Comey piles on the dirt

Nine months ago I wrote a comment piece for The Times which in its wisdom it did not publish, about sacked FBI director James Comey and his plan to write a blockbuster memoir about his relationship with Trump. I reckon it stands the test of time pretty well. Even now there are pieces appearing in eminent newspapers such as The New York Times suggesting that his hard-hitting personal accusations against Trump in his book published today might damage his previously well-cultivated image as a public servant. Here is what I wrote last summer: "SO James Comey, respected but fired FBI director, is going to write his memoirs and tell all about his confrontation with Trump over the Russia collusion affair. Remove "respected" and just leave "fired". Comey is not going to do his reputation as a maltreated FBI man any good by writing a blockbuster, leaking everything to the world about his relationship with the president. It is decidedly unseemly for the man who was at the centre of the Russia/Trump allegations to be seeking to make tons of cash out of his experience. Publishers are beating his door down to grab his memoirs. Soon Hollywood will be knocking, Jon Hamm will be lined up to play Comey, perhaps it will be turned into a musical a la La La Land. Ok, Comey is out on his luck, he feels aggrieved and is desperate to get his version of events into the public eye. But hasn't he done that already? He leaked his conversations with Trump to the media, we know what he thinks he said and what he thinks Trump said. Is he going to reveal a mass of confidential stuff that should remain, well, confidential? It all appears pretty tawdry and stands up Trump's accusation that the former FBI director was/is a grandstander, one of those top officials who cannot resist the chance to burst into print to make a pile of money. Of course, every past president, or many of them, former secretaries of state, ex-defence secretaries, have written their memoirs. But that's expected. They are historical documents, and few of them stir up much trouble. Bob Gates wrote his memoirs as a former CIA director and Defence Secretary perhaps a little prematurely because he was writing about people still in office. But Comey is a major player in the current investigation into whether Russia and the Trump campaign colluded to destroy Hillary Clinton. He should sink into the background with grace and leave well alone. Instead, he's going to have his publishers and literary agent egging him on to stir up as much dirt as possible because the more dirt, the better the sales. Comey will come across as a bitter, vengeful man, interested only in trying to come out on top and shoving Trump into the dung. This says much about the state of politics right now in the United States. Far from salvaging Comey's reputation, a blockbuster shockbuster, serialised no doubt in the New York Times or Washington Post, will turn people against him. Not just Trump and co, but ordinary, respectable citizens who feel that a former director of the FBI should behave with dignity and get on with his life without spewing more dirt into an already highly polluted Washington environment."