Jim Comey
speaker
98 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Jim Comey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And so I didn't plan any of this out. But in a way, it's been a useful kick in the pants to me. And that is, you can't withdraw. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit I was trying to withdraw. And the stupid seashell thing, in a way, has said, no, you got to get back out there and speak. And so I think I can talk about the rule of law. I wish I didn't have to, but we all have to right now.
Yes, I unequivocally rule that out. Yeah, I think I would come up with a better plan. It's honestly been a bit of a distraction. Not that I mind you talking about the seashells, but I'm supposed to be out here for my publisher talking about the book.
They went through a period of trauma. when the appointments are first made and Kash Patel arrived and people were forced out at the same time, really good career people, the people who actually know how to run the FBI were forced out. The head of the FBI's New York office, who was widely admired, was forced out for standing up and saying, basically, we're going to do our jobs the right way.
So that was a period of trauma for them. I think they've now entered a kind of numb stage where they are I'm not speculating. Folks there have told me this. They're just trying to keep their heads down and do the work and survive this, accomplish the mission, but try to do it in a way that headquarters isn't watching them. or isn't interested in them. That's sort of a big part of the Hoover era.
People just wanted to do the work and make sure that Hoover didn't see what they were doing, so they didn't get drawn into anything. I think they've entered that phase and hoping that time goes quickly.
Well, it's hard to categorize 38,000 people in one place. But I think the main feeling is they still love the work. They know how fast three years and whatever we are, six months can go by. And they are planning on staying. They're hoping not to be noticed to do the work. And then there'll be a better time ahead.
That seems to be, again, the selection bias in those that I talk to, but that seems to be the feeling.
Yes, it's hard to see from the outside, but I also wonder, so how are they doing that? The Bureau, since 9-11, has had a really sophisticated process to figure out what to work on. It's called the Threat Review and Prioritization Process, TRP, where twice a year we would look across the country and say, so what are the bad things that could happen to America that we could do something about?
Who's working on it already? What would be good measurements of achievement against that threat? And given those threats, how would we rank them? And then we do the same thing in each of the 56 field offices and then come up for each field office with a separate list of these are your priorities and this is how we're going to measure success.
whether you're making progress against them, really rigorous. And we would go to Congress each year and say, you should invest in the FBI because we'll show you how we're spending our money. And we'll show you whether we're making good on our promises to spend the money this way. And I couldn't move more than $100,000 in total value.
So in equipment or people without going to Congress and getting permission to Because a law had passed that said, this is how you shall spend your money. And it was based on what we had told them we were going to spend it on. So how you move lots of people to immigration and how you do it consistent with the rigor of that prioritization process mystifies me.
Because I assume that terrorism and counterintelligence are still at the top of the stack. And so what's the rationale for the move? And what does Congress say about the move? I can't tell you.
Well, it risks being a false statement, which you really don't want to do at the FBI. But yeah, if Congress is going to wink and nod because you're going to say that, you know, it's national security work because we're protecting the border. I guess at that point, the rigor of the threat review process has increased. Been thrown over.
But sure, I guess if Congress is going to let you do it, you can do whatever you want.
I think that's right. I mean, you get that sense across a broad spectrum of issues that Congress has just folded it up and that leg of the constitutional stool doesn't exist anymore. And so it's no longer that the president's responsible for taking care of the law, be faithfully executed. He kind of gets to make the law now. That seems to be what's going on across the spectrum.
No, I'm very worried. And because we spent 50 years after Hoover died trying to build an FBI that stood apart. It was in the executive branch, but not of the executive branch, spiritually, culturally, because... We needed that. And when I was nominated to be FBI director, Republican senators and Democrats all said the same thing. You must protect the independence of that institution.
It can't be part of politics. It can't be on anybody's team because you have to investigate everybody. Over and over again, they told me the same thing. And that's reflected in the 10-year term, which is symbolic, right? The president can fire, was legally entitled to fire an FBI director, me in this case. But the 10-year term is to signal something
And it's the reason that when Barack Obama was playing basketball in the FBI basketball court downstairs, I knew he was there. I never went down because Louis Freeh didn't hang out with the president. Bob Mueller didn't hang out with the president. I didn't hang out with the president because we're trying to protect the reality and the reputation of the FBI as separate.
And now you see the FBI director hanging out with the president, laughing with the president, socializing with the president. That is Something that symbolizes a real worry that I have, that we're going to lose what we spent 50 years building. Now, can we rebuild it? Of course. But in the meantime, good people won't come to the FBI. Good people leave the FBI.
And more than anything else, people won't trust the FBI. Jurors, witnesses, victims, sheriffs, police chiefs. people that we need to know the FBI is going to be criticized because we play our games on national television in a polarized environment. But if you're not trusted, you can't do the work.
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