Posted originally on CTH on May 17, 2026 | sundance 

Incapable of retaining a stiff upper lip since birth, the sanctimonious James Comey instead pontificates in his customary political fashion about how non-political he is; all the while remaining mounted on his high-horse.  If there’s one corrupt official who deserves to spend time behind cold bars, it’s this creature.

James Comey appears on NBC news to send a message to his remaining corrupt allies within the FBI and DOJ to hang on and retain their position within the Lawfare resistance. As a spineless and immoral creature, and in an absolute case study about how a narcissist projects his mindset, Comey shifts the blame for his current status to his wife and then blame-casts his former conduct to AG Loretta Lynch.   Video and Transcript Below:

[Transcript] – KRISTEN WELKER: Welcome back. And joining me now is former FBI Director James Comey, author of the new novel Red Verdict. Director Comey, welcome back to Meet the Press.

JAMES COMEY: Great to be with you.

KRISTEN WELKER: Great to have you here. Congratulations on your novel. We’ll talk about it in just a moment. I do want to start with this extraordinary moment in which you find yourself. You’re facing a second indictment by the Trump administration, trial in just a few weeks potentially. I know you’re not going to comment on the specifics of the case, but I want to ask you a big-picture question. The charges against you stem from this Instagram post of seashells that spelled out “86 47.” You see it right there. The indictment says it was, quote, “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.” Has being under this microscope changed the way you live your life, Director Comey?

JAMES COMEY: It’s made me want to spend more time as a grandfather, pushing my grandkids on a swing and not talking to awesome people like yourself. But it hasn’t changed how I see the world or my life.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, I interviewed the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this month. And he said, quote, “This is not just about a single Instagram post. This is about a body of evidence that the grand jury collected over a series of about 11 months.” Do you know what he’s talking about, evidence over a series of 11 months?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I saw that, as you said just a few minutes ago. I don’t talk about the case because the federal court rules require you not. I would urge the acting attorney general to bone up on the rules.

KRISTEN WELKER: So but do you know what he’s talking about with the other evidence?

JAMES COMEY: I don’t want to comment on it because then someone will say I’m commenting on the case. He ought not to be talking about it, I can’t talk about it. That’s why we have a judicial process in a courtroom.

KRISTEN WELKER: Fair enough. In an interview with Stephen Colbert last year, you did address what you were thinking when you and your wife were walking on the beach. You said you saw the shells in the sand. I want to just play a little bit of what you told Stephen Colbert.

[BEGIN TAPE]

JAMES COMEY: She looked at it and said, “Why did someone put their address in the sand?”

STEPHEN COLBERT: All right.

JAMES COMEY: And then we stood at it trying to figure, looked at it trying to figure out what it was. And she’d long been a server in restaurants. And she said, “You know what I think it is? I think it’s a reference to restaurants when you’d 86 something at a restaurant.”

STEPHEN COLBERT: Right, off the menu.

JAMES COMEY: Yeah. I said, “No, I remember when I was kid, you’d say ‘86’ to get out of a place. ‘This place stinks, let’s 86 it.’” And so I said, “I think it’s a clever political message.” And she said, “You should take a picture of it.” I said, “Sure.” And then she said, “You should Instagram that.” And boom.

[END TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER: Just big picture Director Comey, what do you say to those who would argue the former director of the FBI shouldn’t be putting political posts on Instagram or social media?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I’m a private citizen. I saw a shell in the fall of 2024 where someone wrote an endorsement of Kamala Harris in a big seashell. I took a picture of it, I thought it was very clever, and I think I wrote, “Ariel understands the assignment,” a reference to Little Mermaid. I’m a private citizen. Again, I’m not going to talk about that particular post, but I use Instagram the way any awkward, nerdy dad would.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, in the past, you’ve said you have faith in the legal system. As you face this second indictment, are you confident that you will be cleared one way or another?

JAMES COMEY: I have complete faith in our judicial system. It’s the genius of our founders. It’s the, frankly, the only leg of our three-legged stool that is still standing in the U.S. government. But it’s standing tall and straight. It is the guardian of the rule of law. And I believe in it. And so let’s make use of it.

KRISTEN WELKER: And you’ve publicly posted you haven’t done anything wrong, you haven’t done anything illegal. So are you confident that at the end of the day, you’ll be cleared in one way or another?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, all I can do without making my lawyers angry at me is repeat what I said in my initial statement. I’m not just not guilty, I am innocent, and so let’s go.

KRISTEN WELKER: All right. You have, if we look back, been in the cross hairs of politicians in the past. This is not new, from Hillary Clinton, the email investigations, the Russia probe. Looking back, Director Comey, is there anything you would’ve done differently over the past decade?

JAMES COMEY: Anything? Yeah, lots of things in my life as a father and a grandfather–

KRISTEN WELKER: –Anything in your professional?–

JAMES COMEY: –and an FBI director.

KRISTEN WELKER: So there you go.

JAMES COMEY: There are all kinds of things that I screwed up. The major decisions that people often talk about I still see them the same. But yeah, I would be better in all kinds of ways if I had a magic wand.

KRISTEN WELKER: Yeah, well let me be more specific because you’ve wondered out loud whether your decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation 11 days before voters went to the polls may have helped elect President Trump back in 2016. Knowing what you know now, would you have made the same, exact decision again?

JAMES COMEY: I think so. The only thing I’ve wondered is whether I should’ve dumped that very difficult decision on the attorney general on October the 28th. She declined to speak to me, but I could’ve just sent her a memo saying, “Here’s what I think that we have to do.” But I decided then, and honestly ten years later, it feels the same. That would’ve been a chicken-blank thing to do. It was a decision that I had to make because I had testified all summer that the investigation was done and now it’s not done. Do I really conceal that from the American people, from the Congress? I can’t. And it would’ve been a chicken thing to do to dump it on the AG. But sometimes when people are unhappy with me on the street, I think, “Hmm, I should’ve left it for Loretta Lynch.”

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, ten years later, now that you’ve had all of this time to think about it, do you think that decision did play a role in the election of President Trump?

JAMES COMEY: I hope not. My goal all of that year was to stay out of politics. And having seen two elections after that, where as I said, the difference the FBI made was late-deciding voters broke for Trump in ‘16, but then they did again in ‘20, and then they did again in ‘24, when I was home in my pajamas for both elections. So I don’t think so. But again, we made the decision because it was the least-bad option. Both options sucked, honestly. But this was the one most consistent with the values of the department. So as painful as it is, I’d have to do the same thing again.

KRISTEN WELKER: President Trump was indicted twice by the Justice Department. As you know in public posts, he’s now justified going after his political enemies because of how he believes he was treated. Do you view the prosecutions against you as political payback?

JAMES COMEY: Well, I can’t talk about the shell case. The one before–

KRISTEN WELKER: Talk about the first one.

JAMES COMEY: –that got dismissed, absolutely. And we made a motion to have it dismissed as a vindictive prosecution. The president of the United States cannot use the Justice Department to target people because he wants to retaliate against them. We just can’t operate as a republic if that happens. And so there’s a powerful argument to be made that’s illegal. We didn’t get to that, ‘cause there are all kinds of other problems with the case. But absolutely, going after John Brennan, after Jim Clapper, after Adam Schiff, all of these things are not about the merits. It’s about retaliation. And that is not just wrong, it’s a way in which our system cannot operate and be effective.

KRISTEN WELKER: Does it make you and your family fearful?

JAMES COMEY: No. ‘Cause I know what I’m dealing with, someone who’s announced he’s now the hunter? Okay, let’s go.

KRISTEN WELKER: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told me earlier this month the evidence that was presented to a grand jury in this latest case, not the government, not the Department of Justice, he said, quote, “It’s not Todd Blanche that returned an indictment against James Comey, it’s the grand jury, part of the judicial process.” Does the fact that a grand jury issued this latest indictment undercut any argument that this latest indictment might be political retribution? Not that you have made this argument that you have made that argument here, but for those who would make that argument?

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I’m so tempted to answer that, but can I answer it about the last case, which is now gone?

KRISTEN WELKER: Please.

JAMES COMEY: Same argument was made, a grand jury returned an indictment, still doesn’t change the fact that it can be a vindictive prosecution. And there, of course, a magistrate judge found misconduct of a variety of kinds by the late-breaking appointed U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan. And so it’s important. The grand jury’s an important part of the process. But there’s more to follow.

KRISTEN WELKER: As you know, the FBI director is meant to serve a non-partisan, ten-year term. I don’t have to tell you that. You’re very familiar with that. Do you think the next president should keep FBI director Kash Patel in his position through his ten-year term?

JAMES COMEY: The next president should make an evaluation about whether, whoever’s in that job, come January of 2029, is performing it in a way that’s consistent with the American people’s expectations of that organization, which is to be competent, honest, and independent. On the current record, it would be a tough continuation for the current director. But I don’t know. The president, whoever the president is then will have to make that evaluation.

KRISTEN WELKER: Let me ask you, because would it undermine the independence of the FBI if the next president doesn’t allow Patel to serve out that full ten-year term?

JAMES COMEY: Well, again, the values are independence, competence, and honesty. And if by some stroke Mr. Patel is reflecting all of those values in another two years, then maybe the next president will want to keep him. But I think you have to have a competent, honest, and independent person leading that institution, else its other contributions to America are lost.

KRISTEN WELKER: You’ve laid out the qualities that you think are necessary to be FBI director. Do you think Kash Patel has those qualities? Has he showcased that?

JAMES COMEY: Not for me to say. Expression from law school keeps popping in my head, the res ipsa loquitur, which is Latin I think for, “The thing speaks for itself.” So I’ll let others make that judgment.

KRISTEN WELKER: Okay. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says that during the second Trump administration, so far, more than 200 people have been forced out of the Justice Department, that includes your own daughter, who was a federal prosecutor in New York. Do you have confidence in the Justice Department to serve the people of this country right now?

JAMES COMEY: I do not, looked at from the top level. The people running it, if you’re bragging about forcing out career prosecutors and agents because the president doesn’t like a lawful investigation they conducted, something is seriously broken at the top. But I have great confidence in the people down below who are just trying to hang on. And I’m urging them, hang on. Two and a half years, and then we can rebuild these institutions. But we need good people in those roles. America does.

KRISTEN WELKER: All right. Director Comey, let me turn to your novel, Red Verdict. Here it is. Great book. It’s the latest in your series, quite frankly, of legal thrillers. It’s number four. You write scenes based on your decades of experience inside the DOJ. Do you think your novels still reflect the reality of the people serving in the Justice Department today?

JAMES COMEY: Yes. Again, I’m going to exclude that top layer and sort of skim that off. Down below, yes. People join the Department of Justice, the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, because they want to do the right thing. And in the overwhelming main, they do. My characters are flawed because they’re humans, as I am. But they are good people trying to do the right thing. That’s what I love about this writing and I hope readers, first the stories are really cool and capture you, but most of all, the characters show something that is real and that ought to reassure all of us.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, one of the characters, the central character, based on your daughter you have said, I wonder what do you hope this next chapter will look like, for your daughter, for you, for your family in your actual, real life?

JAMES COMEY: Well, next chapter for me will be more books. And then once a year, I will do interviews. So maybe we’ll see each other again. But for people like my daughter, my son-in-law who resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia the day I was charged, they represent hundreds of quality people. I think they’re, I don’t want to tell them what their employment situation should be, but I hope they flow back. And I think lots and lots of great people will flow back with the opportunity to rebuild the department, which is what happened after Watergate. Great, young people came back to save us. And they will again.

KRISTEN WELKER: All right. Director James Comey, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.

JAMES COMEY: Thanks for having me.

{END TRANSCRIPT}

Inside the 2020 report by John Durham [CITATION], the special counsel outlined how former FBI Director James Comey was intimately involved in the creation of the Carter Page FISA application.

John Durham noted that Comey kept asking the DOJ National Security Division and FBI counterintelligence investigators, “Where’s the FISA, we need the FISA.”  However, John Durham never interviewed James Comey or Andrew McCabe.  The former FBI Director and Deputy refused to cooperate or give testimony to John Durham.  So, how did John Durham have details about the demands of Comey?

The answer is found in the footnotes.  John Durham reviewed transcripts of interviews given by Andrew McCabe to the Office of the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who previously investigated FBI conduct in the origin of the Carter Page FISA.

John Durham pulled quotes from that transcript. [Footnote #1207, page 199 – Durham Report]

♦QUESTION: If Andrew McCabe gave testimony to the OIG about the motives and impetus of FBI Director James Comey in pushing for the Carter Page FISA application, why did the OIG report never outline those transcribed interviews?

Why was the interview transcript never included in IG Michael Horowitz’s OIG report to congress?

[ NOTE to DNI Tulsi Gabbard and Acting AG Todd Blanche.  Now that you know a transcribed interview of Andrew McCabe exists in the OIG office, request the transcription – send it to South Florida USAO Jason Reding Quiñones – and/or release it to the public.]

Let me answer other questions without the customary pretending from the DC professional political class.  The short version is that OIG Michael Horowitz was trying to protect the DOJ and FBI. The longer version is that a coverup that included DAG Rod Rosenstein, AG Bill Barr and yes, Special Counsel John Durham.

“Where’s the FISA?  We need the FISA?” ~ James Comey

The DOJ-NSD and FBI Counterintelligence Division needed to find a safe and legal way to defend their previous spying on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former CIA asset Carter Page became the fraudulent justification for that intent.

Because “FISA Title I” surveillance authority against a U.S. citizen is so serious (the U.S. government is essentially calling the target a spy), only a few people are authorized to even apply for such surveillance warrants.  One of the four people authorized to make such a Search Warrant request is the Asst. Attorney General as head of the National Security Division of the DOJ.

In September and October of 2016, at the same time the DOJ was putting the finishing touches on the FISA Court application to be used against Carter Page, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin resigned as head of the DOJ-NSD. [CITATION] Did Carlin resign in protest or fear?

As James Comey was demanding that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his FBI counterintelligence agents get the FISA warrant, likely an ass covering necessity, the person responsible to get the warrant from the court, Asst Deputy Attorney General of the National Security Division, John Carlin, quit the DOJ.

Considering all the facets outlined above, this cannot be accidental.

Here’s where it gets SERIOUSLY sketchy.

The next in line person, who can fulfill the DOJ/FBI goal of getting the fraudulent application through the FISA court, is Mary McCord.  Put into the position as Acting Asst. Attorney General for the National Security Division, the job of submitting the FISA application now falls upon Mary McCord.

On October 21, 2016, When the FISA application was finally submitted, signed by DAG Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey, it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.

At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson.  In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ.  Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.

Obviously, with the background and context of the entirely fraudulent Carter Page FISA application, a government surveillance warrant using a Clinton funded political opposition research file known as the Steele Dossier to support the warrant, both Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson would know they were directly involved in an intentional effort to weaponize the mechanisms of the justice department against a political candidate.

While James Comey and Sally Yates’ signatures were on the FISA application falsely vouching for it, the attestations of legal compliance fall upon DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord and her top legal advisor Michael Atkinson.

McCord and Atkinson were doing, in October of 2016, what former DOJ-NSD head John Carlin refused to do.

WATCH WHAT COMES NEXT: Mary McCord then resigns from her position in the DOJ, and Michael Atkinson is left, as lawyer for the DOJ-NSD, to become Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

♦ The Impeachment Effort – Do you remember how the impeachment effort against President Donald Trump was created?  Do you remember Alexander Vindman, the claims about Ukraine; the statements of hearing from a CIA whistleblower about the content of a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?

When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission.  Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint.  It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.

Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General?  Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to?  Mary McCord.

Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment.   As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

Can you see how Atkinson and McCord were working together, both connected to the fraud behind the false FISA application used in the Trump-Russia narrative in 2016 and 2017, now both working together on a 2019 impeachment effort against President Trump holding an identical motive?  Can you see the stunning conflicts of interest and the coordination?

The weaponized FISA surveillance of the Trump administration doesn’t exist without Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson creating the surveillance mechanism.  The weaponized impeachment origin doesn’t exist without McCord – now in congress working for Nadler/Schiff – and Atkinson changing rules as Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), to create the baseline of a fraudulent whistleblower complaint.   Can you see it?

But wait…. It gets worse.

♦ Chief Justice John Roberts – As if things could not possibly be more corrupt, now we have the construct of Atkinson and McCord forming the predicate for the impeachment effort.  To wit, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts now becomes the presiding judge over the impeachment trial of President Trump.

Mary McCord is married to a fellow traveler named Sheldon L.  Snook.

From 2014 though 2020, not coincidentally the timeline of the Trump targeting and administration in office, Mary McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook, was the special assistant to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s counselor. [CITATION]

As noted by the Washington Post in discussing both McCord and Snook, “The counselor’s office advises the chief justice not only on the management and budget of the Supreme Court but also on his interactions with the executive and legislative branches, along with numerous other public roles in which Roberts serves.” [CITATION]

From 2014 through 2020, Sheldon Snook was responsible for running the office of the lawyer legally advising and counseling John Roberts.

Let me put this another way.  The most important guy in the judicial branch, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, has a lawyer to advise and construct the responsibilities of the SCOTUS chief judge, which includes the construct of the FISA court and appointment of judges therein.

As Chief Justice, John Roberts is in charge of everything to do with the FISA court.  The guy running the office of the lawyer doing the counseling of Roberts, is Mary McCord’s husband.

Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, lied to the FISA court to support the FBI targeting of Trump.  Mary McCord’s husband runs the office which would intercept any communication from the FISA court to the Chief Justice if the FISC had any concerns about the false FBI application.  See the problem?

♦ SUMMARY – Now, we go back to where we came in.

Why did the Office of the Inspector General never publish the interview transcript about Andrew McCabe talking about how desperate FBI Director James Comey was to get a FISA warrant?

Why did John Durham never publish those same interview transcripts, but instead simply referenced the existence of the transcript in a footnote?

Follow these questions to their logical conclusion, and you will discover that all of the participants including Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr, James Baker, Dana Boente, Michael Horowitz and John Durham were trying to protect the DC system, officials who did criminal acts, and preserve institutions from collapse that sunlight would create.

Sunlight…

… The best disinfectant.

I ain’t quitting.

Until we deal with this mess, it doesn’t matter who we make president.