Grant him the serenity to accept the things he cannot change; courage to change the things he can; and a pithy quote to tweet whenever a new political shoe drops.
Former FBI director James Comey, whose firing started this chain of events, on Monday turned to the American theologian who composed the Serenity Prayer to respond to news that President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and a former campaign adviser have been charged by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr
— Reinhold Niebuhr (@FormerBu) October 30, 2017
Comey posted the quote by Reinhold Niebuhr, an anti-Nazi Protestant theologian, from a rarely used Twitter account that reporter Ashley Feinberg identified in March.
The former FBI director’s friend Benjamin Wittes identified the account as Comey’s in October, on the same day that Comey posted a moody photograph of himself purportedly standing in the middle of an empty road in Iowa looking to the horizon.
Later Monday, Comey updated his Twitter account with a photograph of himself and the description: “Former FBI Director, current husband and father, writing and speaking about ethical leadership, wears running shoes to exercise, taller and funnier in person.”
According to a report Feinberg flagged in the College of William and Mary’s student newspaper, the Flat Hat, Comey wrote a senior thesis on Niebuhr and televangelist Jerry Falwell, hence his choice of moniker.
Comey’s abrupt termination in May led directly to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, so Comey’s tweet brought things full circle in more ways than one.
Mueller filed charges that were unsealed on Monday against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates, charging both with conspiracy to launder money, making false statements, conspiracy against the U.S. and failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier in October, in a case that was also unsealed on Monday, to making false statements to FBI agents about his communications with Russian nationals.
Some found yet another level of irony in Comey’s tweet in light of his shock announcement, 11 days before Election Day in 2016, of the “existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server (Clinton has blamed her loss of the election in part on that announcement).
Too bad Niebuhr never said anything about how FBI directors shouldn't mess with democracy by issuing statements right before election. https://t.co/5QjDCAIPE7
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) October 30, 2017
This post has been updated.
