No time like the past

“To everything there is a season,” the Good Book counsels, and for diehard critics of Donald Trump, clinging to their belief in his sinister designs, it’s always open season on the president. To “a time to be born, a time to die” they have added “a time to accuse, a time to face accusation.” For the president’s adversaries, that time has arrived.

James Comey, the former director of the FBI whose firing set off the futile Russia collusion investigation, took to the stage at a CNN townhall the other day to persuade an audience that he, and not President Trump, is on the side of the angels. He’s still determined to find that unicorn in the garden who will smoke out the perpetrators of interference in the 2016 presidential election.

When the moderator asked whether he thought Mr. Trump acted with corrupt intent, he replied that “it sure looks that way.” Despite the inconvenient fact that the president was cleared of colluding with the Russians, Mr. Comey now says the president ought to be indicted for obstructing the Mueller probe once he leaves office.

Mr. Comey has dwelled on the dark side of Washington since he schemed to delegitimize the Trump presidency and was fired for it two years ago. Attorney General William Barr examined special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report of his investigation into Russia-Trump collusion and concluded that there wasn’t any.

Mr. Comey’s noise offensive distracts attention from accumulating evidence that the Obama administration relied on a bogus dossier alleging the Trump campaign team schemed with Russians to fix the 2016 election. The dossier, compiled by onetime British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, persuaded the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize government spying on Trump associates.