James Comey, the polarizing former FBI director, walked into a Barnes & Noble in New York City, sat down on a three-legged stool and began to extol the virtues of his new crime novel to the few dozen people who came to his book signing Monday night.
Days earlier, he sparked a firestorm on the right — and a Secret Service investigation — when he posted a photo on Instagram that Donald Trump and senior administration officials insist was a call for the assassination of the president.
Now Comey, as talkative and confident as ever, was brushing aside the chance that he might face criminal charges.
“They were total pros,” Comey said of the Secret Service agents who interviewed him, adding of the brouhaha: “Maybe it’ll go away.”
But while he was signing books, Trump’s former defense lawyer Alina Habba, now the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, announced that she has filed criminal charges against Rep. Lamonica McIver, D-N.J., for her actions during a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark.
The announcement underscored how differently the Justice Department has operated in the first four months of Trump’s second term compared with the first four months of his first term. Trump loyalists — like Habba, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel — hold top law enforcement roles, and this administration has been even more aggressive in targeting political foes, as well as universities and law firms.
While Comey downplayed the investigation of his Instagram post as a “distraction,” the indictment of McIver put into stark relief how he may not be as safe from prosecution — or at least a long-running criminal probe — as he indicated Monday.
Trump “is surrounded by people willing to cater to his worst instincts,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“I was no fan of Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr, but it seemed to me that they had some limits,” Somin added, referring to Trump’s first-term attorneys general. “It seems like Pam Bondi has a lot fewer limits.”
‘Not my first rodeo’
Hours before he showed up at the Barnes & Noble, Comey appeared on MSNBC for his first interview since the Instagram post last Thursday.
It showed seashells arranged in the shape of “8647” on the beach. Trump is the 47th president, and 86 can informally mean “to get rid of,” according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Comey said he never considered that the post would generate controversy.
“I really thought that I was done,” he said. “I was in another life. I was a grandfather and an author wearing sweaters and jeans and then went for a walk on the beach and posted a silly picture of shells that I thought was a clever way to express a political viewpoint.
“And actually, I still think it is. I don’t see it the way some people are still saying it,” Comey added. “But again, I don’t want any part of any violence. I’ve never been associated with violence, and so that’s why I took it down.”
Trump fired Comey in 2017 amid the FBI’s investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. He was investigated by John Durham, a special counsel appointed during the first Trump administration to investigate the propriety of the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, and he was not charged with a crime.
“It’s not my first rodeo,” Comey said.
But he did express dismay at the Trump administration’s targeting of political opponents.
“One of the real problems we have in this country right now is the use of the president’s power aiming at individuals who don’t have my background or experience,” he said.
“My thing, to me and I hope to everyone else, is just a distraction that goes away in a weekend. But there’s something much more important going on here — the use of power to aim at individuals, eroding the rule of law.”
Other investigations
Last month, Justice Department and FBI officials opened a federal criminal investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a $454 million civil fraud judgment against Trump last year, alleging she made false statements on a mortgage application.
The Department of Homeland Security said this month that a former federal official who denied Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud, Chris Krebs, is the subject of an unspecified federal law enforcement investigation.
And the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has opened an investigation into Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who is now running to be the mayor of New York City, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News late Tuesday. The New York Times was first to report on the probe, which it said focuses on Cuomo’s congressional testimony about the pandemic.
All deny any wrongdoing.
McIver, the New Jersey congresswoman, was charged with two counts of “assaulting, resisting, and impeding” two federal immigration agents at a protest outside a migrant detention facility in Newark on May 9. She faces a maximum penalty of eight years in prison if she is convicted, but sentences are usually well below the maximum.
“It’s political intimidation, and I’m looking forward to my day in court,” McIver told reporters Tuesday in Washington.
Federal investigations can drag on for years, damaging people’s reputations and depleting their finances.
“They can hurt you by investigating you for three years,” said a former federal prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation.
“The question is do you want to hurt people or convict people?” the former prosecutor added. “The first thing is easy. The second thing is hard. You need evidence.”
Pressed about the Secret Service investigation in his television interview, Comey said the judiciary is the only branch of government left that will protect him from a dubious prosecution.
“I believe in our judiciary,” Comey said. “I believe in that one remaining leg of our three-legged stool — that independent judiciary — is alive and well, and that gives me great comfort.”
David Rohde
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