James Comey Makes His Case to America

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2018

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a long career in law enforcement, the former F.B.I. Director James Comey aimed to be above politics, but in the 2016 election he stepped directly into it. In his book, “A Higher Loyalty,” Comey makes the case to America that he handled the F.B.I. investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and Donald Trump’s campaign correctly, regardless of the consequences. Even after being fired by President Trump, the former F.B.I Director says he doesn’t dislike the President; he tells David Remnick that what he feels is more akin to sympathy. Trump “has an emptiness inside of him, and a hunger for affirmation, that I’ve never seen in an adult,” Comey says. “He lacks external reference points. Instead of making hard decisions by calling upon a religious tradition, or logic, or tradition or history, it’s all, ‘what will fill this hole?’ ” As a result, Comey says, “The President poses significant threats to the rule of law,” and he chides Congressional Republicans for going along with the President’s aberrations. “What,” he rhetorically asks Mitch McConnell and others, “are you going to tell your grandchildren?” Nevertheless, Comey remains hopeful about the resilience of American institutions. “There isn’t a ‘deep state,’ [but] there is a deep culture,” he believes. “It is [about] the rule of law and doing it the right way,” and it serves as “a ballast” during political turmoil. David Remnick’s interview with James Comey was taped live at New York’s Town Hall on April 19, 2018.

Transcript

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0:40.3	Music com slash radio hour. Good evening. Good evening.
0:42.3	And welcome everybody to the first ever live taping of the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:48.3	Yeah.
0:50.3	It is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and I'm David Remnick.
0:57.0	Welcome.
0:58.0	Now, after his electrifying congressional testimony last year, which we will discuss, James Comey has
1:07.0	largely stayed quiet, offering no new details on one of the most controversial and significant
1:13.6	boss employee relationships in recent history.
1:17.6	That is, of course, until now with the publication of his new book, A Higher Loyalty, Truth, Lies, and Leadership.
1:25.6	This book, this testimony, reaches us at a time of deep political division
1:30.4	when explosive stories related to the Trump administration are breaking at a dizzying and
1:36.9	disturbing rate. We can discuss Mr. Giuliani later on. Tonight we will hear directly from a man who, among other distinctions, has become the
1:47.0	sworn enemy of both Hillary Clinton, who claims he shived her and lost her the presidency,
1:53.0	and President Donald Trump, who just this past week is called Comey, slippery and the worst FBI
2:00.0	director in history.
2:01.6	Mr. Comey will likely use these blurbs for his paperback edition.
2:06.6	James Comey began his career as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York,
2:12.6	where he worked to prosecute, among others, the Gambino Crime Family.
2:21.9	He left to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia,
	...

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