FBI vs Trump: It’s an example for CBI

Since the United States is a well-rounded democracy in the autonomous way its permanent institutions and agencies — and procedures — work, politics and those holding office find it difficult to unduly influence proceedings of the kind that are under way these days.

How contrasting this is with the way we function is clear immediately when we look at the CBI, an investigative and specialised police organisation that is typically used to keep Opposition parties on a leash.

President Donald Trump accused the administration of his predecessor Barack Obama of having “wiretapped” his election campaign headquarters in New York’s Trump Tower. Mr Obama denied this. That would have carried weight for many, but the seal of finality was stamped on it only when leading federal agencies, among them the FBI, after making appropriate inquiries, said that “wiretapping” or “surveillance” in any form had not occurred, according to their investigations.

This implies that the President’s insistence on his allegation of wiretapping/surveillance has a political motive. Official agencies, working under the Trump administration, are saying in essence that the vehemence of the White House is not grounded in reality. And this has not been said through an unofficial leak to the media, as may have happened in India. The findings of the agencies were made known officially.

The other major issue rocking the US is the suggestion that leading elements of the Trump campaign had probable links with the Russian government, which wanted to scuttle the prospects of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and, obversely, help Mr Trump. The White House has denied this strenuously. But the allegation doesn’t seem to go away. Gen. Michael Flynn, a retired military officer who was first named Mr Trump’s national security adviser, quietly put in his papers when it became public that he had a conversation with the Russian ambassador in Washington, the details of which he did not communicate, when asked, to vice-president Mike Pence.

On Monday, FBI director James Coney confirmed to a congressional hearing that the agency had launched a criminal investigation into any collusion between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russia. The FBI chief confirmed that the agency’s investigation was going on since July last year into possible Russian efforts to interfere with a US presidential election. There is no effort to duck as the current President and his team may be involved.

Moscow has strongly denied the allegation. But in the US, the smallest suspicion of a Russian shadow is dramatic in light of the fact that Washington and Moscow were the principal Cold War adversaries for half a century. And even after that America keeps a close eye on Russia as the latter is the only country in the world with an arsenal with which to hit the United States.