Comey v. Trump

It's not hard to understand why Donald Trump was frustrated with FBI director James Comey. In the weeks before the inauguration and the weeks that followed, Comey repeatedly told Trump that he was not under investigation as part of the FBI's probe into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election. But when Trump urged Comey to say so publicly, to help quell a steady stream of media reports suggesting otherwise, the director refused. Top White House officials took up the cause, lobbying Comey and his associates to be more transparent and to spare the new president unfounded accusations.

To Trump, Comey's unwillingness to say publicly what he would say in private was a profound demonstration of bad faith. It was, he believed, another indication that the law enforcement and intelligence communities were out to get him. And it is hard to blame him after the spate of leaks that have characterized the investigation.

But Trump himself bears responsibility for the events that led to Comey's dramatic, high-stakes testimony about these investigations on Capitol Hill last week. The current scandal is a uniquely Trumpian affair, precipitated and exacerbated by the president's erratic social media habits, his eagerness to make threats and propagate conspiracies, and his public dishonesty.

Immediately upon leaving his first one-on-one meeting with Trump, at Trump Tower on January 6, Comey logged on to a classified computer and memorialized their conversation in a memo to file. Comey testified that he hadn't kept such careful notes during his government service under George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Why did he do it this time? Well, he answered, the seriousness of the subject matter was a factor. So, too, was the credibility of his interlocutor or, as Comey put it, "the nature of the person." "I was honestly concerned," Comey told lawmakers, "that he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it really important to document."

This was a reasonable concern. Trump lies all the time, about matters big and small, significant and insignificant. He lies when he cannot possibly be contradicted, and he lies when there is irrefutable evidence that he's lying. Even judged against professional politicians, Trump is a notably prolific and aggressive liar. His victory in November seemed to suggest that there might be no consequences for his mendacity. But the memos Comey wrote to record the details of his conversations with the president—memos that would be admissible in a court of law as credible, contemporaneous accounts of their interactions, and memos that could play a significant role in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation—tell us such a conclusion may well have been premature.