James Comey

• 1. Introduction

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  James Comey was addressing agents at the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office on the 9th of May 2017. Television news reports flashed word that President Donald Trump had fired him. He was the seventh director in the bureau's history, and fewer than four years of his ten-year term had passed.

  Few officials in recent American life have drawn criticism from so many directions. Critics on the right and the left both faulted his decisions, and the arguments about his judgment have not ended.

  This documentary follows a lawyer from the courtrooms of New York and Virginia to one of the most scrutinized law enforcement jobs in the country. It asks what experiences shaped him, why his public decisions in 2016 drew such fury, and what happened to him once the firing was over.

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• 2. Making of a Prosecutor

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  James Brien Comey Jr. was born in Yonkers, New York, on the 14th of December 1960, into a family with a policing tradition. His grandfather, William J. Comey, served as an officer and later as commissioner of the Yonkers Police Department. In the early 1970s the family moved to Allendale, New Jersey. His father worked in corporate real estate, and his mother was a computer consultant and homemaker. Comey attended Northern Highlands Regional High School there.

  In 1977, a criminal known as "The Ramsey Rapist" invaded the family home. Comey and his brother were among the victims.

  At the College of William and Mary, Comey majored in chemistry and religion and graduated with honors in 1982. His senior thesis examined the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the televangelist Jerry Falwell, two very different figures who shared a belief in public action. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985.

  After law school he clerked in Manhattan for U.S. district judge John M. Walker Jr. He then worked as an associate in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. From 1987 to 1993 he served in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. He rose to Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and helped prosecute the Gambino crime family.

  From 1996 to 2001, Comey ran the Richmond Division of the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia as managing assistant U.S. attorney. In 1996 he also acted as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. He was lead prosecutor in the case over the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. During those years he also taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

  In January 2002 Comey returned to the Southern District of New York, this time as the U.S. attorney. One of his first tasks was taking over the investigation into President Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich. Comey concluded it involved no illegality.

  In November 2002 he led the prosecution of three men in one of the largest identity fraud cases in American history. The scheme lasted two years. Thousands of people across the country collectively lost over $3 million.

  His office also indicted John Rigas, the founder of Adelphia Communications, for bank fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud. Rigas was convicted in 2004 and sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in federal prison. Adelphia went bankrupt after acknowledging that it had taken $3.3 billion in false loans.

  In February 2003, Comey was lead prosecutor when Martha Stewart was indicted for securities fraud, obstruction of justice and lying to an FBI agent. The case centered on her sale of 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems, which spared her a loss of $45,673. The next day, the Food and Drug Administration refused to accept the company's application for Erbitux.

  In March 2003 he led the indictment of ImClone's chief executive, Samuel Waksal. Waksal pleaded guilty to avoiding $1.2 million in sales taxes on $15 million worth of contemporary paintings. The works were by artists such as Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning.

  In April 2003 Comey led the indictment of Frank Quattrone. Prosecutors alleged that Quattrone urged subordinates in 2000 to destroy evidence sought by investigators examining his investment banking practices at Credit Suisse First Boston.

  In June 2003 Comey revealed "Operation Project Meltdown." It uncovered a money laundering scheme in which gold and diamonds from jewelers on West 47th Street in New York were shipped to Colombia as profits of a narcotics cartel. The case led to the arrests of eleven jewelry dealers and others.

  In November 2003, "Operation Wooden Nickel" produced complaints and indictments against 47 people involved in foreign exchange trading scams.

  On the 11th of December 2003, Comey was confirmed as deputy attorney general, a post that would test him within months.

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• 3. A Hospital Room

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  John Ashcroft lay in the intensive care unit of George Washington University Hospital on the 10th of March 2004, recovering from gall bladder surgery, with his wife at his side. The attorney general had recused himself from Justice Department decisions while he recovered. That made Comey the acting attorney general.

  The pending decision concerned the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The Justice Department had found that the wiretapping was unconstitutional if done without a court warrant. Under White House procedures, the department's approval was required for the program to be renewed. In early March, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Comey had prepared their resignations in case the White House overruled that finding.

  White House officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card came to Ashcroft's hospital room and pressed him to sign papers reauthorizing the program. Alarmed, his wife called Comey to join them. Comey summoned Mueller and two other Justice Department officials, Jack Goldsmith and Patrick Philbin. None of the four would agree to reauthorize the program, and Ashcroft refused to act while he was recused.

  Mueller's notes, later released to a House Judiciary committee, recorded: "Saw (the) AG, John Ashcroft in the room (who was) feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed."

  The public learned of the standoff in early January 2006, when The New York Times reported on the episode as part of its investigation into the surveillance program. Goldsmith's 2007 memoir said Comey had come to the hospital to support Ashcroft against White House pressure. Comey confirmed the events in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 16th of May 2007.

  Comey and Mueller met directly with President George W. Bush on the 12th of March 2004. Bush directed that the necessary changes be made to the program, and the two men cancelled their plans to resign.

  Another recusal by Ashcroft also handed Comey a major decision. After Ashcroft stepped aside from the grand jury investigation into the Plame affair, Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel to lead it.

  In 2005, as deputy attorney general, Comey endorsed a memorandum approving 13 so-called enhanced interrogation techniques for CIA use. They included waterboarding and sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours. He objected, however, to a second memorandum, drafted by Daniel Levin and signed by Steven G. Bradbury, which said the techniques could be used in combination. He was one of the few members of the Bush administration who tried to prevent or limit the use of torture.

  At his 2013 confirmation hearing, Comey said that in his personal opinion waterboarding was torture. He called the United Nations Convention against Torture "very vague" on the point. He believed the practice was legal at the time, yet he strongly disagreed with the techniques and opposed them as a matter of policy. The National Security Council overruled his objections.

  Comey left the Department of Justice in August 2005, and the next stretch of his career would unfold far from courtrooms.

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• 4. Running the Bureau

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  Lockheed Martin, the Defense Department's largest contractor, made Comey its general counsel and a senior vice president, and his tenure took effect on the 1st of October 2005. On the 2nd of June 2010 he announced he would leave to join the senior management committee at Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based investment firm. He received a three million dollar payout from Bridgewater, and his net worth was estimated at 14 million dollars in 2013.

  On the 1st of February 2013, Columbia University Law School appointed him a senior research scholar and Hertog fellow on national security law. He also joined the board of the London-based bank HSBC Holdings to improve its compliance program after a $1.9 billion settlement with the Justice Department over money laundering failures. He has served on the Defense Legal Policy Board since 2012.

  In May 2007, Comey testified before Senate and House committees about the dismissal of U.S. attorneys. His account contradicted that of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who had said the firings reflected poor performance. Comey argued that the Justice Department had to be seen as nonpartisan, because his prosecutors had to face juries and judges of every kind. They had to be seen, he said, "as the good guys, and not as either this administration or that administration."

  Politico reported in May 2009 that White House officials pushed to put Comey on the short list to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Liberal activists were upset at the prospect. In 2013 he also signed an amicus brief supporting same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court case Hollingsworth v. Perry.

  President Barack Obama announced in June 2013 that he would nominate Comey to succeed Robert Mueller as FBI director. Comey was reportedly chosen over another finalist, Lisa Monaco. The Senate confirmed him on the 29th of July 2013 by a vote of 93-1, with two senators voting present. He was sworn in on the 4th of September 2013.

  In February 2015 Comey spoke at Georgetown University about police and the African-American community. He cited his own Irish ancestors, whom he said law enforcement had often regarded as drunks and criminals in the early 20th century. "The Irish had some tough times," he said, "but little compares to the experience on our soil of black Americans." In an October 2015 speech at the University of Chicago Law School, he recalled his Richmond years and said prosecutors worked in black neighborhoods "because that's where people are dying."

  That same month he raised concerns that body worn video results in less effective policing. His view contradicted the President's public position. Days later, Obama met with him in the Oval Office to address the issue.

  A speech at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in April 2015 brought a different kind of trouble. Comey referred to "the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary." Writer Anne Applebaum objected, Polish authorities protested, and the American ambassador to Poland, Stephen D. Mull, was called to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Comey said he regretted linking Germany and Poland and that the Polish state bears no responsibility for the horrors imposed by the Nazis.

  In June 2015 the Office of Personnel Management announced a data breach affecting the records of as many as four million people. Comey later put the number at 18 million. He called the stolen files "a treasure trove of information about everybody who has worked for, tried to work for, or works for the United States government."

  On surveillance, Comey told his July 2013 confirmation hearing that government oversight mechanisms had sufficient privacy protections. In 2016 the bureau was criticized for asking Apple to install a "back door" for surveillance agencies. Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden said such access in all devices globally would harm American safety on balance. In 2017 Comey told a cybersecurity conference, "There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach."

  On his desk sat a copy of the FBI's request to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. According to Beverly Gage in a November 2014 New York Times Magazine article, he kept it "as a reminder of the bureau's capacity to do wrong."

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• 5. The Email Letters

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  The FBI opened a criminal investigation on the 10th of July 2015 into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State. On the 29th of June 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton met aboard her plane on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The meeting prompted calls for Lynch to recuse herself. She then announced she would "fully" accept the FBI's recommendation.

  On the 2nd of July, agents interviewed Clinton at FBI headquarters. Comey and his associates then decided there was no basis for criminal indictments.

  On the 5th of July 2016, Comey held a 15-minute press conference at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He called the behavior of Clinton and her top aides "extremely careless" but concluded that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." It was believed to be the first time the FBI publicly disclosed its prosecutorial recommendation to the Justice Department. Two days later, a Republican-led House committee questioned him about it.

  On the 26th of October 2016, two weeks before the presidential election, Comey learned that agents investigating former congressman Anthony Weiner had found emails on Weiner's computer. The emails were between Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, and Clinton. Comey believed a review would take months and decided he had to tell Congress that the investigation was being reopened.

  Justice Department lawyers warned him that publicizing an investigation conflicted with department policy. He regarded the policy as "guidance" rather than an ironclad rule. He felt that staying silent would mislead Congress and the public.

  He sent his letter to Congress on the 28th of October. Members revealed its contents within minutes. Critics, including the Clinton campaign, called it an "October surprise," a "serious mistake," and an "error in judgment." Law professor Richard Painter filed complaints with the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics.

  Investigators received extra resources to finish before Election Day. On the 6th of November 2016, Comey wrote a second letter saying, "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July."

  The damage was argued over long afterward. Polling analyst Nate Silver said Comey had a "large, measurable impact on the race." Democratic strategist David Axelrod said the letter was one of several cumulative factors. On the 2nd of May 2017, Clinton told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that she was winning until Comey's letter and Russian WikiLeaks "raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me." The next day Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee it "makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election." Still, he added, "honestly, it wouldn't change the decision."

  The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General announced a formal review on the 12th of January 2017. In September 2017, Republican senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham alleged that Comey had planned to exonerate Clinton long before the investigation ended. The FBI released a Comey memo dated the 2nd of May 2016 to support the claim. Former FBI official Ron Hosko said final conclusions should come when an investigation ends. Former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller countered that a decision is never truly made until the end.

  An early draft of Comey's statement had said Clinton was "grossly negligent," language tied to a crime. It was changed to "extremely careless."

  On the 14th of June 2018, Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report. It called Comey's actions "insubordinate," described "a serious error in judgment," and said he had "usurped the authority of the Attorney General." It found no evidence of political bias.

  The edit to Comey's statement had been made by Peter Strzok, an FBI official who would later join Robert Mueller's probe. He was dismissed after exchanging private messages with an FBI lawyer that could be seen as favoring Clinton politically.

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• 6. Russia and Loyalty

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  Comey asked President Obama for permission to write an op-ed warning the public that Russia was interfering in the 2016 election. Obama denied the request. CIA Director John Brennan then gave an unusual private briefing on the Russians to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who referred to it publicly. Comey declined to confirm, even in classified congressional briefings, that the Trump campaign was under investigation.

  In early October 2016, meetings in the White House Situation Room set Comey against National Security Advisor Susan Rice. She argued that the information should be released, while he argued that further disclosure was no longer needed. The FBI had obtained reports from what became known as the Steele dossier in late August.

  Comey first met Trump in January 2017, when he briefed the president-elect on the Steele dossier. On the 27th of January the two dined alone at the White House. Trump has said Comey asked for the dinner to request that he keep his job, and that Comey told him he was not under investigation. Trump has also said he did not ask for a pledge of loyalty.

  Comey's associates tell it differently. They say Trump requested the dinner and twice asked for loyalty, and twice Comey replied that he would always be honest. Trump then asked for "honest loyalty," and Comey agreed to that.

  On the 14th of February, one day after Trump fired Michael Flynn as national security advisor, Comey attended a terrorism threat briefing in the Oval Office. At the end, Trump asked the other security chiefs to leave. He told Comey to consider imprisoning reporters over leaks. Then, Comey recorded, Trump said: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."

  Comey documented the meeting in a memo immediately, as was his habit, and shared it with FBI officials. In congressional testimony he said he took Trump's remark as "an order" to drop the Flynn investigation. He did not take it as an order to drop the Russia investigation as a whole.

  On the 4th of March, Comey asked the Justice Department for permission to publicly refute Trump's claim that Obama had wiretapped his phones. Permission was not given.

  On the 20th of March, Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI was investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. During the hearing, the White House Twitter account posted that the NSA and FBI told Congress that Russia did not influence the electoral process. Congressman Jim Himes read the post aloud, and Comey directly refuted it. On the wiretapping claim he testified: "I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI."

  Representative Chris Stewart asked about James Clapper's statement that there was no evidence of collusion in the intelligence report. Comey said Clapper was right in characterizing that report. Press Secretary Sean Spicer and a White House tweet then cited the testimony as proof. Clapper issued a clarification that he had been referring to evidence as gathered in January and that more investigation was needed.

  On the 3rd of May, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Russia was the "greatest threat of any nation on Earth." He added that Russia would interfere again "because of 2016 election, they know it worked." He also said Russia should pay a price.

  In early May, a few days before he was fired, Comey reportedly asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in funding and personnel for the Russia probe. On the 11th of May, Acting Director Andrew McCabe told the Senate Intelligence Committee he was unaware of any such request.

  Comey had been scheduled to testify before that committee on the same day.

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• 7. Dismissal and Fallout

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  On the 10th of May 2017, Comey wrote to FBI staff: "I have long believed that a president can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all. I'm not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won't either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply." With no Senate-confirmed director in place, McCabe automatically became Acting Director.

  The White House first said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had recommended the firing. Rosenstein's memorandum to Sessions listed objections to Comey's conduct in the Clinton email investigation. Trump had asked the two men on the 8th of May to put a case against Comey in writing. The memo reached Trump on the 9th, and he acted immediately. His termination letter cited both men.

  On the 10th of May Trump told reporters Comey "wasn't doing a good job." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she had heard from "countless members of the FBI" who were grateful for the decision. By the 11th, Trump contradicted those accounts in an NBC News interview with Lester Holt. He said the dismissal was "my decision" and that he was going to fire Comey regardless of any recommendation. He added, "this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story."

  On the 19th of May, The New York Times published excerpts of a White House document summarizing Trump's Oval Office meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It said that Trump had told them he "just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job." The document also quoted him saying: "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."

  On the 11th of May, McCabe told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that "Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does." That contradicted Sanders's claim.

  The firing was compared to the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon terminated special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate investigation. It was also compared to the firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates in January 2017. Critics accused Trump of obstruction of justice.

  On the 12th of May, Trump tweeted that Comey had better hope there were no "tapes" of their conversations. Asked about this by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the 8th of June, Comey answered, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes!" On the 22nd of June, Trump tweeted that he did not make and did not have any such recordings.

  The Justice Department declined to prosecute Comey over the memos in July 2019, an official saying it was not a close call. Horowitz's second report, released on the 29th of August 2019, found that Comey had violated agency policies by keeping the memos and causing one to be leaked. It said he set a "dangerous example." It also found "no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos." In December 2019, Horowitz found no political bias against Trump by Comey or other FBI officials in the Russia probe, though other Justice Department officials criticized that conclusion.

  In July 2022, The New York Times reported that both Comey and McCabe had been selected for the most invasive type of IRS audit after being fired. The inspector general's report found no wrongdoing. The Times reported in November 2022 that former chief of staff John Kelly said Trump told him he wanted to "get the IRS on" perceived political enemies. Trump denied being involved.

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• 8. After the Bureau

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  On the 25th of September 2025, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Comey on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding. The charges concerned his testimony at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the 30th of September 2020. The indictment came just before the five-year statute of limitations ran out.

  It followed President Trump's removal of U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, who had opposed bringing charges. Trump installed Lindsey Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, and she secured the indictment. Comey's defense team included Patrick Fitzgerald and Michael Dreeben. They argued that Senator Ted Cruz's 2020 questions were ambiguous and Comey's answers literally true. They also alleged grand jury misconduct and called the prosecution vindictive and political.

  Federal judges sharply criticized the government's handling of the case. Comey pleaded not guilty. On the 24th of November, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed the case without prejudice, declaring that Halligan had been illegally appointed.

  On the 28th of April 2026, Comey was indicted again, on two counts of threatening the life of the President of the United States. The charges stemmed from an Instagram photo he posted in May 2025, showing seashells that spelled "86 47." His caption read: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." In the service industry, "86" means to eject or get rid of, and Trump is the 47th president. Merriam-Webster describes the most common meaning as to "throw out" or "refuse service to." At the time, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said federal agencies were investigating the post as a threat.

  Comey surrendered on the 29th of April 2026 and did not enter a plea. He was released on his own recognizance. His attorneys said they would file motions accusing the Justice Department of selective and vindictive prosecution.

  Flatiron Books, part of Macmillan Publishers, announced in August 2017 that it had acquired his first book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership. Publication moved up from the 1st of May 2018 to the 17th of April. A month before release, presale orders made it Amazon's top seller. The surge followed Twitter attacks by Trump, to which Comey replied, "the American people will hear my story very soon." The New York Times called the book "very persuasive" and "absorbing." A second book, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust, followed from the same publisher.

  In 2023 he published a legal thriller, Central Park West, with Mysterious Press. He told The Washington Post, "I want this to be my job." Westport followed in 2024, and FDR Drive in 2025. He also wrote the foreword to a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt titled A Christian and a Democrat.

  In 2017 a pseudonymous Twitter account, @projectexile7, later renamed @formerbu, used "Reinhold Niebuhr" as its display name. Comey confirmed it was his.

  He gave the convocation speech and lectures at Howard University in the summer of 2017. In the fall of 2018 he returned to William & Mary to co-teach a course on ethical leadership with assistant professor Drew Stelljes. In May 2019 he wrote in The New York Times that "Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites." The Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule, in 2020, depicted his FBI tenure, with Jeff Daniels playing him. He is a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation.

  He was a registered Republican for most of his life and donated to John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. In July 2016 he disclosed that he was no longer registered with any party. In July 2018 he urged voters to choose Democrats in the midterms. He donated to Amy Klobuchar's 2020 primary campaign and then endorsed Joe Biden. He supported Kamala Harris in 2024.

  At 6 feet 8 inches, Comey is unusually tall. He met his wife, Patrice Failor, at William and Mary, and they married in 1987. They have five children and lost a son in infancy. They have also been foster parents, and they live in McLean, Virginia. Their oldest daughter, Maurene, graduated from Harvard Law School in 2013 and became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. He was raised Catholic and now belongs to the United Methodist Church, where he has taught Sunday school.

  Michael S. Schmidt revealed in his book Donald Trump v. The United States that Comey was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2006 and had a malignant tumor removed.

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