'Scary thing': Trump has a 'very powerful' tool at his disposal to use against his enemies
MSNBC Host Chris Jansing reports the Secret Service had former FBI Director James Comey followed by law enforcement the day after Comey posted a beach-side image on social media. The government officials speaking with the New York Times said authorities tailed Comey in unmarked cars and street clothes and tracked the location of his cellphone after President Donald Trump’s allies said his post amounted to a threat to assassinate the president.
Comey and his wife, Patrice, were tailed by the authorities while they drove from the North Carolina coast to their home in the Washington area, according to anonymous officials.
"Why do these things keep coming up over and over and over again in the face of absolutely no evidence that has been ever published, or no charges that have been brought?" asked Jansing.
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MSNBC national security contributor Michael Schmidt said he sees the investigations as a tool of intimidation by the administration.
“Donald Trump seems to understand that better than most politicians, that if he can take the question of criminality and cast that shadow on someone, that it is something that weighs down on that person,” Schmidt continued. “It politically drives people against them. And it is a … fairly scary thing. Now, … Comey [is] a little different than your average person in the fact that they have great means. They've led powerful institutions. They're effective operators on the on a national level. So, so in that sense, they've seen this movie before.”
He added, however, that people without Comey’s resources would suffer grievously from such an onslaught from a retaliatory U.S. president.
“So, they now find themselves having to deal with this again. And if you are a family member of theirs … it just creates these questions of ‘what is going to happen next?’ And Trump has learned, over his time in office, that the specter of criminality is something that's very powerful indeed.”
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