Comey: I Know When I’m Going To Cause ‘Storm’ But I Can’t ‘Care’

FBI Director James Comey adddresses the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Leadership Dinner in Alexandria, Va., Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday evening addressed the challenges of serving as the leader of the FBI in such a partisan environment.

“I know that when I make a hard decision, a storm is going to follow,” he said at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Leadership dinner in Washington, D.C., per CNN. “Honestly, I don’t care.”

Comey said that the past year “has been both difficult and easier than you might think.”

“I’ve never been prouder of the FBI. What makes it easy: we’re not on anybody’s side, ever. We’re not considering whose ox will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by this or that. We just don’t care, and we can’t care,” he said.

The FBI director told the audience that the way the FBI operates can confuse people.

“Most people see the world differently than we do, especially in a hyper-partisan environment. Most people are wearing glasses that filter the world according to side,” he said.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. This all sounds swell, Jimmy. Praiseworthy even. But what about the empty, against agency policy pronouncements concerning Clinton’s emails when there was no there there and at the same time you were sitting on truly important information about Trump?

  2. Mr. Comey, actions speak louder than words.

  3. Yes, and the announcement about the emails on Weiner’s computer was particularly egregious since within a week or so they were found to be duplicates, as could easily have been predicted, since every email is on both the sender’s and the recipient’s computer. There was simply no need to have announced that BEFORE the emails were examined.

  4. I’m waiting for the IG report on that one:)

  5. Comey: “What makes it easy: we’re not on anybody’s side, ever. We’re not considering whose ox will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by this or that.”

    If it’s all been so “easy” as you say, why then did you feel the need to break protocol not once but twice in the final 4 months of last year’s campaign, both of which negatively affected just ONE candidate?

    First came your public announcement about HRC’s email server, inserting your personal opinion that it was “careless” despite not finding any compromised classified info, and then the bombshell about re-opening the investigation just days before the actual election?

    And all the while you didn’t say a peep about PeePee’s Russian-Putin-Mob ties…

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

81 more replies

Participants

Avatar for josephebacon Avatar for overreach_this Avatar for sysprog Avatar for radicalcentrist Avatar for leftflank Avatar for clemmers Avatar for skippykaos Avatar for thepsyker Avatar for sf_brian Avatar for mrcomments Avatar for mantan Avatar for yskov Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for bonvivant Avatar for dickweed Avatar for dnl Avatar for cincypix Avatar for georgeh Avatar for spencersmom Avatar for jonnygee Avatar for demyankee Avatar for timbo Avatar for drwho Avatar for loss_mentality

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: