'What Am I Doing? How Did I End Up Here?'
In a DER SPIEGEL interview, former FBI Director James Comey discusses how U.S. President Donald Trump resembles a mafia boss, the dangers of egocentrism and why impeachment would let the American people off the hook.
April 20, 2018
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Comey, let's jump right into this.
Comey: Yeah. Hit me. Hit me.
DER SPIEGEL: You have written a book about leadership, and while U.S. President Donald Trump is certainly not the only focus, you do spend quite a bit of time discussing him. Then, in your interview with ABC, you said Trump was "morally unfit" to be president. Why?
Comey: The way I'd sum it up is: Anyone who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who speaks about and treats women like pieces of meat and who lies constantly about things big and small, and then insists that America believe it, in my view, is not morally fit to be president. And one of the reasons I say it that way is because of all the stuff we heard following the publication of "Fire and Fury," about whether he is medically fit. I don't buy that. I never saw any indication of that.
DER SPIEGEL: Almost exactly a year has passed since Trump fired you from your position as director of the FBI. What was that like?
Comey: It was surreal in a way. I had been touring the L.A. field office, and there was a group of employees gathered in a big room that had three TVs on the back wall. I was speaking to them and saying what I would typically say about the values of the FBI and our mission - and I got distracted because on the TVs in the back, it said: "Comey resigns." There are a lot of funny people at the FBI, so I thought it was a joke. I turned to my staff off to the side and said: "That took a lot of work." I continued speaking and then the TVs changed to "Comey fired." It was a bizarre experience.
DER SPIEGEL: Is your book a way of getting revenge on Trump?
Comey: I'm really not interested in getting revenge by virtue of what I am doing. I would actually rather not be doing this, but my thinking was I can be useful, especially now. This is something that I really have an obligation to do, and that's why I'm doing it.
DER SPIEGEL: The president has called you a "slimeball," a "liar" and a "leaker." He has also suggested that you be jailed. What is your reaction?
Comey: One is a shrug. The second is: We can't all simply shrug at this. It's not normal in this country for the president of the United States to say that a private person should be in jail. That's not consistent with American values. It's really important that Americans not become numb to it and accept it as normal behavior. We have to realize that this is not the way our leaders behave. It's not consistent with our values.
DER SPIEGEL: You also attack Trump personally in your book, writing that he looks shorter than expected with a "slightly orange" face and "bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles." You even point out that his hands are smaller than your own. With such passages, are you not undermining your own arguments about morals and decency?
Comey: I don't think they're attacks. I didn't intend them as attacks and I really don't think they can reasonably be thought of as attacks. I've never been an author before, and my editors would say to me: Bring the reader with you. Show the reader what's inside your head. Let them be in the room with you. In the room, that's what I was struck by, that his face looked orange and he had white circles under his eyes and his hair was very impressive. And I'm not looking to make fun of his hand size, but I remembered in the moment that there had been this business about hand size - and I remember thinking as I went to shake his hand: How big is it?
DER SPIEGEL: You really didn't think he would strike back if you wrote about his hand size?
Comey: (Grinning) The thought never entered my mind.
DER SPIEGEL: Your first meeting with Trump was in early January 2017 when you informed him together with the heads of the NSA and the CIA of Russia's meddling in the presidential election. You write that the meeting in the Trump Tower in New York reminded you of a meeting with a mob boss. Where did that comparison come from?
Comey: I know the mob very well from my work here in New York (Eds. Note: Comey was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York in the early 1990s) and when the president-elect and his team shifted immediately to political spin with us still at the table, this image popped into my head. It felt like the effort of a boss to bring everybody into the family. I pushed it away because I thought it was too dramatic, but in my encounters thereafter, it kept coming back into my head.
DER SPIEGEL: Isn't the comparison of Trump to a mafia boss a bit overwrought?
Comey: I'm not trying to suggest Donald Trump is out breaking legs or firebombing stores or hijacking trucks. I'm trying to compare it to a leadership style where loyalty to the boss is everything, where there are no external reference points. Most leaders - all ethical leaders - have some external reference points that they look to when making decisions, whether it be philosophy, religion, logic, tradition or history. But with a boss like the ones I've dealt with over the years, it's about the boss. What can you do for me? How are you serving me? And I was struck by the comparison of that leadership culture to his leadership culture. That's what I mean by the comparison.
DER SPIEGEL: For Trump it's all about Trump?
Comey: I was struck that the only reference point seems to be internal. What will be good for me? What will bring me the affirmation that I need?
DER SPIEGEL: You write that Trump tried to turn you into a kind of accomplice from the very beginning. At a meeting in the White House, he even seemed to try to kiss you on the cheek.
Comey: The alleged kiss - and there was no kiss, by the way - was excruciating. It's a scene that, in my mind, plays in slow motion because I was trying very much to avoid appearing to be close to the president of the United States. Since Watergate, the U.S. has developed a tradition that the FBI stays at a distance from the president. One of the abuses of Watergate was that J. Edgar Hoover (Eds. Note: Hoover was director of the FBI at the time) was too close to presidents.
DER SPIEGEL: On that day, Trump was receiving U.S. security officials to thank them for their work during his inauguration. Initially, you didn't want to attend.
Comey: I was very, very keen to maintain that distance. I was trying to hide, as you probably know, literally in a blue curtain. After the Trump-Clinton campaign (Eds. Note: the reference here is to the scandal surrounding the FBI's role in the Hillary Clinton email affair), I was very concerned about the appearance that I was somehow one of his people. When the president summoned me forward, I walked across that room determined not to let him hug me. I resisted the hug, but he tried to pull me down and then whispered in my ear: "I really look forward to working with you." The problem was that the cameras were on the other side, and so the whole world, my children too, saw a kiss. The optics of that were very concerning to me.
DER SPIEGEL: Then came your famous one-on-one dinner with Trump, during which he famously asked you to pledge loyalty to him. Why didn't you just tell him that the question was inappropriate?
Comey: That's a really good question. Probably because I'm not as strong as I should be. Probably because I was surprised, stunned by the request, and it's difficult to describe being at dinner alone with the president of the United States. I don't know how many people would say: "Mr. President, you shouldn't be saying that." In a way, I did so because I met his first request with silence. Then, even though it was hard to get a word in, I spoke about the importance of the distance between the president and the Justice Department and the FBI. Despite that, he came back and asked again.
DER SPIEGEL: Ultimately, you settled for "honest loyalty."
Comey: Right. He said again that he needs loyalty, and I said: "I'll always be honest with you. You'll always have honesty." He replied by saying: "That's what I want. Honest loyalty." I accepted that as a way of getting out of a very awkward conversation, but also because I think I had made clear how he should understand "honest loyalty."
DER SPIEGEL: Back to your first visit with Trump on Jan. 6, 2017. You had to tell him about the dossier compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele. Included in the dossier is a claim that Trump was in a Moscow hotel room with prostitutes. What exactly did you tell him?
Comey: My goal was to put him on notice, to alert him that this material was out there. I wasn't saying that I believed it, but we thought it was our obligation as the intelligence community to let him know. I didn't go into all the details. I did talk about prostitutes in Russia, but I didn't think it was necessary to go into the other parts of it - that people call the "golden showers" thing. I was deeply uncomfortable with the whole thing. I was actually floating above myself looking down thinking: "What am I doing? How did I end up here?"
DER SPIEGEL: You didn't tell him that the dossier claimed that the prostitutes had urinated on each other?
Comey: No, I did not.
DER SPIEGEL: How did he react?
Comey: Defensively. And he interrupted me very quickly and then began talking about accusations that women had made against him. He then asked me, I assumed rhetorically, whether he looked like a guy who needed the service of hookers. The conversation, in my judgment, was starting to spin out of control. It was at that moment that I told him for the first time that we weren't investigating him personally. I just needed him to know this because the press was likely to report on it soon. One of our jobs at the FBI is to protect the presidency, and if someone was trying to blackmail him, one of the ways we deal with it is to make sure the person knows the FBI knows.
DER SPIEGEL: Did Trump understand the seriousness of the situation?
Comey: I think so, yeah, because he then later called me to talk about it again. I think he got it.
DER SPIEGEL: On the one hand, you're supposed to protect the president. On the other, you had an ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the elections, which involved people close to Trump. Isn't that a fundamental conflict?
Comey: Well, it can be. There's a natural tension between the FBI's obligation to protect the government and its obligation to investigate parts of the government. But I think it's a conflict that can be navigated.
DER SPIEGEL: What was your view of the veracity of the Steele dossier?
Comey: I didn't know at the time. It came from a reliable source who had an established source network in Russia. And I knew that one of the central assertions of this collection of materials was true, namely that the Russians were engaged in a massive effort to influence the American election. People talk all the time about how the Steele dossier was unconfirmed. That part, in our experience, was confirmed. The rest of it, the details and the salacious things, I didn't know. An effort was underway when I was fired to try to evaluate it in a deeper way, but I don't know where that finished.
DER SPIEGEL: At the center of this whole thing is the question, currently under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as to whether part of the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia. Did it happen?
Comey: One of the duties of the special counsel is to investigate exactly that. There was certainly a basis for the investigation. As you now know, because it's public, the FBI had information that a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor had been in touch with a Russian representative about obtaining emails damaging to Hillary Clinton. I don't know what the ultimate conclusion will be, but I do know that if Mueller is allowed to do his work, he'll find the truth.
DER SPIEGEL: Was Trump attempting to obstruct justice when he asked you to suspend the investigation into Michael Flynn, his security adviser for a short time, and by then firing you?
Comey: I don't know. There is some evidence of obstruction of justice, especially in the encounter relating to Flynn. In this circumstance, I'm a witness, so I don't know where the special counsel will end up.
DER SPIEGEL: Should the president be impeached?
Comey: Ultimately, the law, the facts and our Constitution will decide that. This may sound like a strange answer, but in a way, I hope not because I think that would let the American people off the hook. The American people have very strong, common values that are more important than our policy fights over guns or something. If Donald Trump were impeached or removed from office, that would, in a way, bake in some of our disagreements. I think the American people owe it to themselves to stand up and vote their values.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you concerned that Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign, could be fired by the president?
Comey: Of course, I worry about it. It would be an enormous mistake and an attack on the rule of law. I also think it would be a mistake as a practical matter, because as important as the special counsel is, I'm confident that the work would continue. To stop the work, the president would have to fire everyone in the Department of Justice and the FBI, and that's not possible.
DER SPIEGEL: Mueller's investigation is, as we have discussed, also focused on possible obstruction of justice by the president - and you are an important witness. Is there a danger that, with your book and the interviews you have given, you could compromise yourself as a witness?
Comey: That's a reasonable question. I don't think so because my testimony is locked down at this point. I've testified in front of the Senate about it. I wrote memos about the key encounters, so there's a concrete record. And so long as I continue to tell the truth - and if you tell the truth, you'll be consistent - I don't see that as an issue.
DER SPIEGEL: But if you're seen as being partisan, that could cast doubt on the credibility of your testimony or your memos.
Comey: Maybe. Although if someone were looking to cross-examine me, they would ask those same questions whether or not I wrote a book. So I don't see a significant issue there.
DER SPIEGEL: Currently, you are the archenemy of many Trump supporters. Back in October 2016, it was the other way around. That was when you sent a letter to Congress, with just 11 days to go until the election, informing lawmakers that the FBI had resumed its investigation into Hillary Clinton because a laptop turned up with her emails on it. You were attacked by the Clinton people and defended by the Trump campaign.
Comey: You know, it's funny. My wife has said: "When you started this, you knew you were going to anger half of the political partisans. I never imagined that you would anger both halves." I think because they don't talk to each other, they don't deal with the logic. I can't be both on Clinton's side and on Trump's side.
DER SPIEGEL: Did you cost Hillary Clinton the presidency? She is convinced that you did.
Comey: I don't know. I really, really hope not, but I don't know.
DER SPIEGEL: She plunged in the polls afterward. Your letter clearly had an influence.
Comey: Obviously, it could have, but I wasn't making the decision for political reasons. My whole life in government was devoted to institutions that I loved because they had nothing to do with politics. But sometimes you're stuck.
DER SPIEGEL: Yet in your book, you write about your own political considerations. In July 2016, for example, you gave a controversial press conference in which you personally announced the end of the investigation into Clinton even though that was the task of the Department of Justice. You did so to demonstrate your independence. Why didn't you just play it by the book?
Comey: I'd love to find that book. We have an expression in English: a "500-year flood." Remember, the FBI was criminally investigating one of the two candidates for president of the United States during the election year in the middle of one of the angriest partisan periods in our nation's history. The reason I hope people read my book is not to be convinced I was right. It's instead to see somebody trying to make decisions in an ethical way. I pray no FBI director ever has to try and figure this out again because it was just a series of no-win situations, where all the options were terrible.
DER SPIEGEL: You have also admitted to having been influenced by the assumption that Clinton would win when you sent that letter to Congress in late October 2016.
Comey: I don't remember thinking about the polls, but it is possible given that the whole country was assuming Hillary Clinton was going to be elected. Did that have an impact? Of course, it's possible.
DER SPIEGEL: You have been accused of forcing your way into the spotlight. You have admitted yourself that you are a bit too ego-driven at times. Are you too egocentric?
Comey: How dare you? (Laughs) Nobody in their right mind could comment on their own ego in that way. You'd have to ask other people. As I say in the book, I've worried since I was a teenager about ego and pride because I know it's a weakness of mine.
DER SPIEGEL: In your career as a public prosecutor, as deputy attorney general and as director of the FBI, you've been privy to many of the largest scandals in America's recent past. In the 1990s, you were involved in the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons' controversial real estate investments. You were in charge of the investigation into the billionaire Marc Rich. You were involved in the question as to whether U.S. soldiers in Iraq had tortured detainees ...
Comey: You really have read the book.
DER SPIEGEL: Of course. Yet you keep coming back to Trump. Why?
Comey: You can't write about ethical leadership without including stories about him because he's the counterpoint.
DER SPIEGEL: You also reveal in your book that Trump's current chief-of-staff, John Kelly, wanted to quit after you were fired but that you asked him to stay. But you also say that Trump taints everyone who works with him. What should his staff do? Stay or go?
Comey: Great question, and I don't think anyone can answer it except the person. I can't from the outside say at what point things come out of balance between your efforts to protect the country and the personal compromise. I think there are people now who are serving because they love this country and want to uphold its values. It is an intensely personal judgment about the point at which you're becoming so stained as a person - that you're becoming an enabler - that it makes no sense to stay.
DER SPIEGEL: You would have stayed?
Comey: I definitely would have stayed because I thought I had an obligation to try and protect the FBI.
DER SPIEGEL: You compare this presidency to a forest fire. What makes Trump so dangerous to America?
Comey: One of the core values of this country is that the truth is our touchstone, and we have always graded our politicians by their distance from that touchstone. When George W. Bush spoke about Iraq, when Barack Obama talked about Obamacare, we spent a tremendous amount of time in this country determining whether they were telling the truth. The danger is that Donald Trump lies so often that we will lose that touchstone.
DER SPIEGEL: A forest fire burns everything down in its path. Is that what Trump is doing?
Comey: I hope he doesn't burn everything down. It will damage. It will hurt. But it will go out, and then remarkable things will grow. And I already see it growing. Seeing those kids all over the country in the wake of the Parkland shooting, marching and talking about public policy and guns. It impressed me. I think parents all around America are talking about values and truth and prejudice and fairness in a way they didn't before. I don't care whether the next president is Republican or Democrat. This isn't about politics for me. But it has to be someone who embodies those values and talks about the importance of representing those values in America and to the world.
DER SPIEGEL: Do you sometimes miss Barack Obama?
Comey: Yes. Yeah. Yep. And I told him that when he was leaving. I was not a supporter of his, I gave money to his opponents. But I came to respect him. He's not a perfect person, but he was someone who cared deeply about those institutional values.
DER SPIEGEL: Prior to publication, the FBI took a look at your book. Is "censored" an accurate word to use?
Comey: Pre-publication review. We never call it "censorship."
DER SPIEGEL: Did they make many changes?
Comey: No.
DER SPIEGEL: None at all?
Comey: Some. I was the director of the FBI and I wrote it so that it would be acceptable to them. I knew I couldn't include classified information or sensitive investigative details. So I didn't. The things they suggested I change were all very small and marginal.
DER SPIEGEL: You repeat in several parts of the book that your goal was to keep the FBI out of politics. But now, you are being accused by both sides of the political spectrum that you politicized the FBI. What did you do wrong?
Comey: I reject the premise. I really don't think the FBI is politicized. The FBI is being politically attacked, especially now by the Republicans, which is very shortsighted.
DER SPIEGEL: You said at the beginning of your tenure that "FBI director is the best job I've ever had."
Comey: Yeah.
DER SPIEGEL: What comes afterward?
Comey: I don't know. I wrote a book. I'm going to speak about ethics and leadership and I've signed up to teach next year at the college I graduated from (Eds. Note: College of William and Mary in Virginia), which I'm really excited about. But I will always miss the FBI job. I had planned to be there another six years.
DER SPIEGEL: Will you run for office?
Comey: No.
DER SPIEGEL: Never?
Comey: Never.
DER SPIEGEL: That is a definitive answer.
Comey: Yeah, you got it. That's not my thing.
DER SPIEGEL: Shortly before you were fired, you began tweeting. As your screen name, you chose Reinhold Niebuhr, the American theologian who died in 1971. Why him?
Comey: Because Niebuhr was a huge influence on me as a university student, and I wanted something that people wouldn't figure out.
DER SPIEGEL: It didn't take long.
Comey: But Niebuhr still speaks to me.
DER SPIEGEL: How so?
Comey: Niebuhr embraced the idea that people are capable of tremendous bad, but he also said that's not an excuse for not trying to achieve justice in the world. That always appealed to me because I could see the dark side of humanity, but Niebuhr was able to frame it in such a way that said: "So what? You have an obligation to try and help people and do good." He also was very good about reminding Americans of the irony of American history, that people don't always appreciate your good intentions. And the last thing is: He was a constant reminder. He used to call it the "sin of pride," and that's something I've always worried about.
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Comey, thank you for this interview.
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