The worst is still to come for Jim Comey

At 6’8”, fired FBI director James Comey moves through life like a shark’s fin, well above the water level set by the rest of us. This brings attention, which he appears to enjoy, perhaps even crave. He has become a public performer over the past three years, cultivating a disarming “aw shucks, lordy, lordy” persona while covering his damaging actions with milky platitudes.

The Department of Justice Inspector General just fired the first of three cruise missiles trained on Mr. Comey with devastating impact. Comey’s reaction? “Feel free to apologize to me.”

Rushing into victimland is a common strategy for the cornered. Another is staking out an imagined noble duty to a contrived higher authority — one that looks strikingly similar to the image he sees in the mirror each morning.

But here in the real world, this is what the IG’s investigation has confirmed: James Comey, as FBI director, created and maintained a separate record system that he kept in a desk drawer. He then also took most of those official records home. If that wasn’t enough recklessness, he leaked some of those records to the press after he was fired.

To Comey, all of this is justified because some hero has to rise up and stand in the breach. But the IG methodically lists the numerous policies Comey violated, policies carefully designed over time to prevent the abuse of authority by those who self-craft a “higher loyalty” in their minds, thereby exempting themselves from the rules. Comey was no hero; he was nothing more than an executive vigilante.

Creating a separate record system in the FBI is a mortal sin, and with good reason. Every newly minted agent at Quantico learns this as part of FBI 101. Anytime an FBI agent, to include the director, collects information in an official capacity, that information must be documented, associated with a case file number and entered into the FBI’s case management system. Comey never did that. In fact, his now infamous memos weren’t entered into the official FBI system until after he was fired. …..

Next up will be the IG’s findings regarding Comey’s truthfulness before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court and whether he attested to false or misleading statements in order to electronically monitor a presidential campaign.

That determination may not be as cut-and-dried as many think it is, but it hopefully, at a minimum, will explain why Comey believed he could sign off multiple times on a FISA application based largely on information that he, himself, described as “salacious and unverified.” His exposure here is potentially much more devastating than breaking FBI record retention and handling rules.

CONTINUE HERE.