June 11, 2017

Byron York: “How many times have you heard a Democrat or Trump critic say that the Russia investigation is ‘just getting started’ or that they are determined to ‘get to the bottom’ of it? With a new prosecutor starting an open-ended investigation, they’re hoping for years of happy hunting.”

“But the fact is, Democrats do not need any more information than what is already publicly known to pursue impeachment proceedings against the president. What they need is 218 votes in the House of Representatives. If they had majority control of the House now, they would already be pursuing impeachment.”

Paul Rosenzweig: “It was NOT Director Comey’s testimony. Rather, it must be the late Friday news that Robert Mueller has hired Michael Dreeben, on a part-time basis, to help with his investigation. Dreeben, a deputy in the Office of the Solicitor General, has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court. His specialty has, for the last 20 years, been criminal matters and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of criminal law. I once saw him argue a Supreme Court matter without a single note.”

“In short, he is quite possibly the best criminal appellate lawyer in America (at least on the government’s side).  That Mueller has sought his assistance attests both to the seriousness of his effort and the depth of the intellectual bench he is building.”

Max Boot: “That Donald Trump and his defenders are breathing a sigh of relief after former FBI Director James Comey’s blockbuster Senate testimony shows how low the bar has been set for the president. Sure, he lied and behaved unethically — but, hey, at least he’s not personally under investigation for colluding with Russia to alter the 2016 election. Trump claimed ‘total and complete vindication.'”

“What total and complete chutzpah. Not only is Comey’s testimony damning on its own, but the situation is far worse for the president than the testimony, taken in isolation, would suggest. What Comey said, in his calm, just-the-facts-ma’am manner, is only one piece of the Kremlingate jigsaw puzzle. You have to look at it in totality to see how damning the whole picture actually is. There’s a good reason why Sen. John McCain recently said this scandal is reaching ‘Watergate size and scale.’ There are three parts of this puzzle: collusion, quid pro quo, and cover-up.”

“When he tells you to do something, guess what? There’s no ambiguity in it, there’s no, ‘Hey, I’m hoping.'”

— Donald Trump Jr., quoted by the Washington Post, seeming to confirm James Comey’s testimony that President Trump wanted to stop the FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.