American democracy, the world’s most significant, is being roiled by a controversy caused by President Donald Trump’s dismissal of FBI director James B. Comey last Tuesday apparently for pursuing allegations that his election campaign team had colluded with Russia to mar the chances of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. In the US, the episode has brought comparisons with the dismissal of top justice department officials by former President Richard M. Nixon in October 1973 in order to scuttle the processes that eventually blew up as the Watergate scandal, which led to moves to impeach Mr Nixon and his eventual resignation.
How far had the FBI got in digging into the Russia-related allegation is not known. It is also not clear if the President was personally under the scanner. But Mr Trump has publicly said he had been told by Mr Comey, when asked, that he himself was not under investigation.
This is yet to be impartially established. Many are wondering if such a question being put by the President to the former FBI chief was itself not improper. Some voices are now being raised demanding an impartial probe into the entire affair by a special prosecutor, rather than the FBI, where Mr Trump will be personally filling the vacancy, or by a congressional committee.
If the acute public anxieties have any basis, then the US President has evidently conducted himself in a manner which is so common in other parts of the world where the trappings of democracy — such as elections and political parties — are maintained but its institutional “guardrails” are sought to be debased by those in authority.
This is typically done by stretching the use of the legal powers vested in them — in this case the dismissal of the FBI chief — to their limit in flagrant disregard of best practices and conventions and unwritten rules of politics and the way of wielding of power, so that public interest may be upheld at the worst of times.
Turkey is a case in point, but so is India, where not just the functioning of the CBI and other investigating agencies, but practically every aspect of the state, is twisted to suit those in power. Institutional breakdowns are common and authoritarian tendencies are revealed on a regular basis.
Mr Trump has as good as publicly threatened Mr Comey after dismissing him not to reveal any aspect of their personal conversations if these are negative to the President. If proceedings escalate into the impeachment or trial of the President, Mr Comey is a potential witness. The threat to him should be seen in that light.
If the Trump White House is caught in a vortex of its own making, its ability to have any impact on world affairs will greatly diminish.
