Can the story former FBI Director James Comey told Congress on Friday possibly be true? In a joint executive session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Mr. Comey presented himself as unaware and incurious regarding one of the most consequential investigations the FBI has ever conducted. After describing how little he knew about the federal government’s use of its surveillance powers against associates of the presidential campaign of the party out of power in 2016, Mr. Comey then assured lawmakers that the launching of the investigation was proper and free of political bias.
On Saturday a transcript of the Comey testimony was released by the congressional committees. President Donald Trumptweeted without subtlety on Sunday:
On 245 occasions, former FBI Director James Comey told House investigators he didn’t know, didn’t recall, or couldn’t remember things when asked. Opened investigations on 4 Americans (not 2) - didn’t know who signed off and didn’t know Christopher Steele. All lies!
This is perhaps an overstatement. But some skepticism is clearly in order on the part of the President and every other American who wants free and fair elections. Lawmakers were interested in finding out who exactly initiated the investigation and when. Here’s a portion of the transcript in which the Obama administration FBI boss was questioned by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.):
Mr. Gowdy. Do you recall who drafted the FBI’s initiation document for that late July 2016 Russia investigation?
Mr. Comey. I do not.
Mr. Gowdy. Would you disagree that it was Peter Strzok?
Mr. Comey. I don’t know one way or the other.
Mr. Gowdy. Do you know who approved that draft of an initial plan for the Russia investigation in late July 2016?
Mr. Comey. I don’t.
This was not just any investigation. On the other hand the FBI is a big place and perhaps the director would not recall which of the staff had worked on a particular document. Under further questioning from Mr. Gowdy, Mr. Comey added that he didn’t remember ever even seeing the document. Again, one might hope that consequential cases going to the heart of our democratic process would be closely supervised by the most senior officials, but any case generates some volume of documents and an FBI director may be able to learn enough from staff briefings to make sensible decisions. The next part of the transcript is harder to swallow:
Mr. Gowdy. How does the FBI launch counterintelligence investigations? What documents are required?
Mr. Comey. I don’t know for sure because it’s opened far below the Director’s level. But there’s documentation in criminal investigations and in counterintelligence investigations to explain the predication for the opening of a file, that is, the basis for the opening of a file.
Mr. Gowdy. Who at the FBI has the authority to launch a counterintelligence investigation into a major political campaign, and would that eventually have to be approved by you?
Mr. Comey. I don’t know for a variety of reasons. I’ve never encountered a circumstance where an investigation into a political campaign was launched, and so I don’t know how that would be done.
Saying that he’s never dealt with the investigation of a political party may seem like a falsehood but Mr. Comey argues that his bureau was not investigating the 2016 Trump campaign as a whole but particular people associated with it. This must be reassuring for Americans to know that the next time they are surveilled while engaging in political activity, perhaps not all of their friends and colleagues will be subjected to such treatment.
However Mr. Comey chooses to characterize the cases he was supposed to be overseeing, he is now saying that neither at that time nor in the more than two years since did he ever know or bother to find out how investigations of political campaigns begin or who authorizes them. Wouldn’t even a passionate anti-Trumper‐which Mr. Comey is‐be at least curious how the machinery operates when his own subordinates take the extraordinary step of investigating the party out of power?
At least according to his Friday testimony, Mr. Comey did not become any more interested in details once the FBI surveillance machinery was grinding its way toward a series of wiretaps. By now many Americans have understandably grown weary of the various Russian collusion claims. But in the summer and fall of 2016 the FBI was supposedly trying to determine if a hostile foreign power had compromised a leading candidate for President.
This is the stuff of spy novels. But even the real former spy peddling bizarre claims that would assist the Obama administration’s pursuit of those wiretaps didn’t arouse much curiosity or suspicion in the FBI chief, according to Mr. Comey’s Friday testimony. In this portion of the transcript it appears that to this day Mr. Comey doesn’t much care whether the bureau’s source was indirectly paid by the Democratic National Committee to generate dirt on Mr. Trump:
Mr. Gowdy. Who is Christopher Steele?
Mr. Comey. My understanding is that Christopher Steele is a former intelligence officer of an allied nation who prepared a series of reports in the summer of 2016 that have become known as the Steele dossier.
Mr. Gowdy. How long did he have a relationship with the FBI?
Mr. Comey. I don’t know...
Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn he was working for Fusion GPS?
Mr. Comey. I don’t know that I ever knew that...
Mr. Gowdy. When did you learn that Fusion GPS was hired by Perkins Coie?
Mr. Comey. I never learned that, certainly not while I was Director.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, when did you learn the DNC had hired Perkins Coie?
Mr. Comey. I never learned that. Again, while I was Director. I think I’ve read it in the media, but, yeah, even today, I don’t know whether it’s true.
Wouldn’t a reasonable person make it his business to find out who paid whom if for no other reason than to make sure that as FBI director he hadn’t been taken in by a partisan attack disguised as a national security case?
Mr. Comey rejected the possibility that law enforcers in the Obama administration targeted Team Trump in response to questioning by Rep. Ted Deutch (D., Fla.):
Mr. Deutch. Director Comey, do you believe the FBI or DOJ ever investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes?
Mr. Comey. I not only don’t believe it, I know it not to be true.
Mr. Deutch. I’m sorry, would you repeat that?
Mr. Comey. I know it not to be true. I know that we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes.
How would he know, if the rest of his testimony is accurate?