Hope, Loyalty, and the Nature of Trump: Reviewing James Comey's Testimony

By Ravenne Reid on June 20, 2017

On Thursday, June 8, former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee under oath. His hearing became a highly anticipated event after he was abruptly fired by President Trump for reasons that still confuse Comey himself. His forced departure from the FBI was not only uncalled for (at least at the given moment since there were a number of reasons why he should have left sooner), but it was also unjustified.

Back in May, the White House issued a statement that had the subject line “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI.” The memo cited that the reason why Comey was fired was because of how he mishandled the email investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton. The Trump administration criticized him for not only refusing to charge Clinton for her incompetent missteps but also for announcing in late October (several days before the election) that the FBI had reopened its investigation of her. Of course, as you already know, that new probe on Clinton resulted in the same conclusion, but it did cost her the election.

Thereafter, Comey became the Democrats’ worst enemy. However, for Republicans, including Trump, his actions were revered because, even though Clinton was still not prosecuted with criminal intent, the thought that she would be charged loomed over undecided constituents as they reluctantly switched their votes or refrained from voting at all. As I wrote in a previous article, Trump publicly praised Mr. Comey for influencing the election results (oftentimes saying that he is “doing a great job”), so his sudden proclamation that the FBI director needed to be fired because the American people could no longer trust him was extremely suspicious.

Surely, if anything, Comey’s efforts to be bi-partisan would make him even more trustworthy. For a while, it seemed as if he was pining for one party over the other until he took it upon himself to lead the investigation of the Trump/Russia probe. His mission to hold the president and his administration accountable for their actions (i.e., possible collusion with the Russian government for political sabotage) was stopped after Trump realized that he was not going to give him the loyalty that he so desperately wanted.

This question of being loyal was brought up multiple times during the hearing. Mostly, this matter was prompted by the conversations that Comey claimed he and the president had prior to his firing. In the midst of a dinner that Comey reluctantly attended with him, Trump allegedly stated, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” This meeting, by the way, took place on January 27, which was just seven days after his inauguration.

One might ask why a person who professes his innocence in the Russian hacking would request loyalty from the person who would have had access to evidence of that collusion. It has been argued that Trump was only adamant about repeatedly asking for Mr. Comey’s loyalty because he was a businessman who saw to it that all of his associates were completely devoted to him. Had this conversation been the only instance where Trump seemed to be using his executive power to get what he wanted from Comey, then it is more than likely that there would not have been a hearing about obstruction of justice.

But, alas, Trump’s bargaining did not stop there. On February 14, the president ordered everyone in the Oval Office, including Comey’s boss at the time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to leave the room so he could speak to him alone. In that moment, Mr. Comey claimed that he felt intimidated as well as skeptical, and he did his best to try to remember the president’s words as he was saying them.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” said President Trump in regard to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had been fired on the grounds that he had contact with Russian officials multiple times before Trump took office. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

After hearing this, Mr. Comey took it upon himself to not only refrain from consenting to stop an ongoing investigation (he had only agreed with the president that Flynn was a good guy), but he also wrote down his words verbatim as soon as he finished that meeting and every one thereafter.

Although this practice is not exactly clear-cut evidence, Comey said that he felt compelled to do this because of the “nature of the person” that he was dealing with. In other words, he thought that Trump would lie about the meeting so he made sure to write direct quotes as well as publicly give his support for any “tapes” that the president may have.

However, depending on whose side you are on, those records either helped or hurt Comey because, even though some of the Committee senators were capable of understanding that the president’s words are still vital even when they are vague, others did not share the same belief.

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Below, you will see the exchange between James Comey and Republican Senator James Risch from Idaho.

RISCH: He did not direct you to let it go.

COMEY: Not in his words, no.

RISCH: He did not order you to let it go.

COMEY: Again, those words are not an order.

RISCH: He said, “I hope.” Now, like me, you probably did hundreds of cases, maybe thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses. And, of course, you have knowledge of the thousands of cases out there where people have been charged. Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense, where they said, or thought, they hoped for an outcome?

COMEY: I don’t know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction. I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, “I hope” this. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. Now I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.

RISCH: You may have taken it as a direction, but that’s not what he said. He said, “I hope.” You don’t know of anyone that’s ever been charged for hoping something. Is that a fair statement?

COMEY: I don’t, as I sit here.

RISCH: Yeah. Thank you.

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On the other hand, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris from California said the following to Mr. Comey: “You know, you and I are both former prosecutors. I’m not going to require you to answer, I just want make a statement that, in my experience of prosecuting cases, when a robber held a gun to somebody’s head, and said, ‘I hope you will give me your wallet,’ the word ‘hope’ was not the most operative word at that moment. But you don’t have to respond to that point.”

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I have to agree with Senator Harris because if the president said that he wished for something that affects him to stop happening to the person who could have made that wish a reality, then there was a clear attempt on his part to groom Comey into doing what he wants. As opposed to what Senator Risch may think, even if Trump did not explicitly say what he meant, why should we ignore the fact that he did say it?

In addition to that not so subtle request, Trump also called Comey twice, asking him “what [he] could do to lift the cloud of [the] Russia investigation in any way, [and] alter [his] approach of the FBI’s investigation into General Flynn or the broader investigation into Russia and possible links to the campaign.”

Mr. Comey refused to do so, and it became clear to President Trump that he was not going to get the loyalty that he thought he deserved.

Instead of praising Comey (like he had done before) for showing leadership and doing right by American citizens who have the right to know how the Russians meddled into our election (assuming that the president himself did not have any part of it), he dismissed and defamed the man who had the most influence in bringing him into power in the first place.

Unfortunately, as we see more and more every day, the act of displaying a sense of loyalty towards our elections, our democracy, and our country as a whole is lost on the president, who is more concerned with defending his reputation and guarding whatever secrets he may be hiding.

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*You can watch the Comey hearing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j0f6c-3x6s

Image by Rich Girard via flickr.com

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