Joy-ann Reid, as usual, continued to give some of the most cogent analysis on political issues. She dissed the GOP talking point attempting to doubt the veracity of the Comey memo and laid out the map that will force an independent counsel. Watch her connect the dots.
Joy-ann Reid strikes again with path to an independent counsel
Joy-ann Reid counters GOP talking point that questioned Comey’s delay in talking about memo detailing Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. The misdirection won’t work. She explains why and maps the way to an independent counsel.
“In this case, here is the way you wind up with an independent counsel which is probably the thing the White House has to fear the most,” Joy-ann Reid said. “It is that this talking point you are hearing from a lot of Republicans– Lindsey Graham has deployed it, the White House is deploying it — that if Jim Comey had these concerns, he should have just gone to the Justice Department. Who would he have gone to? Jeff Session is implicated in Russiagate himself and had to recuse himself. Mr. Rosenstein has obviously made it clear that he is a ‘yes’ man. He is the direct supervisor of the FBI director.”
“He clearly would not have been someone reliable,” Reid continued. Should he have gone to Congress where Devin Nunes an apparatchik of the White House as head of the House Intelligence Committee where the current Republican heads either the Senate or House Intelligence Committees who are critically reluctant to do anything other than help Donald Trump by adding leaks and other things to their investigation? And it would have leaked immediately as his previous memo on Hillary Clinton did. So this is somebody who had nowhere to go. He essentially had to act on his own.”
And henceforth …
“And so you have this situation where Republicans now can’t say that the remedy is for Mr. Rosenstein to appoint another special prosecutor who could also be fired. And we can now see that the president has no self-restraint. He would probably just fire him too. The only avenue really left, and Republicans again are mighty reluctant to do this, they do not want to do this. They don’t want to take the only avenue, impeachment. They don’t want to take the political avenue. They are not going to be left with many choices. As Andrea Mitchel has said on this air, the ground is shifting quickly under them. They don’t want it to be. But it is.”
Joy-ann Reid did not allow the budding talking point to go unanswered. Many Republicans talking are attempting to blur the lines by claiming if the memo had merit it should have been released earlier. Reid’s type of pushback is essential.