It Seems Trump Was Right To Fire James Comey

Editorial of The New York Sun | August 29, 2019

The most important point to draw from the Justice Department’s report on James Comey is that President Trump was right to cashier him as director of the FBI. The department declined to prosecute the ex-director. The department’s inspector general made clear, though, that Mr. Comey lacks the judgment to safeguard the kind of sensitive information that the Bureau needs to keep safe in order to properly “dispatch” its duties.

That strikes us as devastating. The report focuses on Mr. Comey’s sharing of sensitive memos with persons outside the department, among them his lawyers. He shared some with a friend for onpassing to the New York Times. The IG found Mr. Comey at times failed “to immediately alert the FBI to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information” and was less than completely forthcoming in testimony to the Senate.

Mr. Comey, the IG report concludes, set a “dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees” and thousands of former ones who “similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.” He should have adhered to department and FBI policies if he wanted a special counsel appointed. Instead he disclosed sensitive investigative information “in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.”

The IG report brushed aside Mr. Comey’s claims that he acted out of love for America, the Justice Department, and the FBI. If others behaved the way Mr. Comey did, the report said, the FBI couldn’t properly carry out its duties. Mr. Comey reacted today with a lack of contrition. “I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me,” he Twittered, “but a quick message with a ‘sorry we lied about you’ would be nice.”

Mr. Comey shouldn’t wait up for The New York Sun. We’re completely comfortable with our own concerns about Mr. Comey, which are sketched in a number of editorials about him in various jobs going back 15 years or more. They include, among others, “James Comey’s Chutzpah,” “Comey’s Original Sin,” and “Comey’s Overreach.” All our concerns echo in the latest report.

Which, the Inspector General notes, is the second IG report to have faulted Mr. Comey. The earlier one, issued last year, dealt with the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails and related matters during the 2016 election. It found that Mr. Comey was insubordinate in concealing from the Justice Department his intentions in announcing that the FBI wouldn’t recommend charges against Mrs. Clinton.

When that report came out, Mr. Comey wrote a piece for the Times congratulating the Justice Department for excoriating him. Hence our editorial about “James Comey’s Chutzpah.” We also faulted Mr. Comey’s performance, as United States attorney, in the prosecution of Martha Stewart. A federal judge threw out the central charge; she suggested the needed evidence was either too meager or “nonexistent.”

It turns out there endures a hubris to Mr. Comey that he tries to portray as courage and conviction. Our doubts began when Mr. Comey, as acting attorney general, raced to a hospital to try to physically prevent the White House Counsel to a sitting wartime president, George W. Bush, from communicating on a national security matter with the actual, albeit ailing, attorney general, John Ashcroft.

Views differ on that episode, but ours is that it should have ended Mr. Comey’s career. At the time, Mr. Bush failed to fire Mr. Comey (the president had a lot on his plate). Mr. Trump should have heeded the Wall Street Journal and asked on January 20, 2017, for Mr. Comey’s resignation from the FBI. At least he did finally step up. The more one reads this report, the better one can see a noncynical reason why.

How these folks rise to power.... IS the swamp, that needs to be drained.

Given what we know now, and have witnessed, it is easy to believe just how corrupt those with power established in their capacity of office, can circumvent truth and duty, for their own personal reasoning.....

One thing that comes to mind, of many episodes of folks screaming of injustice, is how many Black men have been rung up, because of those holding the power simply desired that outcome based on their own interpretations of the best love for their country.....

Its bad enough when a free press lies, and promotes anger and hate by their spew.....

But those entrusted with the responsibilities that our legal system is fair, just, and available equally to all......
Should be held to a higher standard, like a pilot who flies under the influence