The atonement of James Comey
In 2016, although he didn’t know it at the time, James Comey shot America in the chest. Apart from Donald Trump himself, no one person is more singularly responsible for Trump’s election, and the ensuing collapse of our political order, than James Comey. Believing himself to be an indispensable truth teller, in July 2016, then-Republican and then-FBI Director Comey went out of his way to criticize Hilary Clinton as “extremely reckless” in handling government emails. In that bygone era, his attack was a scandalous departure from Justice Department norms prohibiting officials from commenting on cases in the months before an election. He would soon make things much worse, holding a press conference eleven days before the November 2016 general election to announce that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton. Although he was obviously not the sole cause of Trump’s victory, his surprise announcement likely made the difference.1
Comey soon learned, of course, that torpedoing Clinton and pushing the election toward Donald Trump did not insulate him from Trump’s demands once Trump took office in January 2017 . Trump demanded personal loyalty; Comey refused. Trump fired Comey because Comey would not deny the existence of the FBI’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign solicited and obtained assistance from Russia. Trump misunderstood Comey to be a partisan hack, but Comey was not that. His sin was pride.
This is not about karma; Comey did not deserve to be the victim of false charges brought by a vengeful megalomaniac and his pliant collaborator, Lindsey Halligan. My point here is that Comey is now setting the gold standard for responding to false charges from the Trump administration—he is challenging their lies with courage and defiance. He quickly released a video stating, “We will not live on our knees. … I’m not afraid … I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial.” This is the perfect response. If only law firms, colleges, newspapers, Paramount, Disney, and other Trump targets had Comey’s courage, we would be in a much better place. The right response to Trump’s attacks is to fight back.
Does Comey have courage now because he must atone for causing great harm? Or it is just poetic happenstance that a man whose obstinate insistence on speaking his mind was very bad on one day and very good on another? Probably both. At any rate, Comey should serve as the model. I would like to see every law firm leader, every university leader, and every CEO in America release a video just like Comey’s, saying that we will never yield to Trump’s lies, false charges, and provocations. If he can be that inspiration, then perhaps he can be forgiven too.
*****
If you don’t want spoilers about the Andor series or don’t need to read about comparisons between life and art right now, then you can stop here! But if you’ve seen the second season of Andor read on … I think the similarities between Comey and one of the characters in season two are interesting.
I would compare to Comey to Samm, the Ghorman resistance fighter whose reckless indifference to rules cost Cinta her life. Afterwards, Vel condemned Samm: “You’re taking her with you wherever you go for the rest of your useless life. …. You’ll make up for this forever.”2 I can skip the word “useless,” but the rest of Vel’s damnation fits. Comey must carry his role in bringing about the destruction of American politics wherever he goes, and he will be making up for it forever.
In the Andor series, Samm eventually did make a difference. During the massacre on Ghorman, he bravely crushed one of the battle droids that was about to kill Cassian Andor. Cassian then salvaged and rebuilt the droid, K-2SO, and the droid later saved Cassian and others, enabling them to warn the rebel alliance about the Death Star. Here’s hoping that Comey is like Samm: His reckless hubris led to catastrophe, but he atoned for his sins with a courageous act that eventually led to downfall of the regime.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ssqu.12729; https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/11/14215930/comey-email-election-clinton-campaign.