Crosstalk: A look at the Comey, Trump fight

One has to question the title on several levels, the most notable being that Comey, who was fired by Trump, obviously had no loyalty to his oath to “support and defend” the U.S. Constitution and its Rule of Law with his actions on the job.

Who’s morally unfit here?

With an almost god-like complex, Comey paints himself in the book as the savior of the nation. The man brave enough to use any means necessary to bring down a president he didn’t like.

Comey brands himself a liberal activist who deliberately made sure Hillary Clinton, his choice for president, was not held accountable for actions that would have been clearly illegal in another time, when ethics mattered more than emotion.

Former Secretary of State Clinton was exonerated by Comey despite the fact she was found by an FBI investigation to have used a private server to transmit 110 emails containing clearly marked classified information; 36 email chains containing secret information and eight chains with top secret information.

Clinton and her staff then tried to destroy all evidence related to that server. Comey labelled these illegal actions as “really sloppy.”

In fact, we have learned in recent months that Comey started drafting a letter exonerating Clinton months before key interviews had been conducted in the 2016 investigation.

In another time, the people would have demanded that Clinton be prosecuted for violating national security.

Last week, a group of House Republicans rightfully called on the Department of Justice to investigate Comey, Clinton and other federal officials involved in the email debacle.

The letter addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber asks for an investigation of “potential violations of federal statues” on the part of Clinton, Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other Democratic operatives.

“Those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American,” stated the letter.

All these characters who served under former President Barack Obama exhibited levels of corruption that would have shocked the American people to the core when they were more grounded. These days, the knowledge of most Americans about how government is supposed to operate, and their responsibility as watchdogs, has been degraded by liberal activism in the public school system.

Comey has admitted to leaking internal memos outlining Trump’s concerns about a top staffer and his unease with the brewing Russia investigation. Comey passed the memos to a Columbia University professor who made sure they got to the New York Times. Comey said the leak was intended to prompt the appointment of a special counsel into the Russia investigation.

Republicans investigating Comey’s actions say that four of the seven memos he released contained secret or confidential information.

GOP leaders want Clinton investigated for “disguising payments to Fusion GPS,” an opposition research firm behind the Trump dossier that fueled the ongoing witch hunt to disable his presidency.

Comey admits that he didn’t tell Trump that the real collusion with Russia was perpetuated by Clinton and the Democrat Party.

Through Comey, we see how deep corruption runs in an agency that has become a powerful threat to liberty.

My dad always listened patiently to my tit-for-tat explantion as to how it came about that I ended up smacking one of my siblings, but his response was always the same: “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he would say.

“But they started it!” I would exclaim. Dad insisted it didn’t matter. “He was wrong to start, you were wrong to keep it going. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

The nasty little feud between former FBI Director James Comey and President Trump reminds me not of a heartfelt and emotionally-heated debate in the political arena, but of a schoolhouse brawl between little boys wanting to rule the roost.

President Trump’s explanation of “who hit who first” and why is a little confusing.

In an April 18 tweet, Trump said “Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!”

But the president also said, during an interview with NBC, that “regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it I said to myself...this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”

No mention of the Clinton emails at all, the reason first given by the admistration for firing the FBI director.

Nor did he mention the Clinton investigation the day after he fired Comey, when he welcomed two senior Russian officials to a meeting in the Oval Office. A document that was read to reporters from the New York Times summarized the conversation: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the document. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

So maybe the president is confused. Maybe in the heat of the moment he forgot why he fired Comey. Maybe there is an explanation I haven’t thought of: Like most Americans, I have to try to figure out a complex truth from the disjointed bits and pieces thrown into the ring by the media, the president and Comey.

Our truth is constantly packaged according to a political agenda, spun to show how Trump is “draining the swamp” by his supporters or to show how Trump is “morally unfit” to serve as president by those in opposition.

I have to some degree “fabricated the truth” in my own statements above, weaving together strands to create a tapestry that rings true to me, given all I’ve heard and seen of Trump since he filed for the Republican primary. Right or wrong? I really don’t know.

But I won’t be looking to Comey’s book as a measure of truth.

Comey seeks to stand above the fray as an unbiased arbitrator of the rule of law as a former leader of the FBI, even as he pitches his own dirt.

He’s entertaining, his joke about Trump acting like a jilted lover who hasn’t gotten over it a year later was mildly funny. As were some other little digs and jabs.

But when his critics suggest he is hamming it up and spinning truth to sell books, they have a legitimate point.

Although he has said post-publication that he regrets a paragraph in which he describes Trump's appearance — with an emphasis on the size of his hands — he suggested his editor was to blame, he was "trying to be an author, something I've never been before, and bring the reader into the scene." Alas, another man pushed over the edge by a demanding editor.

But more to the point, in suggesting Americans use the “ballot box” to address the fitness of the president, Comey is entering the partisan arena even as he claims to stand above the fray. It is just one of his statements that make me question his judgement; too much it’s tit-for-tat, and two wrongs don’t make it right.