Former FBI Director James Comey’s sanctimonious series of prepared tweets appeared on my timeline even before the news broke that the Department of Justice’s watchdog arm, the Office of the Inspector General, had released its findings into his conduct.
I hurriedly scrolled through to find the report, which was prepared following an investigation into the former FBI director’s “disclosure of sensitive investigative information and handling of certain memoranda.” But I shook my head at the predictability of James Comey’s vituperative preemptive strike. The report is damning, so it’s not surprising that Comey attempted to get out in front of the news cycle. Comey has shed any pretense that his ego, narcissism, and naked tribalism are any less loathsome than his antagonist: President Trump.
So what’s in the new report that has Comey so worked up?
The inspector general, Michael Horowitz, an Obama appointee, elected not to refer Comey for criminal prosecution. Not surprising.
But Horowitz concluded his report by noting his findings have been provided “to the FBI and to the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility for action they deem appropriate.” Ultimately, this equates to the IG punting the case back to the FBI’s OPR, essentially the bureau’s internal affairs unit. Comey was found to have “violated agency policies.”
It’s egregious when violations are committed by a brand new agent. It’s unconscionable when the agency standard-bearer willfully does the same.
Comey may no longer serve as FBI director, but is still accountable for his conduct while serving within the agency. This means that those who weakly contend he was no longer an employee of the FBI when he leaked, through a surrogate, sensitive FBI documents to the New York Times, simply do not understand how the Justice Department views as one and the same those who hold or have held positions of public trust.
President Trump didn’t miss an opportunity to weigh in, tweeting:
Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just released Inspector General’s Report. He should be ashamed of himself!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2019
The report’s conclusions truly were breathtaking and scathing. It is almost as if the inspector general, along with much of America, had simply had enough of Comey’s constant moralizing and proselytizing. The IG pointedly concluded that what was simply “not permitted” by the Justice Department was Comey’s “unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.”
Not exactly the noble exercise of a man who famously titled his book A Higher Loyalty.
And lest you mistakenly include Comey in the pantheon of heroic, line-level organizational whistleblowers who exposed themselves at great peril, remember that James Comey is 6’ 8” tall, and arguably served as the most powerful cop in the world. Yet assumed stature aside, recall his weak and pathetic “I leaked to ensure a special prosecutor” defense. It was summarily dismissed by the inspector general who sensed that a man in as powerful a position as Comey should presumably have had enough courage of his convictions to go about things the right way.
But this is the same Comey who was left admittedly “uneasy” by his encounters with the president. Recall when he shamefully recounted to Sen. Dianne Feinstein during a June 2017 Intelligence Committee hearing that “maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance but that — that was — that’s how I conducted myself.” Therefore, the powerful FBI director chose to covertly leak sensitive information to the media, the actions of a feckless and impotent leader.
Imagine if every FBI agent who was ever left dissatisfied with the DOJ’s decision not to prosecute a case elected to leak sensitive case information to the press. Comey would have been compelled to sanction any who did so. In the words of the inspector general, “Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees – who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”
Some may view the world through the binary choice lens of “Trump versus Comey,” immediately leaping to blame the president for Comey’s transgressions. But, truth be told, Comey needs to own this.
I have been part of a vocal group of retired agent critics of the FBI’s seventh director. Once empathetic to the difficult position he was thrust into, I have watched with disgust his public metamorphosis from sympathetic figure into a self-aggrandizing social media foil to a president he professes to loathe but whom he appears to emulate more and more.
It’s not just me, and innumerable other disgruntled former and retired agents, who have a dim view of Comey’s FBI legacy. It is actually those who know him all too well, highlighted in the report, who describe being “surprised,” “shocked,” “stunned,” and “disappointed” at Comey’s conduct.
As are we all.
James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) worked in the FBI for 25 years. He is a law enforcement analyst for CNN and an adjunct assistant professor in homeland security and criminal justice at St. John’s University.
