Op-Ed: It’s Possible to Dislike James Comey and His Nixonian Firing

No One Is Above the Law—Not Even the President of the United States

I proudly supported Hillary Clinton in both the primary and presidential elections.

Not because I believed she was the perfect candidate running the perfect campaign, because no one was or did, but because I felt that she was the most qualified person in my lifetime to seek the presidency.

So it’s probably not a surprise that I’m no fan of James Comey.

I wasn’t a fan of his when he unsurprisingly announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against Clinton for her use of a private email server as Secretary of State, ripe with commentary beneath a supposed non-partisan FBI Director.

I wasn’t a fan of his when he released a letter to Congress less than two weeks before Election Day, which subsequently hit the press, advising that “new evidence” had been discovered about her email usage. (Obtained without probable cause and leading the FBI to “not change its conclusions.”)

And I certainly wasn’t a fan of his when her opponent praised Comey’s actions, exclaiming that the move took guts and “brought back his reputation,” nor when Donald Trump was actually elected. (Analysts agreeing that Comey’s interference impacted the election.)

I’d have absolutely supported the dismissal of James Comey following his actions last year, and given that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General had begun to investigate the matter, he may have eventually been ousted.

But that isn’t what happened.

Donald Trump fired Comey, not on January 20th but in May, and only after the former FBI Director agreed that Russia had interfered with our election. After he refused to decry claims of the Trump administration’s contacts with Russians at their behest.

And most notably, after he announced that the FBI was investigating links and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Even more troubling, he did so at the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions—who due to his own proximity to the Trump campaign and his previously-undisclosed contact with Russian officials, had recused himself from any involvement concerning investigations on the matter.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

James Comey said last week that his actions prior to the election had been painful; that it made him feel “mildly nauseous” to think that the FBI had impacted the election. He also said he would do it again. And yes, as a Hillary Clinton supporter, it was tempting to find joy that he’d been dismissed. (Mildly nauseous? You helped Donald Trump become President of the United States. Take a TUMS and sit down.)

But I took no joy in his firing. I took no joy in it for the same reason that I took no joy in the election of Donald Trump, a man who openly mocked a disabled reporter, who boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue without losing a vote, who equated the daily lives of African-Americans and Hispanics to living in hell, who called for Muslim bans and registrations, who praised murderous, foreign dictators, who openly degraded women as he dismissed their sexual assault, and who named arguably the most anti-LGBT politician in modern political history as his running mate.

Because I love my country.

I love its checks and balances, its Democratic process and its promise that every man and woman was created equal. That no one is above the law—not even the President of the United States.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon fired the man investigating his own conduct, Archibald Cox. The New Yorker, that very year, wrote a chilling review on the matter, one that could easily be written today:

For nearly a decade, a question has been haunting our national life. It is whether the Republic will live or die. The question has been asked in countless forms. May newspapers print whatever they wish to print, and the people read whatever they wish to read? May the people assemble without fear of injury or loss of life? Must senators and others always support the President in his difficult decisions? Are the people to be treated like children or like adults? To what extent does the government have the power to check up on what the people are doing? To what extent do the people have the right to check up on what the government is doing? How do we spend our money? When do we go to war? Who decides? 

“The President has dismissed the man charged by Congress and the Attorney General with discovering any wrongdoing in the White House,” the article continued. “The potential defendant fired the prosecutor and defied the judge. And since the President, by the same stroke that removed him from the law’s reach, took personal control of the law… every innocent person in the country is endangered.”

So yes, one can despise James Comey’s actions during the election while viewing Donald Trump’s motivations this week with a healthy skepticism, scrutiny and distaste. I would argue further that those who praised Comey’s impact on the election should view Trump’s actions this week through the lens of history. One needn’t look further back than 1973.

Richard Nixon wasn’t a crook, and Donald Trump greatly appreciated Comey “informing him, on three separate occasions, that [he is] not under investigation.”

The Donald Trump presidency, somehow only on its 110th day, is under investigation. Firing James Comey doesn’t change that. But if you weren’t one of the 65,844,610 people who foresaw this being Donald Trump’s America in 2017, give his actions this week pause and ask yourself:

Should they change you?

 

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Image via CNN/YouTube