An Independent's View of ex-FBI Director Comey's testimony

Prior to reading my following comments, it may be useful to remember that when FBI director James Comey declared that he did not feel that it was appropriate to file charges against Hillary Clinton and again when Comey announced the re-opened investigation shortly before the election, I concluded that Comey is an ethical person in a very difficult position that precluded a perfect response.  He did what he thought was best and I respected him.  (Sadly, most people took opposite views of the incidents, based on their political preferences.)  It is also worth knowing that I was a “Never Trump” Kasich supporter.

Having read Comey’s entire recent prepared and verbal testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I found it surprisingly favorable to President Trump, even suggesting reasonable justification for Trump firing him based on the Russian investigation. 

Before explaining the above surprising statement, I’d like to note that if I had no prior knowledge of Trump, I would have focused on his boorish behavior and inability to understand and deal with people constructively.  However, we already knew about that and the misbehavior cited is not illegal nor grounds for action. 

While Comey’s testimony was not harmful to President Trump, President Trump’s response to Comey’s testimony was damaging to Trump.  If Trump feels that he is the subject of a “witch” hunt, why does he go out of his way to act like a “witch”?

Returning to the biggest surprise for me, from Comey’s testimony.

1. On January 6^th and January 27^th, 2016, Comey volunteered to Trump that Trump was not under investigation.
2. In a March 30^th, 2016 phone call, Comey reported to Trump that he had told the Senate that Trump was not under investigation.  President Trump urged him to make that fact public.  In Comey’s words, “I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.”  President Trump had reason to expect that the FBI would soon announce that Trump was not under investigation.
3. On April 11^th, 2016, President Trump called Comey specifically to follow up on this issue.  In Comey’s words, “I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back.”  Comey subsequently suggested that Trump call the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but made no effort to erase the impression that he was working on the issue, as Trump had suggested.

President Trump’s request that it be announced that he was not under investigation was entirely reasonable.  Comey had two good reasons not to make that announcement:

a)    It would require a duty to correct, if later Trump was a subject of investigation.

b)    It is a slippery slope.  If it is announced that Trump is not under investigation, does that suggest that VP Pence may be under investigation?  If it is announced that Pence also is not under investigation, does that suggest that others are?  Comey was right to fear the slippery slope.

However, there are at least two critical reasons why Comey was wrong to NEVER share these concerns with President Trump:

1)    He left Trump with the impression that Comey would “see what he could do” about such a public announcement.  But, despite Trump’s follow-up, nothing happened in nearly six weeks after the March 30^th request, with no explanation for not having done so.  Such unexplained failure provides acceptable grounds for President Trump to fire Comey.  (Note: I don’t know if this was Trump’s reason.  Trump does an amazing job of representing himself poorly.)

2)    Although Comey had good reasons for thinking it was not a good idea to make Trump’s desired public announcement, the final decision on that issue should sit with President Trump, not with Comey because the risks Comey envisioned were for Trump, not risks for the FBI or the USA.  (Even if you disagree with the previous sentence, how can you justify Comey not telling Trump that he was opposed to the announcement and explaining why?)  If Comey had told President Trump on May 9^th that he had never agreed with President Trump but had chosen not to tell him, Trump would have had grounds to fire him.

Ironically, after Comey’s previous testimony to the Senate, I had commented to my wife that I thought he was going to be fired.  Much as I cherish Comey’s ethics and independence, he tends to rub other people’s nose in it, evincing a “holier-than-thou” attitude.  Conveying a sense that you are superior to others tends to lead to being fired.

It is very arrogant to decide that you’re going to disobey the President’s valid request because you (and your associates) don’t think it is a good idea and that you see no reason to let him know that you’ve made that decision.  Furthermore, hindsight demonstrates that Comey’s fundamental premise was wrong.  He presumed that, if President Trump were to become subject to investigation, such investigation would not be publicly known unless Comey had a duty to correct a prior statement that Trump was not under investigation.  Since then, the Washington Post reported that Trump was under investigation at least as soon as that action occurred.  So Comey’s premise was incorrect.

There were other aspects of Comey’s testimony that were favorable to Trump:

a)    I had suspected that President Trump’s statements that Comey had told him 3 times that he was not under investigation were inaccurate or misleading.  Comey backed him up.

b)    Comey testified that Trump urged him to continue to pursue investigations of his associates’ possible relationships with Russians..

c)    Trump never followed up on his February 14^th expression that he hoped Comey would go easy on Flynn.  Nor did anyone else on Trump’s staff raise the issue to Comey again.  Nor did Trump ever try to stop the Russian investigation according to Comey. 

d)    Comey testified that a February 14^th article by the NYT, and other artices, were grossly inaccurate. thus supporting President Trump’s claims of fake news.  (Such unchallenged false reports probably enflamed Trump’s desire for an announcement.)

e)    Indirectly, it was helpful to President Trump that Comey identified inappropriate behavior by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  She directly ordered him to be misleading in his comments about the Hillary Clinton investigation, deflecting Comey’s question about it.  No one in Trump’s administration ever did that to Comey.

f)     Of course, he also testified that nothing Trump or the White House had done had interfered with the investigation, which is no surprise.  There is no way that Trump’s “Flynn” comment would dissuade any proper FBI director.  If anything, it would cause Comey to be more determined.

I still think Comey was a strong public servant, although I am less confident after reading his testimony.

1)    Comey chose subterfuge to release his notes about his meetings with Trump.  It is surprising that someone of Comey’s self-described staunch ethics would release the materials in such a disingenuous fashion.  He explained that personally releasing his notes would be like “feeding seagulls at the beach”.  By that, I infer he was concerned that reporters would flock around him.  But isn’t it his responsibility to answer questions about his released notes?  Wouldn’t they flock to him for questions when the notes were released by his friend?  Comey hinted there were other unmentioned reasons.  I can’t reach a conclusion about this but it concerns me.

2)    Comey testified “The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly the FBI, by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.  Those were lies, plain and simple.”  But there had been a lot of criticism of the FBI on both sides of the aisle over the past year and of Comey specifically.  There were discussions about the NYC office working independently.  Clearly some people in the FBI were dissatisfied with Comey.  Whether you got the impression that “the FBI was in disarray and that confidence had been lost in the leader” would depend upon with whom you spoke.  Also, one might conclude that the FBI is in disarray if the FBI director tells you he’ll see what he can do to satisfy a simple reasonable request from you and six weeks later has been unable to do anything.  I have no problem with Comey contesting the statements and my opinion is that they were inaccurate, but his “lies, plain and simple” comment is inappropriate, especially for someone who prides himself on his ethics.

There were a few other comments by Comey that caused me to “raise an eyebrow”, but it is very difficult to testify under such circumstances, particularly when people continue asking questions, sometimes modifying their meaning, while you have already started to answer the question.  So I can draw no conclusion.

I have never been a fan of Donald Trump.  His statement "That's what I want - Honest Loyalty" was particularly offensive.  Without suggesting that I should be President, I'll explain my extremely different approach.  When I was a manager, I stressed to my staff that the best service they could provide to me was to advise me if I was doing something wrong.  When staff told me that they had done something because it was good for me, I strongly advised them to reconsider because "I would cut them off at the knees" if they did something because it was good for me instead of being guided by the interests of our many constituents.

Unfortunately, my approach did not work so well upwards.  Based on blind surveys of what other staff thought about me, I was considered to be a nuisance gadfly by management above me (unfortunately, in their eyes, indispensable because of the quality of my work).  When I started a reporting relationship to the President of a major division, I explained my philosophy to him as follows: "When we're at a conference with our brokers, probably one of them will come up to us and say 'Claude, I understand you work for Bill now.'  You'll hear me slightly deflect the concept by responding 'Yes, I report to Bill now.'  The distinction is that I do report to you and I work for you because I work for our insured clients and I believe you are insured by the company.   I work for you because you are a beneficiary on one or more of our policies probably.  I work for you because you are a shareholder.  I work for you because you are an employee.  And I work for you because you are a member of our management team.  When I make decisions, I consider the impact on all of our constituencies including those categories and regulators, our brokers, our suppliers such as reinsurers, etc."  Years later, another officer of the company advised me that Bill's reaction had been "This is as far as Claude will rise in the company."  Unfortunately, that was not my only scrape with management that prized personal loyalty above most everything else.  (On the other hand, my peers and my staff offered glowing blind evaluations.  As a result of the valuable survey, I found more palatable ways to express concerns to management.)

Despite my strong dislike for President Trump's approach, I believe he is entitled to fairness.  Many Democrats, reporters and other citizens have been strongly biased against Trump.  I understand that Trump’s campaign rhetoric (and current tweets) offended them.  But, in my opinion, it is not appropriate to blindly disparage everything that he does.