[Infowarrior] - The Case Against James Comey

[Richard Forno]

The Case Against James Comey

By Riley Roberts

With hard, hooded eyes and a pugilistic bearing, J. Edgar Hoover’s official portrait glowers—face fixed in a bulldog scowl—down the hallways of the FBI’s Washington headquarters. Even the building itself—a crumbling brutalist cathedral, windowless at street level and wreathed in security cameras—seems to evoke something of the man, its namesake, who bent the bureau to his will during the terms of eight presidents, from Coolidge to Nixon.

Hoover never so much as crossed the threshold of the office where his latest successor, James Comey, now works. Yet the edifice and the institution remain haunted by Hoover’s legacy of unchecked power, which rendered him judge, jury and executioner of anyone who came into his sights.

The FBI’s history is divided into two distinct epochs: Hoover and post-Hoover. After Hoover’s death in office in 1972, Congress enacted laws designed to curtail the abuses—from illegal wiretaps and “black bag” jobs to campaigns of intimidation and blackmail—that defined his 48-year reign. Of the six directors who have followed, all but one have projected far lower profiles, eschewing the dramatic assertions of power that made Hoover so dangerous. Only James Comey, the seventh and current FBI director, has strayed from this well-worn path.

On the surface, there are few direct parallels between Comey, a widely respected former prosecutor, and his most infamous predecessor. Where Hoover was pugnacious and inscrutable—lurching, hunched and furtive, between power and paranoia—the 55-year-old Comey is affable and open, with a reputation for honesty and a well-known aversion to politics. Yet there is a growing consensus that Comey has wielded the powers of the directorship more aggressively than anyone since Hoover—to the consternation, and even anger, of some of his colleagues.

Since taking office, Comey has repeatedly injected his views into executive branch deliberations on issues such as sentencing reform and the roots of violence against police officers. He has undermined key presidential priorities such as crafting a coherent federal policy on cybersecurity and encryption. Most recently, he shattered longstanding precedent by publicly offering his own conclusions about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email. (The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.)

It would be difficult to argue—in terms of temperament, manner, or motivation—that he is, or ever will be, the next J. Edgar Hoover. But increasing numbers of critics believe he has displayed a worrying disregard for the rules and norms that have constrained all but one of his predecessors, straying with blithe confidence—and with increasing regularity—across the fine line that separates independence from unaccountability.

These concerns were only whispered about until July, when the FBI director’s public disposition of the Hillary Clinton email investigation stoked national controversy. Since then, even some of Comey’s supporters have been forced to concede that his exercise of power has been without precedent in the post-Hoover era. Among dozens of current and former Justice Department officials, this realization has given way to a rising sense of alarm: that our next president will find Comey just as untouchable as Hoover once was—and perhaps nearly as troublesome.

“[Comey] is totally acting inappropriately,” says criminal defense attorney Nick Akerman, a former U.S. attorney and special assistant Watergate prosecutor. “There’s no question about it.”

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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/james-comey-fbi-accountability-214234

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It's better to burn out than fade away.