OPINION:
President Trump’s dismissal of James Comey (based on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) caused a firestorm in Washington and eventually triggered the naming appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians to meddle in the 2016 election.
But, according to a close Hillary Clinton confidante, had she won the election, she would have possibly fired Comey as well… and for the exact same reason.
As Democrats eagerly pop bowls of popcorn in anticipation of Comey’s magical mystery book tour launching this weekend with an over-hyped interview with former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos on ABC, one Clinton loyalist is still hopping mad at the former FBI Director.
Lanny Davis, former White House Counsel for President Bill Clinton and steadfast Hillary supporter, has remained consistent in his devastating criticism of Comey and he directly blames his unorthodox behavior for the former Secretary of State’s defeat.
Yesterday on my radio program on WMAL in Washington DC Davis absolutely unloaded on Comey:
Davis: Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, I get to decide what rules to follow and which ones not to because you know why, because I’m Jim Comey. Lordy, Lordy.
O’Connor: He does come across a little holier than thou doesn’t he Lanny?
Davis: Oh my God. If you even suggest that he’s done anything wrong … “Me, Jim Comey? I get to play by my own rules. The Justice Department’s 50 year policies under Republican and Democratic administrations, you don’t do anything in the last 60 days that might impact a presidential election the hell with that. I’m Jim Comey.”
I asked Davis if he thinks Hillary Clinton would have fired Comey for his behavior had she won the 2016 election.
Davis: Had he written the letter and she won the election, would she had fired Jim Comey, I don’t know. I know what I would have told her to do. If Comey had done something to Donald Trump for example reveal the Russian meddling finding that the intelligence community had already made in October of 2016 and that had tilted the election against Trump I would have said Comey should be fired for doing that. So I think I would be consistent that he should have been fired. Whether she would have fired him, I can’t guess that.
O’Connor: But based on everything that happened up till November 6th, if Hillary Clinton President-elect said, ‘Lanny, I’d love for you to advise me on this should I keep Jim Comey around’ you would have said, fire that guy?
Davis: I would say you have to fire somebody who puts himself above the Justice Department, above the President, above the Attorney General. The only drum that he listens to is his own. That’s called a narcissist and that’s dangerous in a FBI director, that’s dangerous in anyone but especially a FBI director.
Davis also went after former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for allowing Comey and other officials at the FBI to take over such highly politicized and controversial investigations:
O’Connor: Lanny, I know you’re a big fan of Loretta Lynch as well and I think that you said that she did a pretty stellar job as Attorney General…
Davis: But she blinked.
O’Connor: But she blinked because of that meeting on the tarmac, right?
Davis: Well, that I can forgive because it was hard to imagine that would blow up and she made a mistake and so did President Clinton. What I can’t forgive is that she or Sally Yates had the power, and I know this from talking to people in the room, to order James Comey not to send the letter. Comey told somebody the night before he sent the letter, ‘If they don’t want me to send the letter, tell them to pick up the phone and order me not to’. Neither Sally Yates or Loretta Lynch picked up that telephone and they will regret that, they should regret that and really be ashamed of that in looking back with the wisdom of hindsight forever.
Finally, I asked Davis about the other revelations we’ve learned about the behavior of senior members of the FBI and the appearance of political motivations behind their investigations. Davis summed up the attitude as being part of the culture at the FBI.
“This is the culture of people in the FBI, not pro-Clinton, pro-Trump, but pro-FBI and everybody else be damned,” Davis said.
Listen to the entire interview here:
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