James Comey has spoken up again about Donald Trump.
Comey wrote an article in The Washington Post in which he discusses what it’s like to be the object of Trump attacks. He has done this kind of thing before — he writes or publicly says things that that make him the story. Is he a megalomaniac? Maybe. Is he trying to massage or improve his public image? Maybe.
In the Post story, former FBI Director James Comey writes, “What’s it like to be personally and publicly attacked by the president of the United States? Like many others in and out of government, I have some experience. I have also watched friends and former colleagues deal with vicious, repeated assaults. The attacks have interfered with their ability to find work after government service, as even employers who see through the lies fear hiring a “controversial” person or being attacked themselves. It can mean reassuring concerned friends and family, who can’t imagine themselves the target of presidential wrath, that you’re doing just fine. And it also means avoiding much of social media, because every presidential assault unleashes truly disturbed Trump supporters on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
“So, it’s hard on good people, especially those who don’t have savings to fall back on. But the truth is that, in many ways, it is not as hard as you might think, especially as it continues endlessly, leaking power, shrinking its source.
“At first, the attack is stunning and rocks your world. Waking up to find the president has tweeted that you are guilty of treason or committed assorted other crimes and are a [insert any one of this president’s epithets here] is jarring and disorienting. That’s the first stage, but it doesn’t last.”
Unfortunately, Comey is portraying himself as a victim of Trump. And this is more than a little disingenuous of him. Comey’s victim position does not make sense given his previous experience with Trump.
James Comey did more than any other single person to help elect Donald Trump. He did this when he publicly said that the FBI had found “new” Hillary Clinton emails before determining whether they were in fact “new.”
This raised questions and lowered voter confidence in Clinton and reduced her lead in polls by 1-3 points a couple of weeks before the election.
If Comey had kept his mouth shut until the authorities investigated the emails and found they were 1) duplicates of those the FBI already read or 2) actually new emails, Clinton would have maintained her lead and Trump would very likely not have won the minimal number of votes needed to win the Electoral College.