He’s back, and the obvious irony can only be lost on James Comey. The former FBI director penned another laughably absurd opinion piece for the Washington Post on Saturday. In a week that contained further revelations that his Crossfire Hurricane team turned a blind eye to evidence that the Steele dossier was a heaping pile of Russian disinformation campaign garbage, Comey’s column on “crisis leadership” drops. Though his St. James schtick has long been acknowledged as beyond parody, Comey’s sense of twisted timing here is truly jaw-dropping.
When Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded in his 434-page report in December 2019 that the opening of Crossfire Hurricane was properly predicated, he also issued a blistering rebuke of FBI leadership for “significant inaccuracies and omissions.” While Horowitz could not definitively prove bias was injected into the FBI’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion, he did not disprove it either. The well-chronicled litany of FBI malfeasance included the withholding and falsification of information provided to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as well as relying on uncorroborated and unverified intelligence and operating a discredited source (Christopher Steele) known to be unreliable and to have exhibited outright partisan animus toward the target (Donald Trump) of his investigation.
If this were simply a case of the FBI’s confirmation bias, as I once argued, this would be a damning episode of circular reasoning — a logical fallacy that can permeate high-level, insular circles of senior leadership in a bureaucracy. And honorable patriots can unwittingly fall prey to this malady. But Horowitz’s report also underscored some far more sinister and pernicious findings in Comey’s team. A Yahoo News article, sourced by Steele, was utilized to corroborate the dossier. Horowitz, called to testify in front of Congress about his report, pushed back on assertions that it “exonerated the FBI.” He argued that his team “did not reach that conclusion.”
Comey attributed the FISA abuses to “sloppiness.” He even clownishly demanded an apology on Twitter.
DOJ IG “found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.” I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a “sorry we lied about you” would be nice.
— James Comey (@Comey) August 29, 2019
The man who sanctimoniously lectures and hectors on leadership refused to own the disgraceful abuses of power. No buck stops at Comey. Of note, Horowitz was restricted in who he could compel to speak with his investigators. Only active-duty members of the Department of Justice, or those who voluntarily made themselves available, could be interviewed.
In yet another delicious irony, Comey refused to have his security clearance temporarily reinstated so that he could be interviewed by the inspector general for the report. There’s “leadership” for you.
But hypocrisy abounds in Comey’s kingdom. He once oversaw an agency with 35,000 employees and approved sanctions against those who engaged in unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information to the media. Yet, when Comey was fired by the president on May 9, 2017, he shamefully leaked FBI documents to the New York Times. Rule for thee, but not for me.
What a hypocritical profile in courage.
Comey, in a 2018 interview, hilariously responded to a question about his legacy with: “This is an odd thing (pause) but I hope to be forgotten.” And yet just this week, days after freshly declassified footnotes from the inspector general report revealed that Comey’s team had been repeatedly alerted to the fact that portions of the Steele dossier were connected to a concerted “Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations,” the self-aware former-FBI-director-cum-Democratic-Party-cheerleader pens a column on “crisis leadership.” Though it does not mention the president by name, it is obviously directed at his archnemesis, the figure who haunts Comey’s dreams and triggers his need for attention: Trump.
The accumulation of exculpatory information ignored by Comey’s Crossfire Hurricane investigative team is also a damning indictment of intentionality. Trump’s campaign proved to be catnip for a partisan team hypnotized by the lure of bagging the ultimate prize: a presidential candidate they loathed. And though entitled to their own personal political opinions, Comey’s crew appears to have been a monolith of partisan, anti-Trump #Resistance members.
This pains me to acknowledge. I have long argued in print and on-air that the Comey administration deserved the benefit of the doubt. While I was an acknowledged “cautious skeptic” of the Russian collusion case from its inception, I initially felt that the Crossfire Hurricane mistakes were not indicia of malign intent. The aphorism known as Hanlon’s Razor was what I applied: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Boy, did I get this one flat wrong. The issues with Crossfire Hurricane were directly related to Comey’s feckless leadership and the partisan team of callow sycophants he assembled to assure the emperor he was wearing invisible threads.
It is a foundational construct of the hiring processes at the Department of Justice and the FBI that no litmus test related to political affiliation may be applied. But how did one team contain so many one-sided partisans who cheated the system, placed fingers on the scale, and tarnished the once neutral, unbiased, and impartial reputation of the FBI?
It wasn’t “sloppiness” of “mid-level supervisors” who caused this debacle. It was all a result of Comey’s leadership failings. He should spare us the sanctimony in his treatise. Leadership in a crisis does indeed require “authenticity, honesty and relentless, reasoned optimism,” as he mused.
You know what else crisis leadership demands? Courage to make tough calls and then own them.
It’s one of the “Four Cs” leadership characteristics I have learned are essential: character, competence, charisma, and courage. The first three cannot exist without the fourth.
But Comey clearly lacked courage when he testified in June 2017 as to how “queasy” he felt when Attorney General Loretta Lynch blatantly attempted to politicize the Clinton email investigation, and Comey did nothing. Comey also lacked a spine when he admitted his nine encounters with Trump left him feeling “uneasy.” When pressed by Congress as to why he didn’t react differently, Comey’s pathetic response was that “maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance but that, that was, that’s how I conducted myself.”
Rather than exhibiting courage of his convictions, Comey, “crisis leader,” chose to shamefully leak FBI memorandums that documented those interactions. He’s lucky not to have been indicted.
For shame, Mr. Comey. That’s your perception of crisis leadership?
Comey’s second act as a Democratic political surrogate has also come as no surprise. Many presumed Comey would safely repair to that space as his decision-making at the helm of the FBI continues to be assailed following each investigation into the Comey-era FBI. He’s done incalculable damage to my beloved agency. His musings about moral, ethical leadership have become an obvious punchline.
Mr. Comey, if you can’t cease and desist for your own good, do it on behalf of the rest of us. U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation still looms large. Your campaigning for “anyone but Trump” won’t convince any undecided voter to take your opinion seriously. You have, however, made a compelling argument that your team acted as the opposition party’s enforcement arm in 2016.
Many voters won’t forget that come November.
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. Gagliano is a member of the board of directors of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.
