Breaking the rules

Jim Comey’s A Higher Loyalty is one of the most reviewed books in recent years. Pundits, political scientists, and psychologists have all weighed in. But one group has been mostly silent: Comey’s fellow FBI agents and leaders.

I know from my 20 years in the bureau that it has a distinctive culture with a firmly established set of ethics, policies, and practices. The FBI summarizes those values with a helpful acronym, “FBI”: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. These ingredients are “the right stuff” for an FBI agent.

Like the test pilots Tom Wolfe wrote about in The Right Stuff, FBI agents control their emotions, put aside self-interest, and don’t crack under pressure. An FBI agent, like Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff, may crash his jet, but even if ejected midmission with his helmet on fire from vicious attacks, he still manages to float to earth, pack his chute, and walk upright, as he’s been trained.

Here, based on my reading of A Higher Loyalty, are eight FBI right stuff rules that Comey broke.

FBI Rule 1: Good agents serve the country, not themselves. They avoid self-serving statements. Comey writes that a free weekly Richmond newspaper “put a picture of me on its cover, calling me ‘One of the Good Guys.’” He writes, “One New York journalist captured the views of many of my colleagues when he wrote a piece titled ‘Mr. Comey Goes to Washington.’” We also learn that Comey “never cut the line” in the FBI headquarters cafeteria, although as director he could have, and that Donald Trump “said more nice things about me. … He thought very highly of me and heard great things, that the people of the FBI really like me.”

Comey shows himself to be like Sally Field at the Oscars saying, “You like me!” FBI agents should not act like high-school students signing yearbooks.

FBI Rule 2: Since investigations can change in an instant as new information appears, FBI agents do not comment publicly about cases. An investigative team is always just one email click, one subpoena return, one internet hit, one search warrant, one wiretap intercept from apparent innocence becoming apparent guilt, or vice versa. Comey’s job during the Hillary email investigation was to be silent during the investigation, pass on results to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, then follow its lead. FBI agents let the wheels of justice grind at their own pace: They do not declare the subjects of investigation innocent or guilty.

Nevertheless, on July 5, 2016, Comey disregarded a century of precedents and announced he was closing the Hillary Clinton email investigation without recommending prosecution. Then, in early October 2016, Comey learned of “hundreds of thousands” of new emails found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin. This was the sort of development an FBI director with the right stuff should have anticipated.

FBI Rule 3: Good FBI agents recuse themselves from matters involving a conflict of interest and do not act politically. Comey allowed FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to participate in the Clinton case though McCabe’s wife had received major contributions for her 2015 Virginia Senate campaign from a top Clinton ally. Two months before interviewing Clinton, Comey told McCabe to begin drafting a statement announcing the FBI wouldn’t recommend prosecution. Comey also undermined FBI independence when he agreed to use Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s scripted term and refer to the Clinton case as a “matter,” not an “investigation.”

After learning of the Weiner emails in early October 2016, Comey did nothing until the FBI team investigating Clinton forced his hand on Oct. 27, by pushing for action and a search warrant. Comey realized the news would get out: On Oct. 28, 11 days before the election, he announced he had been premature in closing the investigation. Then, two days before the election, Comey made another premature announcement about the emails, telling Congress that an FBI review of the new ones would not change his previous recommendation of “no prosecution” for Clinton—even though the review was still going on.

Trump with Comey at the White House Andrew Harrer/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP

FBI Rule 4: FBI agents with the right stuff listen more than they talk. Comey frets over Trump speaking “an overwhelming amount of the time” during their meetings—but that’s exactly what FBI agents want: Let the subjects talk. The more they talk, the more we learn. Comey also complains that during their 80-minute private dinner, Trump “asked very few questions that might prompt a discussion,” but he then lists seven open-ended questions Trump asked, including: “What do you want to do?” and “What are your thoughts?”

A good agent listens, then asks clarifying questions—and Comey certainly should have done that at least twice. When Trump requested loyalty, Comey should’ve asked, “Mr. President, when you say you expect loyalty, exactly what are you asking of me?” When Trump reportedly asked him to drop an examination of Michael Flynn’s conduct, Comey should have asked, “Sir, let what go? Are you talking about his contacts with the Russian ambassador or his lying to FBI agents about it? One is a crime and one isn’t.” Trump’s answer to those questions would have been the “make or break” on an obstruction case. Instead, Comey agreed that Flynn was a good guy.

FBI Rule 5: An FBI agent with the right stuff does not make catty remarks. In A Higher Loyalty, Comey said he told Barack Obama after Donald Trump’s victory, “I dread the next four years.” FBI agents, even if they disagree with a president’s policies, refer to him as “my president” and never disparage an incoming president, especially when talking to a leader from the opposing party. Comey writes about fighting bullies his entire life and regretting being a bully in college—but he makes remarks about Trump’s face and clothing. He stoops to the “hand-to-genital-size” formula Trump disgracefully used on the campaign trail—noting his hand was bigger.

FBI Rule 6: Good FBI agents are precise in their reporting. Comey writes that his White House dinner with Trump began with them “four feet apart” at a dinner table, but moments later (after Trump asked him for “loyalty”) Comey was suddenly “inches from the president, staring him directly in the face.” On May 10, 2017, one day after Comey was fired, his goodbye letter was circulated to FBI employees on the bureau’s email system—but he now claims his testimony to the Senate a month later was his chance to say goodbye, something “President Trump did not have the grace or charity of spirit to allow me to do.”

Comey in A Higher Loyalty wrote Trump “gave me the sense he was defending himself to me.” Agents are not mind readers. They should only report what they heard. They should be like Jack Webb in Dragnet: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Copies of Comey’s memos Susan Walsh/AP

FBI Rule 7: Any information obtained in the scope and course of FBI employment, or any document prepared in connection with bureau duties, belongs to the FBI and must be submitted into bureau repositories. Classified documents must be secured in FBI space. Any classified documents an agent discovers in his possession upon separation from bureau employment must be promptly returned. Comey reports that he made memos of his FBI-related conversations with Trump in 2017. He “shared” them with FBI leaders (including his chief of staff, Jim Rybicki) and “locked up at home” a paper copy. Comey called the memos personal property and likened them to a diary—but four of the memos the Department of Justice (DOJ) released to Congress in April contain classified information that cannot be declassified until the year 2042.

Particularly important is the Jan. 6, 2017, memo he pasted into an email shared with Rybicki, McCabe, and FBI legal counsel Jim Baker on the FBI’s classified email server. Comey used his power as FBI director to classify the entire email “Secret,” then failed to mark properly which portions of the document were classified, in keeping with FBI policy and annual refresher training. On April 19, 2018, prior to releasing the email, the DOJ determined three of the eight paragraphs in that memo also contained classified information that cannot be declassified for another 24 years.

If Comey copied and maintained classified information in his home after he separated from government service on May 9, 2017, he may face criminal liability for holding on to memos containing classified information. Comey told Trump that prosecuting a “leaker of classified information … would serve as an important deterrence signal.” If Comey leaked such information to the media, he has condemned himself.

FBI Rule 8: When an FBI agent may have to testify about something he witnesses, he describes what he saw in an investigative report (not an informal email, memo, or personal “diary”). He places his notes within a special envelope and submits them within five business days into FBI record systems to establish, among other things, a chain of custody for trial. Above all, FBI agents with the right stuff don’t leak materials and make no pretrial comments on pending matters. If Comey understood that he might be called on someday to testify about his meeting with Trump concerning the Steele dossier, Russian prostitutes, etc., he needed to write an FD-302 report, not an email. This is basic procedure taught in new agent training.

When President Trump reportedly requested loyalty, Comey said he did not “do sneaky things. I don’t leak. I don’t do weasel moves.” Months later Comey leaked a memo of his meeting with Trump to the press. Knowing he is likely to be a key witness in the Mueller investigation, Comey has brought out his book and gone on a media tour while the investigation is still pending.

—The views and opinions expressed above are strictly those of the author and not of the FBI or any other federal agency