Former FBI Director James Comey has stirred up a partisan hornet’s nest with his post to Instagram (now deleted) of a photo showing seashells arranged to say “8647.” The “86” was a reference to getting rid of President Donald Trump.
True, Comey almost certainly does not seek Trump’s killing. Contrary to some conservative social media analysis, Comey’s post did not constitute an unlawful threat. Comey could have argued that he simply wants the president out of office via impeachment, for example, or that he was trying to make a dark joke. At a basic level, an order to remove an item from a restaurant menu, “86 it!”, does not mean entirely removing that item from existence. The First Amendment protects speech that cannot be proved to unequivocally intend a threat to the life of the president.
The real problem here was Comey’s prioritization of his personal interests at significant cost to important national interests.
Whether their concerns are entirely legitimate or not (and I would argue they are legitimate but often heavily exaggerated), a large proportion of Trump’s supporters believe key intelligence and security agencies are fundamentally biased against them and the president. This perception is profoundly problematic for the effective work of these agencies in securing public support, as they take necessarily adversarial action against bad actors such as hostile foreign governments, mafia figures, human traffickers, terrorists, etc. To disabuse perceptions of bias, these agencies and their officers must do the utmost to ensure they behave in a nonpartisan manner.
To his credit, FBI Director Kash Patel has generally done just that since replacing former FBI Director Christopher Wray. And to their credit, Wray and former CIA Director Bill Burns have avoided the partisan public limelight since leaving office. Wray and Burns recognize a truth that Comey’s soaring ego cannot tolerate. Namely, that being quiet in retirement is the best way to increase national confidence in the agencies they previously led.
Sadly, this isn’t always the case. Too many former security and intelligence officials prefer Comey’s model to that of Wray and Burns. Former CIA Director John Brennan and Gen. Mike Hayden, former CIA and NSA Director, offer two such examples in a negative vein. Brennan and Hayden, both public servants who chose to dedicate their lives to national service, have undermined their former agencies with partisan antics in retirement.
Still, it’s not a secret what Comey was trying to accomplish with his Instagram antics. And his motive wasn’t to pursue a controversial protest against a leader he despises. Even if the method of action is wrong, that motive would be too morally honest for Comey. His motive was greed. Pure and simple greed.
Comey has a new novel coming out next week, and what a book it appears to be. Consider how Publishers Weekly described FDR Drive:
“U.S. Attorney Carmen Garcia is trying to take down Samuel Buchanan, a far-right media personality with a popular podcast vilifying those he thinks are destroying America: intellectuals, immigrants, and people of color. Garcia believes Buchanan went far beyond the protection of the First Amendment when he singled out his enemies by name and suggested ‘something should be done’ about them. His fans have obliged, killing or grievously injuring some of his foes.”
FDR Drive does not sound like a very good novel. For a start, a statement that “something should be done” is, by itself, woefully inadequate evidence for criminal prosecution pertaining to incitement to violence. Under federal law, something you would think Comey might at least have a passing memory of, criminal incitement requires a finding of speech that intends an unlawful effect, and is likely to imminently cause that effect. Political ranting is banned in Europe, not America, and for a good reason: the First Amendment serves Americans and their way of life.
Of course, the First Amendment also encapsulates Comey’s delicious hypocrisy here.
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After all, Comey, in one moment, made a highly controversial but likely lawful statement via his seashells. Then, in the next moment, he wrote a book that feeds the Left’s fix for silencing speech its supporters dislike. In real life, Comey stokes public fury in order to make money on a book. But in Comey’s dream world, “far-right” speakers must be imprisoned because their political speech targets “intellectuals, immigrants, and people of color.”
Comey might have a fetish for public attention and book sales profits. But he plainly lacks fidelity to the better ethos of the organization he previously led.