FBI agents backed Comey, surveys show, weakening president’s claim

WASHINGTON — As FBI director, James Comey had widespread support from his agents, according to internal survey data released Wednesday that contradict President Donald Trump’s claim that he fired Comey in part because agents had lost confidence in him.

Comey’s firing is among many topics now under investigation by the Justice Department special counsel, Robert Mueller. Trump and his aides have offered changing explanations for why he fired Comey, who was overseeing the investigation into Trump’s associates and possible links to Russia’s election interference.

The FBI released the results of three years of internal questionnaires in response to a public records request by The New York Times. The surveys revealed that agents around the country gave FBI leadership high marks — 4.01 on a scale of 5 — in this year’s survey. The FBI considers scores over 3.81 an indication of success.

Trump has repeatedly cast Comey in a negative light.

“He’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander, the FBI has been in turmoil,” Trump said of Comey in an NBC interview in May. “You know that. I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. It hasn’t recovered from that.”

The FBI surveys show no support for that claim. They scored him above 4 as both an inspiring leader and someone more interested in leading than being liked. His direct subordinates rated him 4.48 on the question of whether they would work with him again.

While Comey’s marks fell slightly in some categories over his three-year tenure, his scores were consistently high in each year and in nearly every area. Nationwide, agents gave higher marks to Comey’s leadership team in 2017 than they gave to Mueller, who preceded him as director and whose tenure is widely respected.

The latest batch of surveys was conducted in March, months after Comey was widely criticized for speaking publicly in July 2016 and again in October about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. His former deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, has testified that Comey had not lost the support of his agents.