The Insufferable James Comey

Never before has a former FBI director boasted about taking advantage of an administration’s disorganization for his own ends.

But never before has a former FBI director been as self-satisfied as James Brien Comey Jr.

In an interview this month with Nicolle Wallace at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Comey delighted his Upper East Side audience with his tale of how he exploited the Trump White House’s disarray in its initial days to send two FBI agents to talk to then-national security advisor Michael Flynn without honoring the usual processes (e.g., working through the White House counsel’s office).

Comey said that in a different administration that’s “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with.” He apparently didn’t consider how that might sound to anyone not already inclined to delight in the wit and wisdom of James Comey, or old enough to remember when an FBI director pushing to “get away” with things wasn’t so amusing.

A lot of people have been diminished by the Trump years, Comey among them. A best-selling author with more than a million followers on Twitter, he’s a bigger political figure than ever before, but has revealed himself to be exactly what his harshest critics always said — a politically savvy operator who matches his bureaucratic skills with an impregnable sense of self-righteousness.

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