If you asked political analysts who the most powerful man in Washington is at the moment, many of them would likely say it’s not President Trump; in fact, like many earlier presidents, Trump is at the mercy of myriad other powerful men and interests, both within his government and outside it.
Instead, given the political climate of the last six months, the ongoing investigations into claims of Russian interference in U.S. elections and behind-the-scenes maneuvering of ex-President Obama’s “shadow government,” the strongest candidate for the man with the greatest influence in Washington might well be James Comey, current director of the FBI.
If Comey doesn’t strike readers as being outspoken, terrifying or an authoritarian force unto himself, it’s probably because he prefers it that way. Comey’s style is much more mild-mannered and understated, but make no mistake about it: if Comey has the goods on someone, their career in Washington is almost certainly history.
Like other FBI directors preceding him, Comey has an array of sub-departments and ambitious agents working for him that would make many an agency director in Washington green with envy.
The parallels with longtime former Bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover are almost too strong to ignore; both men were able to strike fear into the hearts of their presidential bosses, who were too frightened of firing such an omniscient individual — regardless of whether that person had been appointed by a previous administration — to take decisive and concerted action against them.
Quite literally, Hoover was able to blackmail many of the powerful men in his day — not only politicians — with “dirt” that his agency drones were able to collect. So cavalier was Hoover about his relative untouchability that he let his closeted homosexuality become an open secret, and his constant companion, Associate FBI Director Clyde Tolson, was able to appear ubiquitously by his side, hidden in plain sight via the guise of his official title.
Whether Comey has similar skeletons in his closet is difficult to say. However, it’s known that prior to his role as director, Comey was both the general counsel of Lockheed Martin — the largest contractor for the Department of Defense — and a director of the Swiss banking division of investment house HSBC, a bank which has admitted guilt on more than one occasion of laundering money for drug cartels, arms dealers and terrorist organizations.
Whether Comey’s working for HSBC was a case of the fox guarding the chicken coop is unknown. But what is known is that as Director of the FBI, Comey has a major say as to who’s being investigated, both within the United States and outside it, and which cases are given priority — such as those potentially involving President Trump — and those cases which are not — such as those involving former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Is Comey a Republican or a Democrat? Which candidate did he — or does he — favor? During the term of Obama, Comey was hailed for his objectivity by many Washington figures, including former Deputy FBI Director Tim Murphy, who declared in 2013 that “the integrity of Comey is pretty much unmatched.”
While many people believe that a letter Comey wrote to Congress last October saying that the FBI investigation into Clinton’s email server had been reopened led to Clinton’s losing the presidential election — and therefore, Comey must be a secret Trump supporter — things may not be quite as cut-and-dry as that.
Comey has been around the block long enough to realize that nearly all veteran politicians have a hefty amount of dirt on them that can be uncovered if one looks hard enough. According to columnist Eli Lake at Bloomberg News, “The director of the FBI [can] in a practical sense determine the legitimacy of our elected president.”
Also, it should be said that while politicians come and go, the term of an FBI Director is fixed at a relatively lengthy 10 years. From this line of thinking, it’s not too hard to see where elected government stops and the murky “Deep State” swamp of Washington begins.
It’s also not too hard to see Comey using his role for personal gain, which could take the form of financial recompense from a nonprofit enterprise such as the Clinton Foundation or could come as a political reward, such as being kept on the job while other Obama appointees are summarily dismissed left and right by the Trump administration.
It should be said that as a former director of HSBC’s Swiss Banking arm — whose clients donated at least $81 million to the Clinton Foundation — Comey is likely very knowledgeable about the best ways for funds to become “untraceable.” He also is likely to be in a position, given his current role, to make sensitive information about suspicious persons and/or suspect transactions “disappear,” should he desire to do so.
The fact that Comey stated that the investigation into Russian ties to the Trump campaign is still ongoing during his recent testimony to the House Intelligence Committee is telling; it’s likely a message to Trump that the president shouldn’t get any ideas about adding Comey’s name to the list of Obama personnel that have been purged from the government.
Although it might seem Comey is asserting his supposed non-allegiance to either political party, the reality may be quite different; in times of distress (and opportunity for profit), loyalties can have an odd way of shifting. Keeping a sitting politician on their toes is one way of reminding them about the power one holds.
With the Democrats baying for blood, even if Comey’s “dirt” on Trump is only an inch deep, that inch could have a way of being stretched out to a mile in the current political environment. It’s likely that Comey understands all this and a lot more.
Given when he was appointed, Comey’s had ample time to gather a great deal of information on Trump, Trump’s family and his assorted business enterprises. The only question that remains is: how will he use it?
~ American Liberty Report
