Trump or Comey, Who’s More Credible?

Comey’s testimony a few weeks ago didn’t necessarily open any new lines of questions or give any new answers that were all that different than what I think most people knew or assumed before- that James Comey was fired as FBI director for some combination of lack of loyalty to the President, or because the President simply wanted to devote less time to the Russia investigation (which then could be because it could lead to him, or because for this President, he feels a duty to defend his team members loyally even if they are wrong).

 The immediate conversation is about whether the President did or did not lie, whether Comey did or did not lie, multiple layers of unprovable statements and their intents, and some statements and questions about tapes (which both parties refer to but act as though they don’t have).  There’s no apparent smoking gun- at least not one that rises to a level of taking legal action against the President that wasn’t there before.  My immediate reflection is taking two individuals and contrasting their service and what that means for the direction of the country.

 Comey has been repeatedly described as a “showboater” and “grandstander”, and there may have been some cause for that.  A cynic’s view could be that he has a high opinion of himself.  Another could be that he has a high opinion of his ideals- or rather that he is uncompromising.   If that makes him a “nut job” that he has ideals that he values more than himself, that probably isn’t that much different than many of the best career civil servants.  His testimony struck the tone of someone who feels as though his credibility has been called into question, and wished to come off first and foremost as honest and doing his best in a bad situation.  There are plenty of people on both sides of the aisles who question his judgments and who’ve said that he had no business making his statements publicly in many of his most famous exchanges- each of which would more traditionally have been made by the Attorney General (a role that he also has a clear concept of having served as Deputy and Acting Attorney General), but in both cases where both a Democratic and Republican Attorney General had decided to recuse themselves.  One could argue that his job was made much harder by two Attorney Generals who had become part of the investigations they were put in place to prosecute.

 I am struck by the President’s complete inability to understand or manage such people in public service.  In his past career, being the leader meant he was the guy writing the checks, and people listened or he stopped writing the checks.  People wanted the checks, because that’s why they were there- for the paycheck, and if there was a bigger one out there, they might go for that instead.  The President puts a premium on loyalty.  Perhaps that’s because in business, it’s his against others’ business, or market forces or other constituents- and within the spectrum of his business, it is fine to have common ground and focus first on your own team (within the limits of the law).

But being President is different.  Of the next 50 job opportunities Director Comey will have, it’s quite possible that FBI director pays the least, and that’s probably true of 95% of all Senate-confirmed appointees.  They serve at the pleasure of the President, but most are there not out of a sense of personal loyalty to him, but because they believe his administration has values similar enough to their own that within it they can provide a level of service that they value more than the other job opportunities they forgo.  And when put to the test and forced to pick between any one man and their ideals, they very often pick their ideals.  So what I was most struck by during this testimony is how odd it was that the President thought firing Director Comey (or mentioning to him that he would like those investigations to away) would have any positive impact on helping the President’s agenda.  It showed me a fundamental lack of understanding as to why all public servants seek and keep their offices in the first place- and that made me wonder (as I have in the past) why he is also serving.  Why does personal loyalty matter if all are working in selfless service to the nation?  The media will spend the next few weeks on “gotchas” that aren’t “gotchas”.  What I would rather focus on are how the President and members of all sides of Congress choose with their words and actions where they place their own loyalty- to Americans, to their parties, or to their own factions?  What I saw from Director Comey was a guy that doesn’t always get it right, and he’s struggling with that.  I also saw a number of Senators looking for self-interested quote opportunities, and a President who still doesn’t even seem to understand what motivates the leaders of his own organization.