Review of James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty…
(James Comey, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Flat Iron, 2018, ISBN 978-1-250-19245-5)
I don’t like to read celeb books. Famous people hire a ghostwriter to turn experiences, opinions, reminisces, and disordered notes about them into a book, and many readers will pay top dollar to read it, which often fattens that celeb’s already bloated bank account. The Big Five publishers rush to publish books like that because of those readers. And, as good as the ghostwriter might be (sometimes they get co-author status in small print), these tell-all memoirs are usually ho-hum and self-aggrandizing tales of the rich, powerful, and/or has-beens.
I so rarely read these books that friends and family take pity on me because they think I might be missing something I’d like. This books is an example. Even though it sounded intriguing when it came out, I’m enough up on the news that I didn’t think there would be much in it that I didn’t already know—not details but the general plot. They also know I wouldn’t spend money on such a book. With the Kindle edition at $14.99 (at least three ebooks worth in my budget, although I have a bundle of three books at $5.99) and the hardcover at $13.38 (you read correctly—it’s marked $29.99 retail, but I guess Amazon decided to “discount” the hardcover more than the ebook at the time I checked…go figure), I would have waited to either buy it used or borrow it from the public library.
That’s my little story about how I came by this book, a big story that Mr. Comey tells about the cesspool that is Washington politics. He is a celeb, of course, maybe more so now than when he wrote the book. But this isn’t the typical celeb’s book. He actually has written something that’s worth reading.
Comey was famous even before the 2016 election and the later skirmishes with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. He helped end the mafia of days of yore and stranglehold of the Gambino family; he prosecuted Martha Stewart; and he created the special counsel the put “Scooter” Libby where he belonged. You probably heard more about those three people, though, than about James Comey. They were more infamous celebs. (The last prosecution explains Mr. Trump’s pardon of Libby as a way to get back at Comey. The next-to-last explains the rumor about another potential pardon for the same reason. Mr. Trump is a vengeful man who holds a grudge.)
The 2016 election changed everything. The FBI was investigating Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server, more for the possibility she had violated national security rules for dealing with classified material (those who have security clearances might still wonder why she wasn’t prosecuted for that) and Donald Trump and his minions’ possible collusion with the Russians (they already knew about their cyberattacks on the U.S.). Mr. Comey was no longer working in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District (starting there under Giuliani, a man Comey describes with no kind words, to be sure). He was no longer the Deputy Attorney General who became acting AG for an ailing John Ashcroft. He was Director of the FBI since 2013, taking over from Bob Mueller, and Comey was expecting to serve his country in Washington for ten years.
So, what about the book? Let me take a novelist’s point of view. The plot here is well done, interesting and complex. The characters are well drawn, none of them two-dimensional and most of them flawed. The setting, the DC power scene, is well described with all its warts and surreal nature. Make no mistake, this is a novel. But the writer didn’t have to follow Clancy’s advice and make his fiction seem real. Here the reality slaps you in the face and tells you to wake up and smell the cesspool. That’s what DC is—not a swamp—and the cesspool stinks more than ever before. In this autobiographical novel, James Comey writes like a novelist, and his story about his struggles in the halls of power often reads like a mystery/thriller. Comey is telling a story, his story, and he tells it well. (An aside: I like that he uses the Oxford comma in his title!)
I suppose I shouldn’t sing the praises of a man so many people hate, but like Comey and unlike many others in our nation’s capital, I believe in doing what’s right to the best of my abilities. In that sense, those same haters are disrespecting an honorable man who believes he’s done what’s right for the country and the integrity of the FBI as an independent police force. He might be wrong, but I don’t think so. Maybe he could have done things differently and still act rightly. Read the book before you make your decision about that.
I won’t go into many of the books details here. I avoid spoilers. Most of what I say would be because the public has a short memory when it comes to Washington and politicians’ peccadilloes. Needless to say, you’ll get the inside scoop on events we’re still sorting out in 2018. For example, I mentioned the two cases of Ms. Stewart and Mr. Libby as ones from Comey’s past. My interpretation of their pardons, on real and the other possibly planned, isn’t in the book. It was published before the book, but the president’s love affair with pardons makes the book still current.
This book is all the more current with the release of the DoJ’s Inspector General’s report on Comey’s handling of the case about Clinton’s emails. The bottom line was that Comey was “insubordinate.” Insubordination isn’t criminal; sometimes it’s even justified. Of course, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump think it’s criminal. As recently as June 15th, the president said so on Fox News (where will he play if Disney or AT&T take it over?). And that insubordination was explained in the book and just recently in a June 15th NY Times editorial: he worked for an Attorney General who made the DoJ, not the FBI, into a partisan player (the famous airport-on-the-tarmac meeting is only an example) and not an independent caretaker of democratic values. You might have a different opinion, but I will ignore it until you read this book and the editorial.
Most readers won’t be surprised by the scary tidbits about the current POTUS in this book—the insecure man who never laughs, the mafia Don (pun intentional) who demands loyalty, and the narcissistic reality TV star who isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Three short lines of dialogue occurring at that famous demand-for-loyalty dinner cast a spotlight on the latter: “‘They write these things out one at a time, by time,’ he marveled, referring to the White House staff [who wrote the menu]. ‘A calligrapher,’ I replied, nodding. He looked quizzical. ‘They write them by hand,’ he repeated.”
All sides played dirty in 2016 (the DNC’s egregious bias against Bernie Sanders in favor of the Clinton campaign was never mentioned in the book, just the Clinton email scandal); all sides should be held accountable. They won’t be, and the U.S. democracy will be the worse for it. Comey did what he could to preserve the integrity of the FBI and maintain its independence from the rest of the DoJ, the White House, and Congress. He was between a rock and a hard place, and he’s still being squeezed by both partisan sides even now. Voters have short memories; pols will never forget and look for chances for revenge.
Like Mr. Comey, I’m a fan of the philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr (and many other philosophers too, for that matter). I’ll end this review with a quote from him the author uses at the beginning to set the tone: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Democracy is a dirty business. In this book you will read about the good, the bad, and the ugly in U.S. democracy. We Americans need to work a lot more to eliminate the last two.
***
Mr. Comey didn’t take part in any conspiracies, but there’s one in Rembrandt’s Angel. It’s the story about a Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone’s obsession with recovering a painting stolen by the Nazis in WWII. Available at Amazon, Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.), and at bookstores everywhere (ask for the book if they don’t have it).
In libris libertas!
