Shari Rose | March 20,2017

President Trump has destroyed credibility for himself, his administration and now appears to have his sights set on America, too.

On Monday, FBI Director James B. Comey unequivocally denied there was any evidence to support Trump’s claim that the phones at Trump Tower were wiretapped by his predecessor.

That brings the growing number of officials publically rebuking the president’s unsubstantiated claims to:

FBI Director James Comey
NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers
Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee
Former CIA and NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden
British intelligence community
Bipartisan leaders of both the U.S. House and Senate

But here’s the most outrageous part of this strange story. Trump is standing by his lie. In doing so, he obliterates his own credibility.

And now he is forcing the American people to choose a side.

Do we trust our intelligence agencies and bipartisan congressional leaders?

Or do we side with the president of the United States?

By holding firm to this lie, Trump is undermining the credibility of America herself.

But ironically, these lies will eventually bite him back. Consider the congressional Republicans who must publically break with the most powerful member of their party. These are the same Republicans who let Trump get away with a shocking number of questionable actions in the past.

They’re responsible for pushing through inexperienced and unqualified Cabinet appointees, supporting Trump’s nationalist policies, including the disastrous and unconstitutional travel ban, and gladly stripping away rights for minorities, LGBT, Muslims, women and journalists.

Congressional Republicans have done nothing but enable Trump’s interest in double fisting American democracy. But even they won’t be able to defend their boy on this one.

Oh and coincidentally, Comey says it was exactly Russia’s intention to sew doubt into the American electoral system when they began interfering in the 2016 election.

“One of the lessons they may draw from this is that they were successful, introducing chaos and discord” into American democracy, he said.

For reasons we don’t know yet, the leader of the United States appears to be doing Russia’s bidding with his latest denial of reality. As a result, everyone has suspicion leveled against them and a cloud of doubt follows even our most trusted leaders.

For Trump to stand by this bold-faced, consistently debunked lie is irresponsible at best and openly hostile to American democracy at worst.

As Sean Spicer said during his whirlwind of a press conference, the investigation into Russia’s potential ties to Trump campaign officials and more is merely the “first chapter.”

Spicy’s right. This congressional hearing is just the beginning. It may take months or even years for us to untangle the web the Trump team has been weaving long before the man himself was sworn in.

But we will find out. We, the American people, will use all powers granted to us in the Constitution to heal what’s been damaged.

And to prosecute all those who foolishly tried to diminish the most powerful country on Earth.