not good. His approval numbers are down to the mid-30s. He’s cratering among Democrats and Independents and slowly beginning to slip significantly among Republicans. It is this latter number which, more than the law, will dictate the future.With wary eyes glued on the Robert Mueller investigation, few people seem willing to join his administration. The White House has only sent to the Senate some 20 percent of the executive branch nominees that require Senate confirmation.We’re rapidly approaching one of those rare moments in history where a clarion call gets issued. That call may be difficult for some congressional Republicans to hear – but given time, most will eventually see their constitutional responsibility. They’ve taken oaths, too.The American presidency is not a reality TV limbo contest that caters only to Trump’s angry base – white voters in the heartland left behind by a rapidly changing world. The presidency hinges on a solemn and sacred duty to uphold the Constitution, adhere to the rule of law, and safeguard the people.It’s not about seeing how low we can go. [author]About the Author: Richard Levick, Esq., @richardlevick, is Chairman and CEO of LEVICK, a global communications and public affairs agency specializing in risk, crisis and reputation management. He is a frequent television, radio, online, and print commentator.[/author]