Comey's Firing Helps Demean the U.S. Globally

The so-called Trump-Russia scandal is eating the U.S. from the inside, undermining the country's global role at least as much as President Donald Trump's erratic moves do. The firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey is another dent in the U.S. leadership of the Western world, which comes against the background of a resurgent Europe.

There is an obvious political background to Comey's dismissal. Trump's official reason is that he mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, and until he was fired Democrats agreed with that. Clinton herself has blamed her 2016 electoral defeat on "the combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28" -- the one that signaled the email investigation wasn't over -- and "Russian WikiLeaks." Now, however, Democrats are up in arms because Comey led the U.S. executive branch's only investigation into the alleged Russian interference in the election. Apparently, Clinton's backers hoped Comey would shed light on the other reason she lost, but now these hopes have been dashed.