There have only been three things circulating the news for the last 24 hours: Trump, Trump, and Trump.
But what’s happened?
Comey happened. From President Trump firing him, to the revelation that Trump asked Comey to shut down the F.B.I. investigation into Michael Flynn to the push for Comey to testify about what he knows, things are going downhill fast for the White House.
“We need to see the memo, (…) We need to have Comey come in and testify.” – Republican Senator Marco Rubio
In fact, things are going south so fast that the GOP is panicking. Politico reports that Hill Republicans have started looking at a president Pence option, and are wondering if Trump will last the year. Many are also extremely unhappy with the White House’s lack of damage control and are worried about how the constant creation of new scandals will hurt their legislative agenda, which has pretty much stalled as Republicans are busy trying to deal with the chaos that has gripped Washington.
One White House official described the current situation by saying, “we are kind of helpless.”
According to a report by the New York Times of a memo written by James Comey himself, Trump asked Comey to “let things go” surrounding the federal investigation into Michael Flynn. This is seen to be a direct attempt by Trump to influence the investigation into the ties between his campaign and the Russian Government.
Even discussions regarding impeachment have risen. Although the GOP isn’t quite ready yet to abandon their president, sources have documented that some GOP members of Congress, such as Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), support the idea of impeachment if the Comey allegations are true.
Amash tells reporters that if Comey memo allegations are true, it's grounds for impeachment. Says he trusts Comey more than Trump.
— Katie Bo Williams (@KatieBoWill) May 17, 2017
House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz has also asked Comey to come forward with his alleged memos against Trump, which is an idea already currently supported by Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. With the increased need for Comey to testify publicly, everything is up in the air.
.@GOPoversight is going to get the Comey memo, if it exists. I need to see it sooner rather than later. I have my subpoena pen ready.
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) May 16, 2017
Another recent addition to the ongoing story that is Trump and Russia is the absence of media involvement into meetings between Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russias Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Representative Barbara Comstock of Virgina states that “we need to have immediate classified briefings on what occurred at this meeting [between Trump and Putin] so that Congress can at least know as much as Russian leaders and know the impact on our national security, our allies, and our men and women protecting our country.”This story will continue to surround the White House as Putin is now supposedly releasing records of the controversial meeting.
Whatever is happening in Washington is sure to spill over. With foreign policy issues, such as the looming tensions with North Korea and the 9- day trip Trump’s is taking to “Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium, Italy and the Vatican” coming up on Friday, also up in the air, anything can happen.
But what’s going to happen the next four years? Who knows. If the current political climate stays the same, the House and Senate might respond to the impeachment claims. With the countless amounts of scandals already surrounding just the first few months of his administration, interesting events are sure to happen.
