The week of November 5th, 2018 was fruitful. I had finally gotten around to reading former FBI director James Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, and I’d also survived the herculean task of completing the tedious text The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.
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First, I’ll dive right into Comey’s book–which I listened to on audiobook. I appreciated being able to hear his perspective on the events that shaped his character and career. Early in the book, Comey describes a crime that affected him deeply, and which coupled by other events in life lead him into a service career.
As a boy Comey and his brother experienced a gunman, later confirmed to be “the Ramsey rapist”, enter their home at gunpoint and lock them in a bathroom. In his narration, Comey shares how his reaction differed from his brothers’. Comey feared the situation, complied with the gunman’s demands (like handing over any and all money in his possession), and desired to stay locked up in the bathroom. Comey’s brother, on the other hand, may have been fearful but his actions demonstrated noncompliance stemming from either bravery or principle. For instance, when directed to hand over money to the gunman Comey’s brother lied and said he didn’t have any. After the boys promised that the bathroom they ended up locked into had no exit, Comey’s brother pushed open the window to escape, and when the young Comey wanted to stay put (most likely out of a sense of self-preservation), Comey’s brother explained that they had a responsibility to get help and report the incident immediately before the criminal could harm anyone else.
Writing this from memory, I’ll admit there are undoubtedly details I’m leaving out/not elaborating on enough. However, I want to focus on three events I considered most salient. I’ve already mentioned the first–the Ramsey Rapist incident. The second incident involved Comey’s career as a prosecutor dealing with the mob.
The next major incident on which Comey elaborates is his time working as a prosecutor tasked with taking down the mob. In one particular instance, with a mobster turned witness, Comey made an observation I found to be particularly interesting. Comey remarked: “Evil has an ordinary face. It laughs, it cries, it deflects, it rationalizes, it makes great pasta.” Comey wrote this after describing a scene where one particular mobster narrates a situation involving his connection to multiple homicides. When people hear about monstrous acts being committed we imagine that those evil acts were carried out by monsters–which exist in our imaginations as ugly, frightening creatures. But, the reality of the situation is that people carry out heinous acts. And the people responsible for such reprehensible actions, more often than not, look normal. Why does Comey bring up his time as a prosector when the criminal justice system was going after the mafia? Comey brings it up due to the eerie similarities between the mob’s structure and his interaction with Donald Trump as president.
The final events that impacted Comey’s career were the investigations into the Clinton emails, and the Trump meetings regarding loyalty as well as favors. Regardless of our political affiliations–I’m a registered independent (or as my mother likes to call it a waste of a vote)–I feel like it’s not unreasonable for people not acquainted with the government to believe government workers use government issued and secured email accounts. In my opinion, that’s the most logical thing to do to ensure the safety of sensitive information. That being said, I also feel like the whole Clinton email situation was blown out of proportion and took up a lot of airtime (which I’m sure Clinton would agree since she’s written as much in her book What Happened). Nevertheless, after Comey had made an announcement about the Clinton email matter being closed, a less than ideal situation occurred. More Clinton emails were found in a computer belonging to former disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner. Long story short, the FBI had to investigate and as a result Comey felt he had two bad options. Option 1: say nothing and reopen the investigation in the hopes that nothing gets leaked. Option 2: make a public statement about having to reopen the case to avoid appearing to “conceal” information. In the end, Comey chose option 1 which may or may not have contributed to Clinton’s loss.
Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, the second investigation wound up with the same results (no charges), Trump became president, Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections through social media, and Trump called then FBI director Comey on a couple of occasions and met with him privately to discuss Trump’s take on how to move forward in the FBI’s investigation of Russian meddling. This is when life gets interesting. Trump fires Comey, speculation being that if Comey went away so too would the investigation, and then a special counsel (Robert Mueller) is brought in to pick up. What reason did the White House provide for Comey’s firing? The unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton during the email investigation.
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To sum up my commentary on the book, I’d say Comey gave an honest portrayal of his perspective on the events that led to the public announcement of the re-opening of the Clinton email case, and the events leading to his firing. While I do not like how his decision may have affected the outcome of the race, I also do not believe he carries the full burden of responsibility for what happened to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections. My background is neither in intelligence nor law; therefore, I am grateful for the opportunity to hear from his viewpoint. That being said, I also wonder what the state of our union will be like in the future if the fear of sensitive information being leaked to the public continues to inadvertently force people’s hands into making less than ideal decisions. We may never know.
Now, on to the next book I recently finished.
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I refuse to dedicate more than two paragraphs to this monstrosity. Why did I find completing this book, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, to be a herculean task? Well, for starters it took me a good three years to complete. Not because it is extraordinarily lengthy, which–to be honest–it is not, but rather since it was exhaustingly boring and contained distasteful language regarding native peoples. Then why did I continue reading it? I’m one of those readers who–even if they find a text excruciatingly painful to read–will continue to read a book to completion regardless of my feelings about it.
To sum up, my inability to connect to the text made it a difficult one to complete within my usual timeframe because I found it utterly boring and disturbing in the way it portrays native peoples. Additionally, I think I should have read up on the Seven Years’ War/French and Indian War in order to fully appreciate the context in which the story took place (just a bit of self reflection). The basic storyline is two daughters (Alice and Cora Munro) being escorted by some men from one fort to another to reunite with their father the lieutenant colonel Munro during the French and Indian War. A bunch of people die. The end.