Comey’s Go-It-Alone Approach May Have Hurt the FBI

WASHINGTON — As deputy attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, James B. Comey clashed repeatedly with the White House over its interrogation and warrantless wiretapping programs, earning a reputation of fighting for his view of what was right no matter whom he angered.

That same impulse — that he knew best, no matter the consequences — underpinned Comey’s decisions in 2016 to flout Justice Department norms and update the public on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information. Democrats have said he cost her the presidential election.

Comey was faulted for those decisions in a highly critical Justice Department report released Thursday about the FBI’s handling of the Clinton inquiry. By trying to protect the bureau, the department’s inspector general found, Comey instead damaged the FBI’s reputation.

“Comey chose to deviate from the FBI’s and the department’s established procedures and norms and instead engaged in his own subjective, ad hoc decision making,” the report said. It added, “The decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.”

An official condemnation of Comey’s go-it-alone approach, the report is bound to shape his legacy, providing grist for both Republicans and Democrats as well as FBI agents who disagreed with how he ran the bureau at a politically perilous time.

Comey defended his decisions and said the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, had the benefit of hindsight. While Comey supported the review, he disagreed with its conclusions.

“If a future FBI leadership team ever faces a similar situation — something I pray never happens — it will have the benefit of this important document,” he wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times.

Fired abruptly by President Donald Trump last year as the Russia investigation engulfed the young Trump administration, Comey has returned to the public spotlight, chastening the president on Twitter and writing a best-seller. Whether he has a third act in another administration or as a publicly elected official is an open question.

In his tour as FBI director, Comey ultimately served as a major figure in the 2016 election, possibly shaping its outcome even as he sought to navigate the bureau away from the bitter political atmosphere of the campaign.

Horowitz determined that Comey should not have announced unilaterally in July of that year that he would not recommend charges against Clinton, and he should not have called her “extremely careless” during a highly unusual news conference.

Comey was insubordinate, the inspector general said, and should have followed the chain of command and coordinated with his Justice Department bosses in holding a news conference. Comey told Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch that he intended to make an announcement regarding the investigation but provided no details.

Comey also should not have sent a pair of letters to Congress just days before the election saying the FBI had reopened the investigation to examine new evidence and then closed it days later, the inspector general said.

The former director’s supreme confidence has exposed the FBI to accusations of political bias and corruption, according to former and current agents, who predicted the FBI would need years to regain the public’s trust. “For Comey, this is a stain that will not come out,” said Tim Weiner, author of “Enemies: A History of the FBI.”

Comey has refused to say he made a mistake but concedes he might have done “some things differently.” In his best-selling book published this spring, “A Higher Loyalty,” Comey wrote that perhaps he could have found a better way to describe Clinton’s conduct but spent little time second-guessing himself.

Trump had praised Comey before and immediately after taking office. On the campaign trail he said Comey had “a lot of guts” for taking on the Clinton investigation, and in a memorable White House meeting the president embraced Comey, saying, “He’s become more famous than me.”

But Trump quickly soured on him, and in firing Comey last year, the president initially cited Justice Department criticism over his handling of the Clinton investigation.

Trump later acknowledged that the Russia inquiry was on his mind during that time and has more recently begun a public campaign to discredit Comey, who is a key witness in the obstruction investigation of the president.

While the new report dented Comey’s standing, Weiner said the totality of Comey’s time in public service should not be overlooked. Comey had a formidable law enforcement career beginning as a mob prosecutor in New York. Later, as an assistant U.S. attorney in Richmond, Virginia, he cracked down on felons arrested with guns and brought charges in a major terrorism case. For his efforts, Comey landed on the front page of a weekly newspaper under the headline “One of Good Guys.” Comey had not told his boss about the article ahead of time.

In 2002, Comey returned to New York as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. He embraced tough cases, prosecuting Martha Stewart on charges connected to a personal stock trade she made.

“Charging Martha Stewart was my first experience with getting a lot of hate and heat for a decision that had been carefully and thoughtfully made,” Comey recounted in his book. She was found guilty on all charges and served five months in federal prison.

Soon, Comey was tapped to be the deputy attorney general, trying to protect the country after the Sept. 11 attacks as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official.

He famously confronted Bush’s aides as they tried to get Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized with a pancreatic ailment, to reauthorize a National Security Agency surveillance program that Comey had found to be legally dubious. Comey, who threatened to resign along with Robert Mueller, then the FBI director, prevailed.

He also fought with the White House over Justice Department memos that authorized the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. Comey and others at the Justice Department believed that the agency might be violating laws against torture because of how the techniques were being applied.

Comey did not explicitly say he was thinking about his legacy and being on the right side of history, but, he wrote, a comment by his wife resonated with him. “Don’t be the torture guy,” she said, advising him to stand up against the program.

Comey’s pleas were ultimately ignored, and no policy changes were made. He left for the private sector in 2005, then took over the FBI in 2013.

More than anyone since J. Edgar Hoover, Comey embraced the persona of national lawman. He saw himself as the principled leader of not only the FBI but police officers everywhere. When Comey traveled, he mingled with agents in field offices and local police officers. He was something of a rock star, albeit a tall one at 6-foot-8.

In 2015, the Clinton investigation, with its vast political implications, began to consume the FBI’s seventh-floor leadership. Comey knew the FBI would be attacked no matter the outcome.

The inquiry wrapping up as the 2016 presidential primaries did, Comey began to debate whether and how to disclose it. Comey, who prides himself on being a great communicator, settled on a public announcement, a departure from the FBI’s usual practice of silence on investigations.

He thought he could deliver the right message to the American people, balancing openness while protecting the bureau from accusations of favoritism.

Still, before briefing reporters, he later wrote, “It felt like I was about to damage my career.”

Indeed, many former FBI agents thought Comey should have remained silent and let the Justice Department announce that no charges would be brought in the case. His overconfidence was his undoing, agents have said in interviews.

In the fall, when the FBI discovered possible new evidence in the case, Comey confronted two “terrible options”: speak or conceal, as he titled a chapter in his book.

He ultimately decided to tell lawmakers, which he had promised to do. The disclosure upended the election in its final days, and Comey’s subsequent notification that the FBI had closed the investigation again without finding new evidence earned him a new round of evisceration.

The inspector general characterized Comey’s dilemma as “a false dichotomy.” In reality, Horowitz wrote, Comey could either follow established practices or policies — or not. “Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment,” the report said.

Comey disagreed. “The inspector general weighs it differently, and that’s OK, even though I respectfully disagree,” he wrote in his Op-Ed.

Comey will probably forever be linked to Clinton, said Douglas M. Charles, an FBI historian. “People in history are remembered for one or two things,” he said. “He will likely be remembered for interfering in the 2016 election. I think it is potentially catastrophic to his legacy.”