Readers Write: The Trump presidency and James Comey's testimony, religion in the workplace

Questions for former FBI Director James Comey:

Why didn't you confront — or advise — the president about the impropriety of the first one-on-one meeting?

Why did you meet with the president twice more, if you were so uneasy about the one-on-one meetings?

Why didn't you not announce (or leak) that the president was not under investigation?

Why weren't you "stunned" when Loretta Lynch, attorney general in the Obama administration, told you (not asked) to use the word "matter" instead of "investigation" with regard to the Hillary Clinton investigation?

Why is it that you could list the litany of misdeeds of Clinton, yet fail to find intent, whereas you concluded that President Donald Trump "ordered" you to drop the Michael Flynn investigation when he said he hoped you could go easy on Flynn?

Why did you, as former director of the FBI, of all people, leak information to the press when I assume the FBI is actively attempting to stop unauthorized leaking within the government?

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While I am opposed to President Trump and have advocated that he be subject to impeachment or otherwise lawfully removed from office, the anti-Trump forces who are counting on Comey's recollections to justify that process are woefully misguided. If his testimony is considered the linchpin of the remove-Trump initiative, count me out.

Comey's self-serving testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee the other day was full of ambiguities and conclusory inferences. The remarks ascribed to the president reflect aspiration, a "hope" for the cessation of the investigation of Gen. Michael Flynn's Russian connections and misrepresentations about them; a desire for the loyalty of the FBI director; a "need" for fidelity, and an anticipation that Trump does "expect" such subservience.

Crediting the ex-director with total veracity, as his supporters do, and without any refutation by the president, Comey's testimony falls far short of showing that the president engaged in obstruction of justice or other wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt, as required to establish criminal culpability, or even the lesser "clear and convincing" or "preponderance of evidence" (more likely not) standards used for civil litigation or impeachment purposes.

More inculpating information may surface as the Senate investigation proceeds or in other inquiries, but it will have to be much more formidable than what came from Comey to warrant action to remove the president.

While Thursday's hearing lacked the "smoking gun" that many were hoping for, it failed to completely vindicate Trump, regardless of what his tweets say to the contrary. In fact, most of the arguments that Republicans have since presented in defense of Trump require a degree of mental gymnastics that would have sparked endless ridicule if the roles in this controversy were reversed.

For example, imagine if, at some point last year, it was revealed that President Barack Obama had privately told Comey that he "hoped" for Hillary Clinton to be absolved of wrongdoing in her e-mail scandal. I'm willing to bet that Republican stalwarts like Sen. Jim Risch would have immediately expressed outrage toward the sheer inappropriateness of that conversation, perhaps to the point of accusing Obama of obstructing justice. These accusations would have only intensified if Obama eventually fired Comey for failing to comply with his directive.

The fact that Risch spent part of Thursday's hearing rationalizing Trump's "hope" comment indicates that he, like many of the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee and beyond (such as "maverick" Sen. John McCain, who inexplicably continues to defend the very president who once mocked him for being a former POW), is nothing more than a partisan stooge.

I'll be the first to admit that the hearing was far from a total victory for Trump's opponents, and I unfortunately doubt that these revelations will ever lead to Trump's impeachment. However, the president's remaining supporters need to realize that this controversy is far from over.

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Do you choose to believe the man who has nothing to gain by speaking publicly or the man who empties the room of witnesses before chatting about something? Who is more trustworthy, the man who enjoys the fealty of the entire FBI or the man whom every major news outlet in the world has branded a serial liar? Who is more credible, the man who will turn on anybody in a minute in order to gain a personal advantage and who will never admit he has made a mistake, or the man who has given his life to civil service and to the good of our entire country, not merely his personal little world?

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One of the earliest paradigms of being a law-abiding citizen that I learned was that "ignorance of the law was no defense for violating it." So as I progressed through life and my world became more complicated, I thought it was my duty to learn the laws that I'd face. But now we have a person who sought a job with the greatest responsibility and legally complexities in our country. I expected the same from him as I thought was expected of me.

There are too many legalities in the presidency for any single person to understand alone, but inexperience should not be a defense. The president has a duty to surround the office with a plethora of experts to make sure that what is done meets the letter of the law. But now Trump's defenders are using the excuse that he was ignorant of the fine points of how our government works to justify actions that might be violations of the law. I wonder how that defense would play out by an average Minnesota citizen before a Minnesota judge?

In his response to a lawsuit against UPS for not allowing Muslims to fulfill their prayer requirements during the workday, a June 9 letter writer alleges that Islam is a privileged religion and states, "No other religion is catered to like this." Really? Has he not noticed that our entire country shuts down on Christmas, which was declared a federal holiday? Did he not enjoy Easter break and Christmas vacation from school as a child? You can be sure that if Christians were required to pray at specific times during the day, it would be mandated in every workplace.