Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I really should read my own blog.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

This blog will pay for itself.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

This fight is for everything.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Long Read: No Tears for Mr. Comey

Long Read: No Tears for Mr. Comey

by | 72 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

(Jeff Danziger’s website)

Like you hadn’t sold it no later than the Great Clenis Hunt, you sanctimonious fraud. Politico on “The Political Isolation of Jim Comey“:

Jim Comey learned Tuesday afternoon the difference between being independent and being out on a limb. After years of charting his own course in a city that prides itself on loyalty, after marching to the beat of his own drum in a political culture that’s increasingly divided into teams, after making up the rules as he went along in a Justice Department that prides itself on precedent and tradition, the FBI director found this week that he had run out of time and run out of friends.

In becoming just the second FBI director ever to be removed from office for cause—with more than six years remaining on his 10-year term—Comey leaves just as ignominiously as William Sessions did when he was fired by the newly arrived President Bill Clinton in 1993. Sessions, under fire due to scandals involving his wife and improper spending, had stubbornly refused to leave until Clinton summarily threw him out of the Hoover Building.

Yet Comey leaves behind an even more troubling legacy: The FBI soon forgot the Sessions years, but it will be years before its public reputation recovers from the intense political firestorm that Comey plunged it into last summer with a fateful news conference. On July 5, 2016, Comey announced the FBI would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for using a personal email server to conduct the government’s business as secretary of state—and then, after making that already unprecedented announcement, proceeded to expound at length upon his own interpretation of the law and Clinton’s mind-set. It was a moment that left jaws wide open across the street at Main Justice, as well as up Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House—the original sin that begat months of turmoil and ultimately cost Comey the job he’d long dreamed of having.

Comey’s firing deservedly shocked official Washington on Tuesday afternoon, but to those who know the bureau well, the idea of Jim Comey and Donald Trump coexisting in Washington has never made much sense—and that was even before recent weeks have made clear the depth and scope of the FBI’s still-widening investigations into Trump’s own campaign and its ties to Russia. It wasn’t all that long ago that Trump was embracing Comey in the East Room of the White House. Two days after his inauguration, Trump greeted his new top cop by joking with observers, “He’s become more famous than me.” In the end, perhaps that will be remembered as Comey’s greatest sin. He forgot the most important lesson of his post: In Washington, FBI directors should be like children—seen but not heard…

Comey has spent his career in Washington biting the hand that feeds him—and for years, that was precisely what led his career to advance…

The STELLAR WIND showdown turned into the Jim Comey Creation Myth, the moment that made clear that he was as independent as they came and would pursue investigations and enforce justice without fear or favor. Whereas deputy attorneys general like Comey come and go nearly routinely and anonymously, that showdown—and Comey’s decision to kiss and tell—made him a person of stature and standing who could lead the nation’s most famous and storied law enforcement agency. It also set up a pattern of behavior that would ultimately lead to his downfall—always willing to speak out, controversial and unafraid of attempts to silence him. As one senior official told me, “He’s rapturous of his own righteousness.”

It was that righteousness, too, that led Barack Obama to appoint Comey to head the FBI in 2013, in part because his iconoclastic reputation ensured Republicans could be assured of his independence—the fact that he’d donated to Mitt Romney and to John McCain didn’t hurt, either. And in his early days as director, Comey worked hard to separate the bureau from the ugliest moments of its history…

“Jim Comey always has to be positioned oppositional to those in power,” one former Justice Department official told me. “He’s done huge, lasting damage to the FBI brand, but he’s done good protection of Brand Comey.”…

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    ET

    He tried to thread a needle but he wasn’t any good at it and instead got poked in the eye with it.

  2. 2.

    jharp

    No matter where this ends up I am very happy with the position Mr. Comey now finds himself in.

  3. 3.

    Calouste

    Just reading that the regime is considering a laptop ban on flights from Europe. Ah well, it’s not like those jobs in the tourism sector are real jobs anyway.

    On the other hand, it might be the one thing that is going to turn the beltway media against them, as it is going to affect the pundits personally.

  4. 4.

    Oatler.

    “Keep a foot in two camps, and they’ll build the barbed wire right through you.”
    -Len Deighton

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    Here’s something that puts a big smile on my face:

    Poll: Dems lead GOP by 16 points on generic House ballot https://t.co/9RQdJrplNT pic.twitter.com/nx7YZH5IT3— The Hill (@thehill) May 10, 2017

    Of course, the American electorate has the attention span of a gnat, but I’m sure Darrell Issa must be sweating bullets. There are more groups forming against him in the district every day, and a protest every Tuesday. I haven’t been able to go, but it was YOOGE this week.

  6. 6.

    bystander

    Can you imagine Customs during a laptop ban? But I’m sure Trump will have the best solution.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    He tried to think of what a person of great integrity would do, which is the kind of thing you do when you don’t have any integrity of your own to rely on.

  9. 9.

    jl

    If this the explanation below (from the link) is true, then I think after Comey’s mishandling of the email BS non-scandal, he started BS-ing himself (into complete confusion, almost Trumplike delusion) on how to restore his reputation and cover his ass when the the GOP put the heat on him late in the campaign.

    ” Besides, as one bureau official after another has made clear to me in recent months, Comey never expected Clinton to lose. He saw The Letter as the politically expedient thing to do to help bolster the legitimacy of her victory-and preserve the FBI’s apolitical reputation. “

  11. 11.

    Steve in the ATL

    It was a moment that left jaws wide open across the street at Main Justice, as well as up Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House—the original sin that begat months of turmoil and ultimately cost Comey the job he’d long dreamed of having.

    That is patently false and everyone knows it. He lost his job because, and only because, he got to close to the trump/Russia situation.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Anne Laurie, in the cartoon credit and link, it’s Jeff Danziger, not James (easy mistake to make, given the subject).

  13. 13.

    MaryL

    @Steve in the ATL:

    That is patently false and everyone knows it. He lost his job because, and only because, he got to close to the trump/Russia situation.

    I took it to mean that release of the letter led to Trump’s victory, which then led to Comey’s firing.

  15. 15.

    jl

    @Steve in the ATL: Yes. I think we can take that as a given. Multiple leakers said Trump decided to can Comey last week and he sent Session to cook up some kind of reason for it. And Trump has impulsively broadcast his raging obsession and outrage with the Russian investigation many times: in his tweets, statements, and very letter explaining why Comey was fired.

  16. 16.

    eemom

    It is indeed an unusually interesting story, because it is one that really defies standard emmessemm dumbing down.

    And it’s so funny watching the little wingnut heads popping everywhere like bubble wrap: “The fuuuh? I thought you libtards HATED Comey….” Totally accurate test for membership in the two brain cells to rub together elite.

  17. 17.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MaryL: Then it is very poorly written as it fails to mention the much more proximate cause of the firing. I read that as intentionally dishonest, however, and not merely imprecise.

  18. 18.

    ThresherK

    Danziger and Toles and such are always aces about the idea of satire.

    However, are any mushy middle editorial cartoonists finally coming around on the entire Trump fiasco? Any of them finally waking up to the fact that both sides don’t do it?

  19. 19.

    randy khan

    @bystander:

    And what about tablets? Tablets with add-on keyboards? (Should I go on?)

    The people this really will annoy are not tourists but business travelers, who pay the most and are the most likely to complain about it.

  20. 20.

    Patricia Kayden

    @ET: Or he tried to cozy up to a snake and it bit him in his jugular. He is part of the reason that an unqualified bigot is in the White House. He must have forgotten that Trump doesn’t pay for services.

  22. 22.

    jl

    I’m not sure how to parse every detail of this. For example, was Spicer hiding in the bushes, or his staff? But would be fun to see. I wonder if there is any video of it.

    ” White House press secretary Sean Spicer shouted a statement to reporters from his office door, which his staff then locked, and later spent several minutes hiding from cameras in shrubbery on the White House grounds before taking further questions. ”

    from
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/white-house-startling-democrats-are-not-celebrating-comey-firing

  23. 23.

    Miss Bianca

    @jl: @Roger Moore: and that’s why, even tho’ I think that Trump’s firing Comey was one of those “clever like an ox” (as opposed to “crazy like a fox”) moves – not only tactically tacky but strategically suicidal, and clearly wrong – I am not weeping any tears to see Mr. “Look! I play Eliot Ness on TV!” humiliated. “He tried to think of what a person of great integrity would do” is a brilliant epitaph. A person of really great integrity wouldn’t have allowed himself to get played by rogue agents in his New York office. Come to think of it, a person of really great integrity wouldn’t have allowed his personal vendetta against a Presidential candidate to influence his actions. It’s only fitting that a personal vendetta on the part of the POS he helped get elected as POTUS should bring him down. And here I thought dramatic irony only worked on the stage!

  25. 25.

    tobie

    I think we need to separate the damage Comey did to the FBI from the reason he was fired. As many have remarked, he’s convinced he’s the only upstanding man in town but that’s not what cost him his job. And the fact that Rosenstein participated in this charade makes me uneasy, even if he didn’t explicitly recommend that Comey be fired.

  26. 26.

    Redshift

    after making up the rules as he went along in a Justice Department that prides itself on precedent and tradition

    Straining to make gross violations of procedure sound noble – classic Politico.

    Precedent and procedure is how you (mostly) get justice instead of the FBI or the prosecutors just deciding who is guilty. But sure, let’s pretend it’s just a quaint little quirk of the Justice Department if it makes the story better.

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MaryL:

    I took it to mean that release of the letter led to Trump’s victory, which then led to Comey’s firing.

    And I took it to mean that the July presser and pre-election release of the letter provided Trump with the rationalization he needed to fire Comey.

  28. 28.

    dm

    Back after the election I remember some fretting about the Democrats’ bench (admittedly, few governors, few houses of the legislature, etc. give good cause for such frets). And many Democratic leaders — Pelosi, Clinton, Biden, Cummings, Lewis, Warren — are getting old, who will follow them?

    But I have to say that in recent weeks I’ve been finding lots of cause for optimism.
    This morning, on my way into work, I listened to the Pod Save America podcast with Kamala Harris. Wow, what an impressive speaker. She’s going to go far.

    The other day I heard Ezra Klein interview Cory Booker, and followed that up with DeeRay McKesson’s Pod Save the People interview. Every time I hear Booker I come away impressed (yeah, yeah, pharmaceutical vote, but he redeemed himself by working with the junior Senator from Vermont to produce a much better bill).

    And Adam Schiff, of course. Sherrod Brown. Al Franken (!). And Seth Moulton. And Jason Kander. And Tom Perez. Keith Ellison, and… And the continuing Trump crisis keeps revealing more new voices.

    No more fretting from me. Now to get the next generation elected to follow in their footsteps….

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    Ever notice how Cheeto defenders remember Dems upset about Comey. But when we remind them about Trump praising Comey in Oct or blowing kisses at Comey in Jan…

    there reaction: THIS…

  31. 31.

    debbie

    Well, it’s clearly killing Trump, judging by his Twitter feed. Calls Blumenthal a cry baby, “Richie,” and a liar about his military service. If irrelevant issues are to be raised, I think it’s time someone asked about his locker room talk, his five deferments, etc.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    For the record, on Day 1 of the Baud! presidency, I’m firing the FBI director.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    I can’t wait for this Saturday’s “SNL.” And I bet Melissa McCarthy can’t wait, either.

  34. 34.

    Kathleen

    Apologies if someone has already shared this, but WAPO Daily 202 shares some tasty nuggets Long read but worth it. The first article after the Comey coverage (“While You Were Sleeping”) covers the story about the reporter who got arrested.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/05/10/daily-202-firing-fbi-director-comey-is-already-backfiring-on-trump-it-s-only-going-to-get-worse/5912635de9b69b209cf2b7fb/?utm_term=.2af0c4745e68&wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1

    A comic highlight: (Sorry – I can’t find the block button)

    Post reporter Jenna Johnson, who was at the White House last night, filed a colorful dispatch that captures the chaotic and dysfunctional rollout: “Sean Spicer wrapped up his brief interview with Fox Business from the White House grounds late Tuesday night and then disappeared into the shadows, huddling with his staff behind a tall hedge. To get back to his office, Spicer would have to pass a swarm of reporters wanting to know why President Trump suddenly decided to fire the FBI director. For more than three hours, Spicer and his staff had been scrambling to answer that question. Spicer had wanted to drop the bombshell news in an emailed statement but it was not transmitting quickly enough, so he ended up standing in the doorway of the press office around 5:40 p.m. and shouting a statement to reporters who happened to be nearby. He then vanished, with his staff locking the door leading to his office.

  35. 35.

    FlipYrWhig

    @eemom:

    “The fuuuh? I thought you libtards HATED Comey….”

    It’s kind of like, “First you guys say I’m supposed to recycle waste paper, NOW you say you’re mad I was up all night shredding incriminating documents. Make up your minds!”

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    As it’s an open thread, I’ll ask the question that’s been on my mind all day: has there been any update from greennotGreen or her sister? I tried to scroll through as many threads as possible, but could easily have missed a message.

    Anyhow, gnG, if you see this, please know that you continue to be held in the warmest heart-wishes and love and gratitude.

  39. 39.

    MaryL

    @dm: This administration is certainly providing up and comers with plenty of opportunities to stand up and make noise.

  40. 40.

    jl

    @dm: I think there are plenty of younger Democrats, from several wings of the party, who will emerge over the next few years and make a big impact in 2018 and 2020 and years following. For some reason, only one person showed up to challenge HRC and Sanders, but O’Malley had no clue about how to craft a persuasive message or platform, at least not at the debates where I think he absolutely had to do that.

    Talking in terms of someone who was good at winning elections and running a successful campaign, I was not overly happy with either HRC or Sanders, and the poor showing of O’Malley disappointed me. That’s why I kept hoping a Bernally Clinters would enter the race.

    But I think we will see some good politicians come to the front.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sahil Kapur‏Verified account @ sahilkapur 2h2 hours ag
    Sahil Kapur Retweeted Mark Salter
    Former top adviser to John McCain.
    Mark Salter @ MarkSalter55
    Words I thought I’d never say: the security of the United States might now depend on electing a Democratic Congress in 2018.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @Kathleen: OK, thanks. TPM gave the impression that they barricaded themselves in the locked office and then sent out skirmishers behind the shrubbery. But actually they pretended to be having a ‘huddle’ to cover a flanking retreat behind the shrubbery and then made a dash for the office and barricaded themselves inside.

    So, TPM peddling FAKE NEWS, or what?

  52. 52.

    p.a.

    Oh the humanity; 200+ Rethug congresscritters with a leader who knows no loyalty but attacks at the slightest hint, real or imagined, of disloyalty. Self-preservation means independence or subservience? Tick tock tick tock 2018…

  53. 53.

    No Drought No More

    “..the truth is far less sinister than many might believe. Rather than a carefully considered “deep state” conspiracy to sink Clinton, the FBI’s yearlong hot potato game with her emails is more a carnival of errors and misjudgments, all driven by a deep fear that the FBI and Comey would stand accused of the very thing that slowly undermined his reputation and ultimately resulted in his firing: the appearance that he had politicized the FBI”.

    Bullshit. The FBI knew exactly what they were doing, and why. The bureau’s behavior towards the Clinton campaign was no more a “carnival of errors and misjudgments” than its earlier campaign to drive Martin Luther King to suicide.

  54. 54.

    dm

    @jl: I have to admit I was in the dumps after the election, wondering where we could go from here. But now I’m feeling like the Democrats don’t have to worry about their bench. Adversity reveals character.

    Move Warren into the ‘reason for optimism for the future’ column.

    (Rereading my message, I thought: wait a minute, how old is Warren vs. Franken and Brown? Why should age “disqualify” her but not them? Well, she’s two and three years older, but that’s insignificant — they’re men and have a shorter life-expectancy. Gosh, do I feel like a sexist goober.)

  56. 56.

    Kathleen

    @jl: If the possible outcomes didn’t pose threat of danger one could view this whole firing fiasco as a Monty Python skit.

  60. 60.

    lamh36

    Mahn… fuq this dude:

    @HotlineJosh
    A picture says 1,000 words: college grads unwilling to listen to speaker whose views may conflict with theirs.

    Proud of these graduates for showing that witch their backs…for those sitting…let’s assume they all have bad knees…if not…well…if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

    https://twitter.com/smurfresh/status/862381033068658688/video/1

  61. 61.

    Sanjeevs

    Not happy with Comey firing but he will go down in history as an abject failure and not for anything to do with the Clinton investigation.
    Comey was head of Counterintelligence in the US and he ends his tenure with a foreign government in total charge of the executive.
    Comey was warned in late 2015 according to Clappers testimony, that allies (former allies?) had picked up on the ties between Trump and he Russians. Comey did nothing.
    When Manafort and Page joined and led the campaign in April 2016 still he did nothing.
    He didn’t even open an investigation until Trump publicly asked for Russian hacking help.
    And then the investigation went nowhere until Trump takes over in January.
    Unbelievable.

  62. 62.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @dm:

    Also Ted Lieu is making a big splash every day, and Kirsten Gillibrand. The future of the Democratic party has ZERO to do with Wilmer, who really just needs to take several seats.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @lamh36:

    In case anyone besides me couldn’t figure out who they were booing, it was Betsy DeVos.

    Who in the hell would ask her to speak at Bethune-Cookman anyway?!

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sanjeevs:

    Comey spent so much time worrying about his domestic enemies that he totally ignored the foreign threat.

    “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US,” redux.

  68. 68.

    Josie

    @jl: There’s a joke in there somewhere having to do with shrubbery, but I haven’t quite put it together yet.

  69. 69.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @lamh36: Normally I’m for respecting other people’s feelings but when it comes to DeVos I’ll make an exception. Those students graduated with honors.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Yeah , apparently the President of the College, despite weeks of student protests and petitions and cogent arguments against inviting DeVos.

Comments are closed.