U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has shown up on Donald J. Trump’s short list of possible nominees to become FBI director.
In the name of non-bias, non-political leanings and law enforcement professionalism, I am hoping that the president does not pick Sen. Cornyn to lead the FBI in this critical time.
James Comey got the boot from the FBI’s top job because — if we are to believe anything that comes out of the president’s mouth — he was spending too much time and energy on the “Russia thing.”
Truth be told, in my view, the next FBI director needs to spend a whole lot more time on Russia and related matters. Is John Cornyn the man to do the job? No way, dude!
I’ve known Cornyn for a number of years in my capacity as a journalist first in Beaumont and then in Amarillo. We have had a nice professional relationship during those years. I’ve known him as a Texas Supreme Court justice, as a state attorney general and as a U.S. senator. I disagree with him politically, but he’s a gentleman.
Over the years, as my hair got grayer, Sen. Cornyn would needle me that I eventually would get as gray as he has been for decades. I’m still not there yet, although I’m close.
All that said, he is as wrong for the job of FBI director as anyone being considered. Why? He is a partisan hatchet man for the Senate’s Republican caucus. He’s the No. 2 man in the Senate GOP hierarchy and his main task in recent Senate sessions has been to ensure the election of more Republicans. I understand that’s part of his job and I respect that someone has to do it, that they need to fill the ranks with partisans on both sides of the aisle.
Cornyn’s highly political profile, though, makes him a terrible fit for the FBI director’s job. Comey was in the middle of an investigation that was looking into allegations that the Trump campaign was complicit in efforts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 election — seeking to help Trump get elected president.
Are we to believe that a member of the president’s own party who would get the task of leading the FBI and, presumably, continue that investigation will shed his partisan leanings?
The president needs to look within the law enforcement community to find a new FBI director. He needs to find someone who has no political axe to grind. He needs to nominate someone with zero political ties to the White House, or to the Congress.
John Cornyn is not the man for this job.