


As Martha Stewart might put it, irony is a dish best served cold.
When then-U.S. Attorney James Comey brought charges in 2003 that put America’s most famous domestic diva behind bars, he publicly declared that the case was about “lying.”
Twenty years later, Comey is facing time behind bars for much the same thing.
Comey, now a former FBI director and one of the country’s best-known opponents of President Donald Trump, is charged in a federal indictment with making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
The two counts relate to Comey’s testimony in September 2020 related to leaks from the FBI to news media about Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation of “Russia collusion” and the first Trump campaign for the presidency.
Comey testified that “he had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports,'” the first count of the indictment states.
“That statement was false, because, as JAMES B. COMEY JR. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation …”
The second count drives the point home, arguing Comey “did corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which an investigation was being had before the Senate Judiciary Committee by making false and misleading statements before that committee.”
As Comey put it in 2003, regarding the Stewart indictment on charges related to insider trading allegations, according to Fox News, “That is conduct that will not be tolerated.”
In a documentary released in December, Stewart attacked Comey and his criminal case against her as unnecessary. Stewart settled an insider-trading case with the Securities and Exchange Commission. What Comey indicted her for were statements she made during the course of the insider-trading investigation — process crimes.
“It was so horrifying to me that I had to go through that to be a trophy for these idiots in the U.S. Attorney’s office,” she said in the Netflix documentary “Martha,” Fox reported.
Of course, there are differences between the case against Comey and the one Comey brought against Stewart.
Stewart was indicted on charges of making false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury — related to lying to the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Comey is accused of lying to Congress.
Stewart’s motivation was apparently money — though why a woman who was a billionaire would go to the trouble of courting a federal prison term over a $45,000 stock trade was and remains a mystery.
Comey’s apparent motivation is a good deal worse for the body politic — an instinct to meddle in the democratic process, first to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency, then to cripple his administration once he was in office.
The vehicle for that was Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation of trumped-up charges of “collusion” between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.
It started with a scheme literally paid for by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and it sparked an investigation that plagued the Trump presidency until it finally dissolved with the publication of a report by special counsel Robert Mueller.
But it was all built on lies — lies told by Comey’s FBI to judges overseeing the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, lies told to the FBI by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, lies told to the American people by Democratic politicians like now-Sen. Adam Schiff, and too many other lies to list.
And now Comey himself is facing justice of a sort for his own considerable alleged role in the long, national nightmare that was the Russia collusion investigation.
Back in 2003, according to Fox, when announcing the Stewart indictment, the arrogant, brimming-with-self-righteousness Comey declared that, “Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but what she did.”
Well, James Comey is now being prosecuted both for who he is and what he allegedly did.
He’s the man who’s brought disgrace to the very name “FBI” to millions of Americans who once honored the law enforcement agency with near religious reverence.
And he’s accused of lying about his own role in disseminating information about FBI activity to sympathetic media outlets.
Whether the charges stand up in court is another question. At National Review, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy considers the charges “factually and legally flawed,” and from a purely technical, legal point of view, they might well be.
But even if it’s not a slam-dunk prosecution, at least the cause of justice will have its day in court. As will James Comey.
He will benefit from the presumption of legal innocence — as he should. And if that means he escapes a legal penalty, so be it.
But anyone who’s followed the twists and turns of the “Russia collusion” fraud knows full well that Comey is not innocent of peddling lies to the American people and heading an FBI that was rife with politically partisan individuals bent on smearing Trump, including Comey himself. (Just ask retired Gen. Michael Flynn.)
And he’s facing a public reckoning because, in a country with a healthy rule of law, “That is conduct that will not be tolerated.”
Those are James Comey’s words. It’s a good bet Martha Stewart would approve.
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