President Trump’s lawyer should have checked. Instead, at a press conference immediately following the Senate Intelligence Committee testimony of James Comey, Marc Kasowitz doubled down. And in doing so, he forced a losing showdown between the president and the former FBI director.
In the most stark contradiction, Comey accuses Trump of demanding fealty while Kasowitz insists the president “never told Mr. Comey ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’ in form or substance.” Now that whole Comey-said, Trump-said charade raises a question that will nag the president as long as rumors of Russian electoral-meddling drive headlines: Because both men are accusing each other of lying, why not release the infamous audio tapes of their conversation that Trump referenced on Twitter?
Before the lawyer could finish delivering his remarks, reporters were asking just that. And barely a couple hours prior to that, Comey said the same thing while under oath. “Release all the tapes,” Comey challenged. “I’m good with it.”
Thanks to the bloviating Trump lawyer, Republicans find themselves in a losing situation. Two obvious possibilities come immediately to mind.
Assume for a moment that the tapes do exist and that Trump was being completely truthful. Regardless, releasing the fabled recordings does the president little good. He would look like an indecisive wimp who allowed his young presidency to waste away because of a needless national controversy that he inflicted on himself by firing Comey.
Alternatively, assume instead that the tapes do exist but that Trump was less than truthful. Releasing those tapes would be akin to dumping blood in a swimming pool of sharks before doing a cannonball. It’d be an especially stupid kind of suicide.
Considering Trump’s track record, it’s more likely that the president was bluffing about the tapes the whole time. In that case, the safe bet would have been to avoid a credibility conflict with Comey.
While perhaps unseemly, there wasn’t anything completely damning in Comey’s testimony. Had wiser legal heads prevailed, it’s easy to imagine a public statement spinning the hearing into a victory. Ben Shapiro over at the Daily Wire tweeted one out in less than 30 minutes. Trump could have just highlighted the fact that he wasn’t under investigation, as he had said, and called it a day.
Instead, the White House upped the ante by needlessly contradicting Comey — Trump’s lawyer has helped elevate a question that could haunt the rest of his presidency.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
