The real moral of Comey’s book
It will be a crying shame if this week’s childish, tit-for-tat exchange of insults between President Trump and former FBI Director James Comey obscures the important issues raised by Comey’s thoughtful book, “A Higher Loyalty.” Pundits and politicians who skim the book looking for ammunition to attack Trump or Comey are missing the point.
Comey’s book isn’t just a political tellall: It’s an earnest, somewhat gloomy meditation on power and how he personally learned, by trial and error, what it takes to become a principled, effective leader.
There’s a grim undertone to the book because we know, in advance, that the story ends with the apparent triumph (for now) of Trump, whose thoughts, words and actions contradict every personal and public virtue Comey has painstakingly catalogued and pondered.
As a successor to Rudy Giuliani in the role of U.S. attorney in the Southern District, Comey would give a little speech to new attorneys in the office about the awesome power they were about to wield: the fact they would rise in court, speak as representatives of the United States, and be believed.
That power, Comey told them, was neither coincidence nor the product of their hard work as individual lawyers.
“I told them it was a reservoir of trust and credibility built for you and filled for you by people you never knew, by those who are long gone. A reservoir that makes possible so much of the good that is done by the institutions you serve,” he wrote. “I would explain to these bright young lawyers that, like all great gifts, this one comes with a responsibility, a solemn obligation to guard and protect that reservoir and pass it on to those who follow as full as you received it, and maybe even fuller.”
The challenge of any reservoir, Comey also warned, is that “they take a very long time to fill but they can be drained by one hole in the dam. The actions of one person can destroy what it took hundreds of people years to build.”
The contrast with the professional standards of Comey’s future antagonist, Donald Trump, could not be greater. Where Comey talks about gradually filling a reservoir, the trademark Trump move, straight from the swamp, has been to strike deals based on shaky promises and then promptly burn through whatever credibility he brought to the table.
While Comey was warning young lawyers about a precious reservoir of trust and reputation being destroyed, Trump was divorcing wives and walking away from bankrupt casinos, leaving a trail of jobless employees, unpaid vendors and bankers begging to get pennies on the dollars they’d lent.
Comey proudly talks about surveys showing the FBI to rank among the most respected public agencies. Trump paid $25 million to settle fraud claims against Trump University and the tissue of lies it sold to unsuspecting customers.
And Comey’s advice for the nation includes oldschool virtues like balancing confidence with humility — qualities, he says, that he saw up close in encounters with Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama.
Compare that to Trump’s frequentlyvoiced philosophy, as described in a 2012 speech: “One of the things you should do in terms of success: If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ’em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even.”
The heart of “A Higher Loyalty” isn’t Comey’s encounters with Trump or his hesitant handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email. The moral dilemma worth a close read is Comey’s description of how he and a small handful of Justice Department officials — including then-FBI director Robert Mueller — pushed back against the Bush administration’s use of warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
It is well worth reading Comey’s dramatic retelling of a fight that culminated in a physical confrontation when he, Mueller and a handful of DOJ lawyers clashed with Bush’s White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and Chief of Staff Andy Card at the bedside of a nearly comatose Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004.
The Bush hardliners were trying to get Ashcroft to certify expanded NSA surveillance as legal, while Comey and Mueller insisted the measures were illegal unless a judge signed off on the spying.
Comey and Mueller, who didn’t know each other very well, won the day using speed, determination and a loyalty to the law rather than their bosses. A lesson worth remembering in today’s troubled times.