Former FBI Director James Comey was arraigned on Wednesday on federal charges of lying to Congress about authorizing leaks of classified information to the media. The case is being brought in Virginia, where Comey resides near an Enchanted Beach on which “cool shell formation[s]” wash up spelling out threats to assassinate the 47th president. Prior to these charges, the six-foot, eight-inch Comey was best-known for being America’s tallest dirty cop.
In what appears to be an effort to shove public respect for our judicial system even further down the commode, forty two retired federal judges have signed an open letter calling the case an attack on “the bedrock First Amendment right of American citizens to disagree with their president and their government and to express their views and opinions on any matter they wish.”
But Comey hasn’t been charged for expressing views and opinions on any matter he wishes. If he had been, the grand jury would have indicted him for his creepy Taylor Swift fanboy videos. On the contrary, he’s on the spot because, as a high government official, he committed perjury and leaked classified information to reporters. As independent journalist Matt Taibbi points out, “There is no ‘free speech absolutist’ alive who’d count perjury and classified leaks as protected First Amendment activity.”
In his Instagram response to the indictment, Comey declares his innocence in his unique fashion of misstating reality. “My family and I have known for years,” he says, “that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump.”
Oh? Anybody remember Comey “standing up to Donald Trump”? The political sabotage he was most proud of was carried out behind Trump’s back. In their personal encounters, he lied shamelessly to Trump’s face, knowing his newly-elected boss so far had no inkling of his FBI Director’s malignant disloyalty. He lied to Trump about the phony Steele dossier, lied that the FBI wasn’t investigating him, and lied to assure Trump their conversations were private. Then he illegally leaked his version of these classified conversations to Trump’s media enemies.
Comey’s toxic misbehavior leaves no doubt that he never had any intention of adhering to his constitutional duties as director of a powerful executive agency. His narcissism recoiled at being subordinated to an elected Executive he thoroughly despised – Trump. “Standing up” in that situation left only one choice: to resign effective immediately, and make a forthright public statement setting forth his reasons. He decided he’d imitate the Serpent in the Garden instead.
Comey knew all along nothing in the Steele dossier was true, that it was baseless opposition research commissioned by the Clinton campaign. But he wanted Hillary to win, so he willingly dragged the FBI into her conspiracy; she’d deflect public attention from her own classified email scandal by leaking the dossier to smear Trump as a Russian agent.
Matt Taibbi describes how Comey opened an investigation into the Trump campaign, even though “Trump himself had never done anything that remotely justified making him the subject of undercover FBI surveillance….” Colleagues urged the director not to break Bureau rules against opening investigations when there’s no crime to investigate, simply in hopes of turning one up. He ignored them. Rules are for lesser mortals. Comey was making sure Americans couldn’t choose a president not to his liking.
Along with spying on and lying to Trump, he submitted false affidavits to the FISA court three times, lied in media interviews, and answered “I didn’t know” and “I couldn’t recall” 245 times to questions by House investigators about critical details of his own Trump investigation. As Matt Taibbi puts it, “If there was such a thing as defamation of the entire United States, Comey would be liable.”
Expired statutes of limitations unfortunately rule out criminal charges for the worst of Comey’s offenses. The two counts in the indictment were filed just days before the legal deadline to do so, no thanks to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (since replaced by Trump) “who nearly managed to run out the clock on the statute of limitations.”
Some legal experts see these remaining charges as too weak to survive, or predict a Biden-appointed judge and a Beltway jury guaranteeing an acquittal.
Just imagine James Comey’s smug expression, descending the courthouse steps to meet a throng of giggling Swifties. Perish the thought!
It would still be worth it. And not as retribution for the more than “5,000 Republicans targeted, arrested, criminally prosecuted, civilly charged, fined, and often bankrupted by a Democratic Party gone berserk.“ But so Americans can finally see a Department of Justice deserving that name, instead of villains in high places wielding law as a prank to play on suckers.
Democrats who were high-fiving one another over Trump’s four cooked-up indictments now condemn the Comey case as a “political prosecution.” And what of it? The Russia hoax was a high political crime, an unprecedented soft coup launched, literally, to depose an elected president. According to James A. Gagliano, a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent who worked under “Cardinal” Comey, the purpose of Russiagate was “illegally to hinder a presidential campaign and cripple an administration.”
A criminal conspiracy for which, so far, none of the key players has faced any consequences. It can’t just stay that way. “Justice” means everyone gets what he’s due. Contrary to Comey’s self-righteous posturing about the “costs” he’s paid, until now he hasn’t paid a bloody thing. Now the bill comes due.
Terry O’Connell looks at the world from Dearborn. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com.
