The indictment of James Comey, former head of the FBI, has raised several questions in the minds of many American political observers. One question most often asked attempts to decipher the truth about Comey regarding his role in the election of President Donald Trump and his subsequent dismissal early in Trump’s first term. The national split screen could not be more obvious than when looking at Comey and his indictment. For MAGA and the Trump supporters, Comey had this coming. They view him as a corrupt cop whose past has finally come to light. For those who loathe Trump, they perceive Comey’s prosecution as selective, worthy of being thrown out of court. As a conservative, this author can see the shambolic nature of the indictment, but some parts ring true.
In the Breaking History podcast of Oct. 1, 2025, Eli Lake summarizes the two sides and brings some clarity to what has become a very divisive matter. “How can a president twist the legal system to ensure the prosecution of his sworn enemy? He fired a US attorney whom he nominated and replaced him with one of his personal lawyers.” He also posted, erased, and then posted again a message to Pam Bondi, his attorney general, directing her to prosecute Comey, among others. Trump’s integrity is questionable, which hurts his case against Comey. A president should remain neutral in legal cases and let the Justice Department do its work. We know that has not always been the case in previous administrations, but as conservatives, we aspire to a different standard: the Constitution matters.
James Comey, born in 1960 in Yonkers, New York, to an Irish Catholic family, remains an enigma. His grandfather rose to become chief of police for Yonkers, while his father worked in commercial real estate. In his first memoir, he described his parents as wonderful and supportive throughout his childhood, youth, and rise to prominence. He has referred to being bullied in middle school, but the seminal event of his youth occurred in 1977 when the Ramsey Rapist broke into his home. Comey had to endure what Lake calls, “bone-chilling terror.” The intruder pointed a gun at his brother’s head and soon had it aimed at Comey. In his book, A Higher Loyalty, he writes, “My encounter with the Ramsey Rapist brought me years of pain. I thought about him every night for at least five years, not most nights, every night. And I slept with a knife at hand for far longer. I couldn’t see it at the time, but the terrifying experience was in its own way also an incredible gift. Believing, knowing in my mind that I was going to die and then surviving made life seem like a precious, delicate miracle. As a high school senior, I started watching sunsets, looking at buds on trees and noticing the beauty of our world. That feeling lasts to this day, though sometimes it expresses itself in ways that might seem corny to people who fortunately never had the experience of measuring their time on this earth in seconds.”
By 1987, Comey had a law degree from the University of Chicago and was ready to make his mark. Ironically, he cut his teeth working in the Southern District of New York for Rudy Giuliani, the man who would be mayor in the 1990s and earned the reputation for making New York safe again. Comey’s work in New York included taking down the big crime families. In 1993 he was co-counsel with John Fitzgerald in the U.S. prosecution of John Gambino and the Gambino crime family. He also served as deputy to Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor whose probe eventually turned up evidence of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky in the White House. His star kept rising until President Barack Obama appointed him FBI Director in 2013. Obama envisioned someone who would lead the Agency divorced from politics, something the 10-year term should ensure.
By 2016, James Comey had thrown himself into the middle of a political storm. On July 5, he announced the results of the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server when she was secretary of state. Comey wanted to show care when he said, “None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers, not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government, or even with a commercial email service like Gmail.” But then he stopped short of prosecution. The job of the FBI director does not include judging a case. Later that fall he would re-open the case, then close it again before the election. Many Democrats believed he cost Clinton the election. Clinton has never forgiven him. On Nov. 8, 2016, Trump won the election.
Comey has boasted about doing end runs around the White House lawyers when he told FBI agents to entrap Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Advisor. He falsely assured Trump he wasn’t a Bureau inquiry target after the 2016 election. Here he was testifying to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 17, 2017: “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” This statement fed a big lie that gave life to years of dominant media speculation that Trump was a Russian agent or a useful idiot of Putin’s. The FBI was investigating the Trump campaign, but the agents involved wanted to close the matter months before. The only reason it remained open was that Comey and his deputies intervened.
The same man had first closed an investigation of Clinton’s emails months earlier, saying, “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” He also put the brakes on investigations three FBI field offices had launched in 2015 against the Clinton Foundation and its pay-for-play scheme that would get donors influence with a future Hillary Clinton Administration. This also has to do with the leak that Senator Ted Cruz claims Comey signed off on, then denied under oath. During the Clinton investigation, Comey and his aides prohibited surveillance techniques or even the seeking of warrants. They used everything they had to investigate Trump’s activities. The double standard was galling. In his final report to Congress, special counsel John Durham wrote, “The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign.”
Comey set out, as Lake determines, to undermine Trump’s presidency even before it started. The Steele Dossier, used to claim that Russia had salacious information about Trump and could compromise his foreign policy, was false, and the FBI knew it. Comey’s actions during his time as Trump’s FBI head and later all point to a man with intent. He was a leaker, and while Washington is full of leakers, the head of the FBI should not be one of them. Comey will probably escape prosecution or conviction, but he will face some of what Democrats did to Trump throughout 2024. It may not make it right or admirable, but maybe it will contribute to the end of this partisan lawfare that has marked so much of the past decade and served the country so badly.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
