James Comey’s planet is getting noticeably warmer. Attorney General William Barr’s emissions are the suspected cause.
Barr has made plain that he intends to examine carefully how and why Comey, as FBI director, decided that the bureau should investigate two presidential campaigns and if, in so doing, any rules or laws were broken.
In light of this, the fired former FBI director apparently has decided that photos of him on Twitter standing amid tall trees and in the middle of empty country roads, acting all metaphysical, is no longer a sufficient strategy.
No, Comey has realized, probably too late, that he has to try to counter, more directly, the narrative being set by the unsparing attorney general whose words in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week landed in the Trump-opposition world like holy water on Linda Blair. Shrieking heads haven’t stopped spinning since.
And so we’ve seen Comey get real busy lately. First he penned a curious op-ed in The New York Times. Then a Times reporter, with whom Comey has cooperated in the past, wrote a news article exposing an early, controversial investigative technique against the Trump campaign in an attempt to get out front and excuse it. Next, Comey is scheduled to be encouraged on a friendly cable news “town hall.”
In the op-ed, Comey trotted out his now-familiar St. James schtick, freely pronouncing on the morality of others. He sees himself as a kind of Pontiff-of-the-Potomac working his beads, but comes across more like an unraveling Captain Queeg working his ball bearings.
Comey adjudged the president as “amoral.” He declared the attorney general to be “formidable” but “lacking inner strength” unlike — the inference is clear — Comey himself. A strategy of insulting the executioner right before he swings his ax is an odd one but, then, Comey has a long record of odd decisions and questionable judgment.
more at The Hill
Poor old Comey. He was certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time. Events beyond his control dragged him down a vortex of failure.
It wasn’t his fault that the DNC, despite clear evidence that Hillary had violated numerous laws, shoved all other candidates aside and made sure she won the nomination. It also wasn’t his fault he served a totally biased, partisan, ideology driven Attorney General who served a corrupt, arrogant, ideology driven President. He was put in a position to make a very difficult choice.
He could roll the dice, gamble that Hillary was going to win (very good odds) and comply with Lynch’s directive that Hillary not be charged. When she won, not only would all the records of the obstruction of justice be destroyed, but Comey would have the gratitude of the most despicable woman on the planet; not a totally worthless chit to have in one’s pocket.
OR, he could have taken an enormous gamble; he could do the right thing, enforce the law and, regardless of the consequences, have Hillary charged with perjury, mishandling of classified information, obstruction of justice and her part in the sale of our uranium to a company known to be controlled by Russia.