Buchanan defends his acolyte

Pat Buchanan Calls Watergate Comparisons ‘Grossly Invalid’

The sulfurous PB is quoted in Breitbart, bastion of Buchananism and organ of Trump's staffer, Steve Bannon, as retailing what is by now a standard Republican talking point.

I think the comparison is grossly invalid for this reason, I don’t think there’s any crime in what I have read that Comey wrote. 

If Comey believed that the President of the United States had engaged in an obstruction of justice, he had a moral and a legal obligation to go to the Deputy Attorney General and tell him exactly what had transpired … 

He did nothing like that. 

He just put it in his files.

And the later quote:

“To suggest that because Donald Trump said, ‘look, take it easy on General Flynn, he’s had a rough time’ that this is some crime, I think it’s absurd,” Buchanan argued.

But it has been noted by several lawyers in the public discussion of the matter that whether or not what the president said to Comey - rather roughly cited by PB in the above quoted remark - was obstruction of justice depends on whether or not his intent was "corrupt".

And that, taking the remark by itself, such corrupt intent is not egregious is exactly why Comey did not, at that time, rush off and tattle to the AG.

But it is the Democrats' view that the subsequent firing of Comey is evidence, and pretty good evidence, that the president's intention was indeed corrupt in the relevant, legal sense of the word.

Perhaps not conclusive and certainly not impervious to rebuttal, but evidence of exactly that, all the same.

Especially given the president's own revelation regarding the dismissal to Lester Holt.

The New York Times.

“And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,’” Mr. Trump told Lester Holt of NBC News. 

“It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”

[Is this in the Breitbart piece true?

Wow.

I am indeed an old fart.

“Most Americans weren’t even alive back in 1972, 73, 74. I can understand why some people rush and compare one thing to another,” Buchanan said, seeking to explain the prevalence of such comparisons. 

“There’s a gross exaggeration and something approaching a sense of insecurity and panic here in town when, again, it’s not justified by the reality.”

Update. 

Good heavens, he's right!

The CIA world factbook says the US median age for 2017 is 36.6 years.

Egad.]