Myths vs. reality at FBI

There is the mythology of the firing of FBI Director James Comey as advanced by the White House, and then there is the reality.

Yesterday, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe under questioning by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee disputed one of the worst of the lies — that Comey had lost the confidence of the agency he headed.

“Over the past year . . . the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice,” read the memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.”

McCabe, on the other hand, told the committee, “I can tell you also that Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.”

But then President Trump himself willingly removed whatever fig leaf of a rationale his staff and the Justice Department had concocted for him by telling NBC News in an interview, “I was going to fire Comey” regardless of the Rosenstein memo.

This was no chain of command operation. He wanted Comey gone, he said, long before his Monday meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein. And all that remained was for the two of them to come up with the window dressing that was released on Tuesday.

Yes, the administration that continually berates “fake news” has itself become a prime generator of just that.

In fact, while the president has attempted to portray the FBI investigation of possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as “a total hoax,” McCabe called the investigation “highly significant.” But more importantly he assured the committee — and by extension the American public — that Comey’s firing would not interfere with that investigation.

“You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing,” he added.

Those words ought to come as a great comfort to the American public in these turbulent times.