On Tuesday, disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor and fake news connoisseur Dan Rather was somehow a relevant voice on MSNBC’s Hardball, raging at former FBI Director Jim Comey for admitting in prepared remarks for Thursday’s hearing that he told President Trump that he wasn’t under FBI investigation.
Nevertheless, this detail didn’t cause Rather’s bubble to fully burst, making clear that this hearing remains “a code red situation” for not just Trump but the entire country with not a smoking gun yet, but “a red-hot gun barrel.”
Rather first teased his displeasure with Comey by informing host Chris Matthews three minutes into the show: “[T]hree times the President — at least three times, Comey says, on three different occasions, the President asked and Comey assured him that he personally was not a subject of an investigation. I have a great problem with that. More about that later perhaps.”
When he had the chance later on, Rather doubled down:
You know, in my experience, prosecutors and law enforcement people don't tell people whether they're under investigation or not. Now, we have a country built on the idea of equal justice under the law. Everybody, equal justice under the law. Here what Comey did with the President, I don't think he would have done it with a other suspect in any other case or anybody who asked him, am I under investigation? I doubt very seriously that he would have done it. So he did the President a great favor there, indicating how much pressure he was under and how much pressure he felt.
This is a point worth debating, but one had the sense that this was more of a beef Rather had that was due to this factoid bursting liberal narratives (see CNN, Tuesday night) that Comey’s testimony would refute this story that he had told Trump he wasn’t under investigation.
Nonetheless, Rather was still clearly excited for the hearing and the danger it could wrought for the President:
And common sense tells you, you don’t need to be a lawyer to understand what was happening in that room and during those conversations. This was pressure, extreme pressure on Comey to assure the President that he had personal loyalty to the President, not to the nation — to the President. There's no other way to read this, I think, than this is a code-red situation for the Trump presidency, an emergency situation. It's not going to go away, and therefore it's a code-red situation for the country. This is a cloud over the presidency. It's going to remain a cloud over the presidency. There’ll be — this and that said about it.
“For example, Comey's attorney said today, well, there's no smoking gun. Well, there may not be any smoking gun, but there's a red-hot gun barrel and given other information that we know and ongoing investigations, that barrel is going to get nothing but hotter,” he added.
At the end of the day, leave it to perhaps the most famous fake news journalist to embellish and paint a doomsday scenario.
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on June 7:
MSNBC’s Hardball
June 7, 2017
7:03 p.m. Eastern
DAN RATHER: Number two, three times the President — at least three times, Comey says, on three different occasions, the President asked and Comey assured him that he personally was not a subject of an investigation. I have a great problem with that. More about that later perhaps.
(....)
7:04 p.m. Eastern
RATHER: And common sense tells you, you don’t need to be a lawyer to understand what was happening in that room and during those conversations. This was pressure, extreme pressure on Comey to assure the President that he had personal loyalty to the President, not to the nation — to the President. There's no other way to read this, I think, than this is a code-red situation for the Trump presidency, an emergency situation. It's not going to go away, and therefore it's a code-red situation for the country. This is a cloud over the presidency. It's going to remain a cloud over the presidency. There’ll be — this and that said about it. For example, Comey's attorney said today, well, there's no smoking gun. Well, there may not be any smoking gun, but there's a red-hot gun barrel and given other information that we know and ongoing investigations, that barrel is going to get nothing but hotter.
(....)
7:09 p.m. EasternMATTHEWS: Boy, there are shades of Watergate here. I mean this guy has a John Dean aspect to him, I'll tell you. Remember how Nixon tried to get Dean to take the whole wrap. Remember that so-called Dean report which was a fraud to begin with? You know all this stuff, This whole thing about saying to Flynn — saying to Comey, the FBI director, drop the charges on my buddy.
RATHER: Well, it's absolutely outrageous. In terms of Comey's testimony, however and going back to the Watergate period, Comey has a very difficult job to do in preparing this and delivering it tomorrow. What he's done seems to me, to use an old Watergate phrase, he's gone to a limited hangout, which is to say he's telling a lot of what he knows, but he isn't telling everything he knows, probably because he doesn't want to foul up in any way the Special Prosecutor Mueller's investigation. The second thing we haven't mentioned about this, Chris, I think we ought to mention. You know, in my experience, prosecutors and law enforcement people don't tell people whether they're under investigation or not. Now, we have a country built on the idea of equal justice under the law. Everybody, equal justice under the law. Here what Comey did with the President, I don't think he would have done it with a other suspect in any other case or anybody who asked him, am I under investigation? I doubt very seriously that he would have done it. So he did the President a great favor there, indicating how much pressure he was under and how much pressure he felt.
