{"id":308684,"date":"2017-05-18T04:03:37","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T03:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-hidden-bombshell-in-the-comey-trump-story\/"},"modified":"2017-05-18T04:03:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T03:03:37","slug":"the-hidden-bombshell-in-the-comey-trump-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-hidden-bombshell-in-the-comey-trump-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Bombshell in the Comey-Trump Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

How can you tell an authoritarian when you see one? We know the 20th century hallmarks \u2014 brown shirts, street rallies, and the like. But there\u2019s an autocratic attitude, some historians suggest, that can easily be traced across the centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it simply, New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat <\/span>told <\/span>Democracy Now<\/span><\/i><\/a> recently,<\/span> “authoritarians believe that institutions should serve them, and not the other way around.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Just ask Jim Comey \u2014 who, as recently as October, might\u2019ve been Donald Trump\u2019s favorite person. <\/span><\/p>\n

Less than two weeks before the November vote, the now-former FBI director announced that he was reopening an investigation into one of Trump\u2019s favorite subjects: Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails. For that, Trump praised Comey\u2019s “guts,” while Clinton now blames Comey\u2019s announcement for costing her the election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump seemed happy to accept that help. But in a twist, Comey also found the guts to investigate whether Trump accepted help from the Russians, too. For that, he was fired this month. “This Russia thing” was “a made-up story,” Trump complained by way of explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"comey-trump-fbi\"<\/p>\n

Khalil Bendib\/ OtherWords.org<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

All that\u2019s explosive enough. Even more so was <\/span>a subsequent revelation<\/span><\/a>: That Trump had called on Comey to “let go” of an investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s national security adviser who\u2019d been ousted for lying about his own contacts with the Russians. <\/span><\/p>\n

That little bombshell is now headline news all over. But buried in the <\/span>New York Times <\/span><\/i>story about that memo was another, less noticed bomblet: “Alone in the Oval Office,” the paper reported, Trump said “Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information.”<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right: In addition to asking Comey to stop investigating his friend Flynn, the president called on the FBI director to arrest journalists who published things Trump found unflattering. Perhaps including stories like this one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was this an impulsive request? Not likely. In fact, the administration appears to have been laying the groundwork for this for some time. <\/span><\/p>\n

Take WikiLeaks. Trump once said he “loved” the group for publishing leaked Clinton campaign emails. But then it earned the White House\u2019s enmity by also publishing details about <\/span>CIA hacking<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s CIA director has since described WikiLeaks as “<\/span>a hostile foreign intelligence service<\/span><\/a>” and warned that “America\u2019s First Amendment freedoms” will not “shield them from justice.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions is now trying to bring a case against the group\u2019s founder, Julian Assange.<\/span><\/p>\n

While leaking classified information may be a crime, publishing it most certainly isn\u2019t \u2014 that\u2019s been protected by the Supreme Court <\/span>since the early 1970s<\/span><\/a>. In this respect, any charges brought against WikiLeaks could equally be brought against virtually every newspaper and TV station in the country. <\/span><\/p>\n

Which, by all appearances, is the idea. When CNN asked if the WikiLeaks case could lead to charges against other outlets, Sessions <\/span>didn\u2019t bother to deny it<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, this is all under the auspices of a candidate who called journalists “lying, disgusting people” and even <\/span>wondered aloud<\/span> <\/a>about whether he\u2019d kill them as president. (He ultimately said no, but seemed reluctant.) And it\u2019s the same White House that wants to sue journalists whose reporting it disputes. <\/span><\/p>\n

But consider that Michael S. Schmidt, the <\/span>Times <\/span><\/i>reporter who broke the Comey memo story, happens to be <\/span>the very same person<\/span><\/a> who reported on Hillary Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server. Has anyone benefited more from that reporting than Trump?<\/span><\/p>\n

It all depends on the headlines that come next, apparently. <\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019ve surely been spotty about it, but in a democracy public institutions \u2014 from law enforcement to the free press \u2014 are supposed to serve the public, not the president. If Trump can\u2019t accept that, maybe he\u2019s the one who should be fired.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can you tell an authoritarian when you see one? We know the 20th century hallmarks \u2014 brown shirts, street rallies, and the like. But there\u2019s an autocratic attitude, some historians suggest, that can easily be traced across the centuries. To put it simply, New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat told Democracy Now recently, “authoritarians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":308646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-308684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}