NEW YORK SUN: It Seems Trump Was Right To Fire James Comey. Ya think?
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 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 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.
His smarmy act has failed to conceal that he’s a sanctimonious prick. Make that a sanctimonious, dishonest, basically corrupt prick, who subordinated his duty to his country to selfish and shallow political and personal motives. He is a disgrace, and it’s a disgrace that he’s so far escaped prosecution.