I am going to give tons of credit to an Oklahoma congressman.
Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican, wants Donald J. Trump to say he’s sorry for defaming President Barack H. Obama. He says the current president should apologize to his immediate predecessor for leveling a charge that he hasn’t proved — and will never be able to prove.
Wait for it, Rep. Cole. Wait a long, long time. It won’t arrive.
The president doesn’t apologize for anything.
Not even when he’s dead wrong. Or when he defames someone, as he has done with President Obama. Or when — in the minds of some constitutional scholars — he could face a potentially impeachable offense.
Not this guy. Not Trump.
The president has yet to say anything resembling contrition for suggesting the former president ordered a wiretap of the Trump campaign’s offices in Trump Tower. Never mind the laughable and ludicrous assertion from White House spokesmen that the president didn’t mean actual wiretapping, even though he said it in a series of tweets. Trump put the words in quote marks, the argument goes, suggesting that he didn’t mean it, um, literally.
Of course he did!
What the president hasn’t done is tap into the vast intelligence network at his disposal to back up what he has alleged.
Why is that? Because he made it up. All of it. Every single word of it.
As Politico reports: “Obama and his former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, both publicly denied the claim quickly after Trump raised it, while FBI Director James Comey, also saying it was not true, privately urged Trump’s Justice Department to refute it.
“This week, the leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees have also come out and said they have found no evidence to suggest that the allegation is true.”
Should the president apologize, as Rep. Cole has suggested? Yes. Will he do so? I am not going to keep the light on waiting for it.