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James Clapper: Defending democracy from Trump
Story highlights
- Last week, a day after James Clapper testified before the Senate, Trump fired James Comey
- Juliette Kayyem: Since then, Clapper has become a staunch critic of Trump and defender of American democracy
CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem is the author of the best-selling "Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home." She is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, host of the national security podcast The SCIF and founder of Kayyem Solutions, a security consulting firm. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.
(CNN)Last
week, when he testified before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, James
Clapper, former director of national intelligence, had the disposition
of someone who looked like he had retired for a reason and planned to go
straight back. He made his points, answered many questions and perhaps
hoped that would be the end of his contribution on the Trump/Russia
story.
There should be little
doubt that the extraordinary days that followed his original testimony
-- most notably, almost exactly 24 hours later, President Donald Trump's
firing of FBI Director James Comey -- began in some measure because of
his understated but highly damning testimony.
Juliette Kayyem
Now,
as he voluntarily makes the media circuit since the firing, Clapper
sees the consequences of Trump's actions as so threatening to our
democracy that he is not likely to recede soon.
Let's
go back to last week; yes, it was only last week. All eyes were on
former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates as she testified about what
she told the White House regarding former national security adviser
Michael Flynn and his potentially compromising ties to foreign
governments.
Yates made an impression, but it was Clapper who drew the real spotlight.
His
testimony threw a wrench into a narrative that the White House had long
used. According to that narrative, while serving as director of the
national intelligence, Clapper said there was no proof of collusion
between the White House and Russia. But Clapper admitted last Monday
that he was unaware of the ongoing FBI investigation, so he wouldn't
have been in a position to know if there had been any evidence of
collusion. In other words, the White House could no longer use him as a
validator.
The next day, Trump
fired Comey. And the White House scrambled to justify the decision.
Then, in a series of tweets on Friday morning, Trump lashed out at Comey
and suggested there may be tapes of their conversations. But don't get
distracted by the "tapes." In that flurry of stream of consciousness
and self-incrimination, Trump wrote this:
"When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge
of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?"
Clapper: Comey firing has hurt FBI morale 01:33
He
shouldn't have focused on Clapper. Because, of course, that tweet
amounted to a lie. Clapper had said something much more nuanced.
Clearly, there was something about Clapper's testimony that spooked the
White House, and something that required the President to reclaim
Clapper as a defender.
I suspect
there are very few things that would have brought Clapper back to the
media, including a sit down with Jake Tapper on "State of the Union,"
but the President telling tales about him may be one of them.
Clapper, though, isn't back just to defend himself. He has now raised the stakes for the White House. It turns out that Comey told Clapper
of his own discomfort with an invitation to dinner he received from
Trump just a day after Yates told the White House about Flynn's
potential compromise.
And he is
again, as he did as a long-serving intelligence operative, defending
America. He is on the news circuit, speaking of his concern about how
the institutions of our governance are being undermined and assaulted.
There is a stress on our checks and balances that has seen no equivalent
in our democracy, he warned. America is under threat "externally and
internally," Clapper noted. "Internally from the President?" Tapper
asked. "Exactly," Clapper replied.
There
should be little doubt now that President Trump fired Comey to hinder
the investigation of the Russia links; any suggestion it had to do with
Comey's conduct regarding the Clinton campaign has been debunked.
Little doubt, indeed, because Trump admitted it himself when he told Lester Holt
he had to put an end to the "Russia thing." There may be plenty of
evidence to question Trump's veracity. But, in this, he is telling the
truth. The President wants this investigation to end.
It
is that assault on our norms, processes and constitutional order that
make the week we just had so historic. How extraordinary? Clapper began
that week testifying the enemy was Russia. He ended it, unwittingly it
seemed, by telling us that the enemy was also within.
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