Being afraid of being caught in the act of doing some ugly things, Donald J. Trump is trying to hide something completely obvious to all behind his back. But he is President of America, not the dear little Johny of the pampering Papa. It is in his nature all the time. Lying is what he has done most in his life.
The latest addition of this is his lying about the reason of the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey. At the recent CNN's town hall debate titled 'A White House in Crisis', Senator Bernie Sanders said, "There has never been a president - or even a candidate - who has lied all of the time."
The FBI Director became famous by revealing just 11 days before the presidential election that he was going to start the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email scandal. The timing of his declaration was deliberate and Clinton along with many others believes it played the most decisive role in her defeat in the election. James Comey, however, has a reputation for sincerity.
He was a Republican and Barack Obama appointed him. Though he played a strong role in sucking away the speed from the Hillary campaign at a crucial time, he refused to support Trump's allegation of wiretapping against Obama. Then came the allegation of Russian connection in the Trump victory as President of America.
Comey was ready to launch the investigation into Trump associates about this. He asked for more resources to conduct the investigation. This determination of Comey to go deeper into the matter and his refusal to back down from the course scared and infuriated Trump to such an extent as to sack him from the job.
But in Trumpian words, Comey had 'a lot of guts' when his letter to Congress suddenly slowed down the Clinton machine in the presidential race. Now he is no more than a 'grandstander' and a 'showboat', according to President Trump.
There can be nothing more joking than the reason Trump put forward for his sacking, which is his mishandling of the case of Hillary's use of a personal server for e-mail. For his mishandling of e-mail issue Comey deserved some punishment months ago, but it waited until he was going to launch an investigation into Trump's Russian connection in the election.
The method of sacking him was extremely crude. It can remind anyone in Bangladesh of the Ershad period, when, it is said that every day his ministers used to go to office after they had watched TV in the morning to be sure that they had not been kicked out and still been holding office. But Trump went a step farther than our Ershad in his drama of firing some high official. James Comey was addressing staff at an event in Los Angeles and this news flashed up on TV screens. He thought it was a joke but very soon learned that it was what really happened to him. Ministers who lost their jobs in our country in such crude ways in the past can take a lot of consolation from the Comey case in the USA, supposed to be the foremost democratic country in the world.
Nicholas Kristof wrote in his article aptly titled 'Is President Trump Obstructing Justice?' in The New York Times (May 13, 2017), "Trump challenges the legitimacy of checks on his governance, bullies critics and obfuscates everything. Trump reminds me less of past American presidents than of the "big men" rulers I covered in Asia and Africa, who saw laws simply as instruments with which to punish rivals."
Kristof wrote about Trump, "he has waged war on truth."With an approval rating of as low as 35 percent, the lowest for any new American President, "Trump is now a wounded animal, desperate and dangerous. Survival is an overwhelming, instinctual impulse," wrote Charles M. Blow in the NYT (May 15, 2017). Trump's struggle for survival as President has begun from the time of his victory in the election because he is the only President in American history, talk about whose impeachment has started from the moment he sat on the throne.
This talk of his impeachment is growing day by day and having new dimensions. Mr. Blow wrote in that article, "Banking on an easy impeachment or resignation or a shiny set of handcuffs is incredibly tempting for those drained and depressed by Trump's unabated absurdities, perversions of truth and facts and assaults on custom, normalcy and civility."
Yet, still now, Donald Trump, President of America has been able to say aloud, like the little Johny in the nursery rhyme, "Ha! Ha! Ha!," whenever the American people asked him to open his mouth.
The writer is Executive Editor of Shikkhalok,
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