James B. Comey posted on Instagram a photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47,” which could be interpreted as a threat against the 47th president. Comey has since denied that he intended violence; nonetheless the Secret Service is reportedly investigating. This posting may have been a lapse of judgment on Comey’s part or something more nefarious.
Comey’s conduct in this instance, however, fits well with his previous anti-Trump behavior and demonstrably poor judgment. His judgment has been a serious concern for many of us who were proud to serve in the FBI and care about the bureau’s credibility and reputation. In his book and elsewhere, he described the sole origin of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s first presidential campaign as based on a report “from an allied ambassador” of an encounter in London between a Trump adviser and “a Russian agent.”
That’s Comey’s characterization of George Papadopoulos’ meeting with Joseph Mifsud, a pan-European academic. Mifsud told the then-Trump aide the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Comey has piously huffed that it would have been “dereliction” not to proceed with a counterintelligence investigation based on that report. But to proceed with such an intrusive investigation on so little was an abuse.
A secondhand rumor should never be enough to justify opening a counterintelligence investigation of any American, much less a presidential candidate. This off-handed conversation initiated a counterintelligence case that disrupted Trump’s first term as president. Like directors before him, Comey should have said, “We need more probable cause” before moving forward with an investigation.
In the encounter Comey cited, there was no mention of emails. Only after the WikiLeaks disclosures was an assumption made by both Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer, Comey’s “allied ambassador,” and Papadopoulos, that the “dirt” was in Hillary’s emails.
Comey’s indignant complaints about Trump are an effort to distract from the dangerous and faulty decisions made on his watch. His initiation of the counterintelligence investigation against Trump was an error of historical proportions.
Comey has tried to justify the spying — electronic surveillance — of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen, by writing that a federal judge granted “permission.” We now know the FISA Court was seriously misled by Comey’s FBI.
Comey grossly usurped the prosecutor’s role in virtually declining prosecution in the Clinton email investigation. That usurpation was spelled out in Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s memo justifying Comey’s firing. Comey also had further muddied the waters by announcing the reopening of the Clinton email investigation just days before the 2016 election.
Comey tried to deflect from his responsibility in the Russian collusion fiasco by claiming it all happened “seven layers below” him. That is simply not true. The deputy assistant director for counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, drafted and signed out the communication initiating that probe. Strzok’s texts demonstrate he answered to Andrew McCabe, who was deputy director and Comey’s direct report. It was McCabe who set up the interview to entrap General Michael Flynn, and it was Strzok who conducted the interview. These people were not seven layers down from Comey. They were his inner circle, mere steps away from him on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
It was Comey himself who wrote a memo of his initial conversation with President-elect Trump and then leaked it. He, and only he, did that. What was he thinking? Here was the FBI director trying to incriminate the president.
Throwing everyone else under the bus, Comey claimed that FBI procedures failed him. But it was Comey who signed three of the four applications for FISA coverage on Carter Page. And it was Comey who set the tone by declining to brief the Congressional Gang of Eight about this significant counterintelligence investigation. When Comey served as FBI director, he led the investigation of one or more American citizens without sufficient basis. The lack of justification for initiating these investigations is what truly matters.
The former FBI director may or may not be charged for this seashell threat on the president’s life, but James Comey will be condemned by history as the worst FBI director for the damage he has done to the FBI and our country.
Portions of this article come from the author’s book “The Fall of the FBI.”
Thomas J. Baker is an international law enforcement consultant. He served as a FBI Special Agent for 33 years in a variety of investigative and management positions facing the challenges of crime and terrorism. He is the author of “The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy.”
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