Memoirs of renowned former public servants who had had a reputation for integrity while holding office cannot be treated lightly. They have invariably a message for posterity, especially the younger aspirants to public office. If you apply this test, dismissed FBI Director James Comey’s absorbing account of his continuous battle with President Trump passes with distinction.

Graduating from the famous College of William and Mary and later from the equally renowned University of Chicago College of Law, Comey worked hard as a State Attorney and rose through the ranks. His early exposure to the crusade against corruption and violence (including that of the Mafia) prepared him eventually to lead the FBI.

All this would, however, not have been possible if he had not escaped death in his boyhood days, when once he and his brother were held captive at their home by an armed intruder — Ramsey Rapist — when their parents were out. Comey was just a high school senior and his brother James was even younger. At the point of a gun the two boys handled the situation tactfully until the trespasser left with his booty, without harming the kids. Comey recalls the evening in vivid detail.

According to him, a definite prospect of death taught him how life was a precious gift and everything that you normally valued paled into irrelevance. There was, therefore, a need to devote oneself to helping others in life rather than getting distracted by hoarding money and other possessions. This genuine moral streak in Comey’s character runs right through his story.

There is another interesting anecdote that Comey relates at length. This was the one-to-one dinner to which he was invited by Trump in the early days of the Presidency. This turned out to be almost a monologue, when the White House occupant spoke all the time with his guest being just a listener! After repeatedly boasting how popular he was, Trump was blunt in asking for Comey’s loyalty.

Comey was quick to realise that this was a loaded demand that had huge unethical overtones. After some hesitation and deliberation, what Comey offered was mere honesty and not loyalty. Trump was unfazed and reacted saying that that was his actual demand, ‘honest loyalty’, shades of what happens when a person is inducted into the Mafia.

Uneasy relationship

There was this unequal and uneasy relationship that continued right through. Eventually, Trump got rid of Comey, mainly because the latter had the guts to defy his boss and chose to do what he thought was lawful and ethical. Comey recalls that in the early days of the Presidency, Trump once summoned him to the White House and made a remorseless demand for letting the National Security Adviser Michael Flynn off the hook, when the latter was being investigated for his links with Russia. Comey did not openly protest, but in his own manner continued with the probe.

According to Comey, from the early years of his life, one of his weaknesses was to be unbending, a trait that was to catapult him to the heights of public esteem, and which, at the same time, led to his removal from about the most prestigious public appointment in the country with an unbelievable 10-year tenure. The idea of a long tenure was to insulate the FBI chief from politics and free him from an obligation to pander to the whim and fancy of a capricious President who appointed him. In the case of Comey it did not work that way. I am told a Director’s appointment requires Senate ratification, but not his dismissal!

Interestingly, Comey was fired unceremoniously and without notice, while he was on an official visit to the FBI’s office in Los Angeles. The fact that Trump took umbrage at the FBI allowing Comey to fly back to Washington after he had been dismissed on a Bureau helicopter showed how much relations between the two strong men had soured.

Comey’s tumultuous stint at the FBI also covered the investigation of Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton for alleged laxity in the area of cyber security. She was specifically accused of using a private server for her official chores as Secretary of State under President Obama. The first FBI investigation substantiated the charge, but Comey chose to underplay it saying that it was a lapse which did not warrant a criminal charge. Three months later the Bureau announced that a fresh set of mails had come to its notice, and these had to be probed. This in effect meant that Clinton was still under investigation. However, a few days before the Presidential election, the FBI admitted that the new mails in question had nothing to do with the earlier investigation.

This apparent flip-flop invited opprobrium for Comey from the right as well as the liberals. Both accused Comey of trying to play politics, at a time when absolute reticence and objectivity were expected of the Bureau. Comey’s defence — slightly shifty in the eyes of some — was that if he did not keep the Congress in the radar, he could have been accused of suppression of vital information.

It is difficult to either endorse or reject Comey’s contention. To be charitable to him, and in view of his unblemished record of honesty and objectivity, one is inclined to ignore what at the worst could be regarded as an error in judgment.

Fearless candour

Comey has to be complimented for his fearless candour. At the end of his version of a stormy relationship with the CEO of the most powerful nation in the world, Comey emerges as an indomitable personality for whom, as the title of his book suggests, adherence to enduring values ranked far higher than loyalty to a leader. He is both credible and hard hitting, and therefore deserves to be read seriously .

Was the book necessary at all? What is its value addition to the average reader? In my view, the book had necessarily to be written, if only to impress upon the average American, that when he voted for a President, he was not merely participating in the general political process. He should remember that he was not voting just for an individual, but for the upholding of a whole set of enduring values. This is the core of the book.

The writer is a former CBI Director.

 

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James Comey served as the seventh Director of the FBI from September 4, 2013, until his dismissal on May 9, 2017.

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