Best-selling author James Comey can certainly spin a yarn. Having spent exactly three years, eight months, and five days as FBI director before being unceremoniously relieved of his duties by President Trump last May, Comey certainly feels he has an axe to grind. And over the course of the past year he has been subjected to the Twitter taunts and threats from a president who blames him for the appointment of a special prosecutor that haunts his administration.
It has been two weeks since the release of James Comey’s much-anticipated screed, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.” The book has served to drive the debate between two intransigent sides – those who view it as an underlying document in the obstruction of justice case to be made against the president and those who view it as prosecutorial overreach perpetrated by a politicized justice system seeking to nullify the results of a lawful election.
Much has certainly been made of what is contained within the tome. Comey has discussed the contents ad nauseum in interview after interview. But what has been overlooked is not what Comey chose to include in the book. It is just exactly what he purposely chose to leave out.
In 277 pages of “The Book of Comey,” the sanctimonious former lawman frequently employs expert self-deprecation as a means to highlight his humility and piety. He recalls the most arcane past events with precision and clarity. And provides granular detail reminiscent of how a baseball game broadcast on radio has a color man to gloriously describe the smell of the outfield grass and the choking dust cloud following a home plate collision between runner and catcher.
Exhibiting an elephant-like memory, Comey perfectly describes the January 27, 2017 Green Room dinner at the White House he shared with the president – even down to the exact four-course menu written in script on a “large cream-colored card.”
The bulk of the book is devoted to his recollections of some nine interactions with Trump – either in person or on the telephone – that he assiduously captured on FBI documents to preserve, he claims, if needed later. Though he bristles at the term – he “leaked” some of these documents to a friend to share with The New York Times. Now available in the public domain, the FBI memos and emails he composed read less like investigative documents drafted by an FBI agent – which he never was – and more like a pitch to a publisher for a tell-all book.
But nowhere in the book does Comey mention two infamous FBI headquarters employees. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were both central figures in the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server – code-named Midyear Exam. They were also senior decision-makers in the original investigation into Russian election meddling that spawned the special prosecutor’s collusion probe.
But they can’t be found anywhere in Comey’s book.
Why?
Comey sanctimoniously hawks his book as an ode to “ethical leadership.” He seems to relish relating the faults and frailties of the man who fired him, and other GOP politicians, like his former SDNY boss at DOJ, Rudy Giuliani. He pretends to give the reader an insider’s view into the difficult choices that were made in a number of consequential investigations that, in all probability, affected the 2016 election and continue to torture the Trump administration.
Yet, in 277 pages of reflections, recollections, and proselytizing, Comey never once mentions Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, or the Inspector General’s investigation into possible politicized decision-making at FBI headquarters. This is odd.
Many former and retired FBI agents have argued that James Comey was not in compliance with Section 2.4 of DOJ’s Prepublication Review (PR) Manual that defines an employee as “an individual who has or has had a position of trust with the FBI.”
The lengthy list of prohibited disclosures includes:
“Information that relates to … the substantive merits of any ongoing or open investigation or case.”
Comey maintains that his book was approved through the process at the FBI. So if he can speak openly and in detail about events and incidents related to the Russia probe and an ongoing obstruction of justice case against the president, spare me the lecture that discussing Strzok and Page would imperil the IG’s investigation.
In some 502 pages of the recent FBI document dump that included a full accounting of the infamous Peter Strzok and Lisa Page text message exchanges, there are numerous topics that Comey can and should speak to. Maybe he has already when he was interviewed by IG Michael Horowitz’s team or by investigators in the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) at the FBI. But why the curious silence here?
Comey’s penchant for loquaciousness in open investigative matters is evident in any and every instance, except in matters related to Strzok and Page – two of his handpicked inner circle.
Much has been made of the Strzok-Page texted banal banter. And yet I am in agreement with Comey’s assertion that one or two potentially politically-motivated investigators or supervisors simply cannot impact an investigation with multiple layers of checks and balances.
But one ominous text gives me pause to reconsider.
In the damning attribution – difficult even for the political partisans or mainstream media naysayers to swat away – we are introduced to the infamous “insurance policy.”
On August 15, 2016, Strzok texts Page that “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Every single time my eyes track across that passage, I shake my head at the arrogance and possible criminal conduct of two egotistical and nakedly ambitious ladder-climbers.
And James Comey’s decision not to address the elephant in the room in a tell-all book that flouts FBI guidelines and defies credulity – less for what it includes, but for what it selectively ignores – reflects his damning partisanship, even as he argues that politics should never infect the FBI.
Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Andy McCabe should testify under oath.
And while sitting for questions during his interminable book tour, James Comey should answer why such compelling information was purposefully absent from his less than tell-all.
James A. Gagliano ( @JamesAGagliano ) served in the FBI for 25 years, retiring as a supervisory special agent in 2016. He is a law enforcement analyst for CNN and an adjunct assistant professor in homeland security and criminal justice at St. John’s University.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.