The Patriot Post® · Comey Rebuked by IG but Unapologetic for Coup Attempt

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report Thursday rebuking disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, a devoted Clintonista. In reference to Comey’s leaking memos to the press in May 2017, Horowitz noted that Comey “set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands of more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”

Those memos, Horowitz declared, contained “investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment,” and Comey leaked them “in order to achieve a personally desired outcome” — vengeance against President Donald Trump for firing him.

Comey asserted, contrary to FBI policy and practice, that the memos were his personal property. Horowitz hammered him for that and for keeping those memos in a personal safe at home. Comey perpetrated the leaks by giving memos to others with instructions to pass them to the press. As intended, Comey’s dishonest charade set up his pal Robert Mueller’s bogus $35 million investigation of Trump.

Mueller’s investigation was the culmination of the attempted deep-state coup against a duly elected president — a coup precipitated by the partisan hackery of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the leadership of America’s intelligence apparatus. Comey, among others, set about taking down the president by using his office and other high-level people in a partisan witch hunt. The whole thing was a far more egregious scandal than Watergate.

As The Wall Street Journal summarizes the report, Horowitz “accused Mr. Comey of placing his personal beliefs over his professional responsibilities by disseminating the memos and failing to safeguard sensitive information.”

Or, if you prefer the more grassroots assessment of Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. “Instapundit”), “His smarmy act has failed to conceal that he’s a sanctimonious prick. Make that a sanctimonious, dishonest, basically corrupt prick, who subordinated his duty to his country to selfish and shallow political and personal motives.”

Other than that, James Comey’s a real standup guy.

And yet he claims he’s the one owed an apology. Claiming vindication of having leaked classified information, Comey blustered, “I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a ‘sorry we lied about you’ would be nice.”

Comey was head of the FBI and had years of honorable service under his belt; he knew better than to release any of the information, or to keep it outside the FBI’s internal system. Yet he, like so many others, got power drunk on Potomac water and went off the rails.

Imagine if the other 35,000 employees at the FBI began behaving as their former director? The agency, Horowitz concluded, “would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly.” That’s putting it mildly.

Next up: The IG report on Comey’s role in securing FISA warrants to surveil Trump’s campaign based on what Comey himself called the Steele dossier’s “salacious and unverified” information, which was paid for by a rival political campaign. After that, U.S. Attorney John Durham will report on whether Comey & Co. violated FBI and Justice Department guidelines by initiating a counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s campaign. Comey’s a long way from being out of the woods.