It was a coming out party gone bad.
A disgruntled former government employee has taken to the airwaves to smear the Trump administration, all in a disgraceful attempt to sell his book. Former FBI Director James Comey claims a “higher loyalty” with his new memoir, but his behavior shows that his loyalty is only to his own vanity.
After a scathing, internal Justice Department assessment by Rod Rosenstein, a Democrat, Comey was fired for malfeasance. His firing was well-deserved. During his tenure, he received bipartisan condemnation for misconduct. Now, he has taken the unusual step to write a tell-all, a completely inappropriate venture for those who have held the FBI director position.
As he peddles his book, Americans see clearly why he caused lasting damage to the FBI’s reputation and why he simply can’t be trusted.
Comey repeatedly violated FBI and Justice Department protocols while on the job. Despite claiming he was not a leaker, Comey leaked information to the media (some of which was likely classified). He also spoke publicly about ongoing investigations and contradicted himself several times during congressional testimony (if not outright lied).
For instance, Comey first testified that the FBI was never told to stop any investigation for political reasons, but later suggested that President Trump had interfered in the Russia investigation. In his “contemporaneous” memos, however, he makes no mention of Trump interfering, just that Trump wanted his named cleared — a perfectly normal motivation.
Comey once testified he had never leaked information about the Trump or Clinton investigations, but later admitted to leaking his memos with the hope they would prompt a special counsel investigation. Obviously Comey was not an honest broker on wanting investigations. As Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, and Devin Nunes of California said in a statement, “Comey leaked at least one of these memos for the stated purpose of spurring the appointment of a Special Counsel, yet he took no steps to spur the appointment of a Special Counsel when he had significant concerns about the objectivity of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Loretta Lynch.”
After Trump was elected, Comey gave him unverified information about his alleged ties to Russia, but didn’t reveal that the information was Clinton-funded opposition research. Even George Stephanopoulos thought Trump had a right to know that.
Comey closed the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server in July 2016 on the basis of unverified documents, neglecting to consult the Justice Department on the decision. Just before the 2016 election, Comey announced he was reopening the investigation, again surprising Lynch. Now we know, in the only real news that came out of Comey’s ABC interview, that his staff said there was no way to review the thousands of new emails before the election. Comey cleared Hillary again anyway — obviously without actually performing a real review.
Comey’s October surprise sparked fury among Democrats in Congress; many of them called for his dismissal. They lost faith in Comey and said he had hurt the institution of law enforcement. The rest of us agree.
Comey’s history of malfeasance and public commentary about ongoing investigations is a major breach of protocols. Not only have they hurt the FBI’s nonpartisan reputation, it also makes it harder for the agency to do its job.
If Comey had any honor, he would allow the FBI to conduct its investigations without unnecessary sensational commentary. Instead, he is pushing unverified information in media interviews, doubling down on his inappropriate behavior, and exploiting an important institution for his own selfish gain.
Comey failed in his job at the FBI. Now, he’s pitching those failures to the public, calling it a story of honor. But we know about his misconduct and recognize that his higher loyalty is to whichever lies sell more books. We’re not buying it.
Thomas Del Beccaro (@tomdelbeccaro) is former chairman of the California Republican Party and author of “That Divided Era: How We Got Here and the Keys to America’s Reconciliation.”
