The James Comey Indictment

 James Comey, the former director of the FBI, has been indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia for perjury and obstruction of justice. The indictment stems from testimony he gave before the Senate in September 2020 (during the 2020 presidential campaign) as to whether he authorized former FBI official Andrew McCabe to leak information to the press about the Bureau’s investigation into Donald Trump.

Let me state at the outset that I am not a fan of Comey, whom I believe abused his powers as FBI director on multiple occasions and may have violated the law in his handling of the investigations into Trump, as well as presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, going back to the 2016 election. It was Comey who signed off on FISA affidavits for warrants to electronically eavesdrop on Carter Page, a Trump campaign member in the 2016 election, affidavits based largely on the Steele dossier, which has been discredited, and which the FBI had every reason to doubt even then, as they were including it in their affidavits.

That, however, is not the charge against Comey today. The charges center around who authorized a leak allegedly by McCabe to the Wall Street Journal.

On that point, I don’t know what the facts are, and Comey will have his day in court. Having said all that, as a former federal agent (DEA), I am uncomfortable with this indictment. 

This morning on Fox News, Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor whom I greatly respect, said that the case is weak because there are questions about what McCabe later said about the authorization from Comey. Even if McCabe testifies against Comey, his own credibility is zero (at least to most people, if not CNN, which hired him as their law enforcement analyst.) 

Secondly, while I have always maintained that Trump was the victim of multiple witchhunts, designed to put him in prison or at least prevent him from running for president in 2024, and while I believe that other individuals like John Brennen, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Clapper and others abused their positions of power and possibly broke laws as well, I am very uneasy about what can now reasonably be perceived as Trump’s effort to gain revenge against these people. I am also troubled by Trump’s statements about Comey subsequent to the indictment. He is literally trying Comey in the media. In my view, this is highly improper for a president. I recall when Charles Manson and his followers were on trial in Los Angeles decades ago, and then-President Nixon told the press that Manson was clearly guilty during the trial. Manson proudly held up the newspaper headline in court.  It is not the role of a president to pronounce anyone guilty until a guilty verdict has been rendered. Such statements can even prejudice a defendant’s right to a fair trial. 

Along those lines, I am also uncomfortable with a memo that Trump reportedly sent to DOJ days ago, urging indictments. I think it is improper. Some conservative pundits, in defending Trump’s actions, have said that the DOJ works directly for the president. That is true, but it is improper for the president to pressure his attorney general to prosecute anyone. That is a decision to be made by the Justice Department based on the evidence and likelihood of a conviction. Prosecutions must be made in the interest of justice, not retribution. 

There is little doubt in my mind that Trump was improperly targeted by both the Obama and Biden administrations. Is it going to become our standard in the United States of America that every incoming administration is going to try to put the previous administration in jail? That is the stuff of banana republics.

Andrew McCarthey also stated this morning on Fox News that he doubts the Comey case will ever make it to a trial. I have to agree.