A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership
by James Comey
I went from not knowing who James Comey is to hating him for complicating the election with his ill-timed announcements about Hillary Clinton’s emails. I believe her loss was due to a number of factors, but he certainly contributed. Then, I sympathized with the man when he was fired by Donald Trump and he revealed Trump’s multiple attempts to get Comey to stop the Russia investigation and I picked up his new book with the desire to find out more about those tumultuous months. In getting to those events, Comey steadily lays the groundwork with accounts of his various experiences prior to the FBI and the leaders for whom he worked in the context of what it means to be loyal. It’s a worthy question. Are you most loyal to family and friends? To colleagues? To an institution? To an idea? To country? What happens when you have to choose between competing loyalties?
Comey had a long and interesting career even before he got to the FBI. Working as an assistant district attorney in New York under Rudy Guiliani, Comey was involved with the investigation and prosecution that brought down the Gambino mob. I was most struck by his description of mob rules and loyalty and their obvious parallels to the Trump administration. Mob rules, he explains with an analogy to hockey: “they were like the rules against fighting in hockey – on the books a no-no, but still a regular feature of the game” (7). I’m thinking of the emoluments clause and the fact that Trump and his family businesses continue to profit from his position despite a clear law against it. One mobster interviewed by Comey states, “Men of honor may only lie about the most important things” (7). The connection there goes without saying. I think Trump is on record with over 3,000 lies and counting. Finally, the most pertinent parallel to Comey is the Mafia code of loyalty – swearing fealty to the boss above all else.
Comey also worked in the Justice Department under John Ashcroft as the assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration and he provides an interesting account of a program known as Stellar Wind – a program that made the news recently in the consideration of Gina Haspel as the new CIA director. The Bush administration, urged on by Dick Cheney and sanctioned (surprisingly to me) by Condeleeza Rice, wanted the Justice Department to sanction torture, something neither Ashcroft nor Comey was willing to do. Comey details the ways in which the White House tried to end run Justice to get what they thought was justifiable in light of the information gained by, for example, chaining a man naked to the ceiling.
Despite this fight with the Bush administration, Comey paints Bush as significantly more knowledgeable and more aware of protocol than Trump. Later, he is appointed director of the FBI by Barack Obama, a man he portrays as highly ethical, very smart and extremely thoughtful. Both presidents loom large in comparison to Trump and the interactions Comey describes with the current president.
In his author’s note, Comey opens with the question his critics ask: “Who am I to tell others what ethical leadership is?” He later acknowledges that his handling of the email investigation led accusers to say that he was “in love with [his]own righteousness, [his] own virtue” (206). It is a question I still have about him but it’s honestly one that is difficult for anyone to answer about themselves. Standing up for what we believe in or defending a group of people in the face of challenge is always, I think, a little bit about feeling good about who we are. Comey’s chapter on the announcement about the email investigations is somewhat painful as he clearly wrestled with determining the right course of action for the FBI, for the country and yes, for himself.
Finally, in chapter 12 (of 14), Comey gets to Donald Trump. Much of what happened – the private request for loyalty, the insistence that Comey publicly state Trump’s innocence in regard to Russia, the request to look the other way with Michael Flynn – is known. It was still interesting to hear Comey tell the stories and provide his impressions of Trump beyond the soundbites. Comey is as amazed as many of us are that Trump continues to get a bye from Congress, conservative commentators and his base for the lying, the cheating, the name-calling, the racism, policies damaging to the poor, removal of restrictions to protect the environment and on and on. Comey asks the question, if it was President Hillary Clinton who asked the FBI director to “let it go” about the investigation of a senior aide, would any of these people ignore it? I agree with him, “The hypocrisy is so thick as to almost be darkly funny” (276) – except it’s not funny; it’s just, as DJT would say, “SAD.”
