Convinced that it will build his brand with CNN’s “resistance” viewership, Comey now openly admits that he oversaw direct spying on the Trump campaign.
This, Comey assures us, is “reasonable.“ Placing spies in your opponent’s political campaign to collect information to predicate an investigation that the Democratic Party would subsequently exploit in order to undermine a duly elected president is a ”totally normal step.”
Comey knew that the consequences might be dire if it were ever revealed that an incumbent administration had tried to place spies in an opposing party’s campaign, but he just assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 election and he’d never be held accountable for his abuse of power. He made that clear again during his CNN town hall when he gave a renewed defense of Clinton’s clearly illegal private email server.
Comey’s explanation for why Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department’s senior lawyers concluded that there was no collusion and no obstruction of justice is the same as his explanation for why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein supported Comey’s removal from the FBI: Trump “eats your soul in small bites,” as Comey wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.
In Comey’s view, he wasn’t fired for the gross mishandling of politically sensitive investigations, but rather because Trump is a soul-devouring demon.
The sun is setting on Comey’s public life, and his flailing accusations, self-exonerating fantasies, and narcissistic denials during the CNN town hall confirm that the worst suspicions about him are entirely true. We may not have seen the last of Comey quite yet, but if his performance at this town hall event is any indication, he lost his last shred of credibility long ago.
Thank goodness a man like this is no longer in control of the FBI, and no longer has the authority to authorize spying on—er, undercover infiltration and electronic surveillance of—rival political campaigns.
Trump didn’t make a mistake by firing Comey. Based on what we’ve learned since 2017, Comey deserved to be shown the door on Day One. He proves it himself, over and over again.
