Every time former FBI Director James Comey speaks, the truth becomes less discernible. And make no mistake: it’s intentional.
Take, for example, his recent interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace. Comey finally admitted that the FBI’s abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “was not acceptable,” but only after he claimed the FBI’s FISA warrant did not depend on the Steele dossier and dismissed the FBI’s intentionally-altered email that made it seem like the agency had more on Trump campaign aide Carter Page than it actually did.
This is classic Comey: He gives just enough to make his answer seem honest and then gaslights the public.
His claim about the Steele dossier is blatantly false. Inspector General Michael Horowitz made it clear in his testimony before Congress that the Steele dossier was “essential” to the FBI’s FISA warrant application. In fact, it wasn’t until the FBI used the dossier to bolster its FISA warrant that the court determined there was enough evidence to surveil Page.
The problem with the Steele dossier is long-established and two-fold: its contents were unverified and highly questionable, and the fact that it was funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee suggests it was politically motivated.
It should come as no surprise that Comey attributed these faults to bureaucratic “sloppiness” and refused to take responsibility for the role he played in approving the use of the dossier. He then went on to argue that despite all of this, Horowitz “didn’t conclude the reporting from Steele was bunk,” but instead raised “significant questions about the reliability of some sub-source reporting.”
Horowitz did indeed question the dossier’s sub-source reporting, but in doing so, he questioned the premises and motivations of the dossier, and thus, its legitimacy. In other words, the whole thing was malarkey and Comey knows it.
Comey’s second falsehood has to do with FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who not only altered official documents but completely changed their meaning to make the FBI’s case against Page look more legitimate. Horowitz referred Clinesmith for criminal prosecution, but when asked about this, Comey dismissed it as some “business with the lawyer changing some email to a partner on the team.”
Comey has lied to the public for years and he lied to us once again this weekend, and he does so not to save the FBI’s reputation, but to save his own. All of these bureaucratic failures can be traced back to him, his poor leadership, and his self-righteous conviction that he alone can save the American people from themselves.
But it was Comey’s dishonesty that got him fired, and it was his arrogance that made a mockery of the FBI. And the more Comey lies, the more obvious this becomes.
