By James Comey
Mr. Comey is a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The country is
eagerly awaiting the special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Many
people know what they want it to say — what they feel it simply must say
— namely, that Donald Trump is a criminal who should be removed from
office. Or that he is completely innocent of all wrongdoing.
But
not everyone knows what it “must” say. Even though I believe Mr. Trump
is morally unfit to be president of the United States, I’m not rooting
for Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that he is a criminal. I’m also not
rooting for Mr. Mueller to “clear” the president. I’m not rooting for
anything at all, except that the special counsel be permitted to finish
his work, charge whatever cases warrant charging and report on his work.
President
Trump’s constant attacks on the special counsel, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Justice Department over the past two years raised
the prospect that he would interfere to stop the special counsel’s work.
It is deeply concerning that the president of the United States would
try to protect himself by torching the institutions of justice. But he
hasn’t used his authority to end Mr. Mueller’s work. (That would have
been a crisis of a different order — shutting down the investigation,
rather than just trying to undermine its credibility.) So we are in a
position to wonder and hope about the report’s content.
Wondering is fine. But hoping for a particular answer is not. The rule
of law depends upon fair administration of justice, which is rooted in
complete and unbiased investigation. We are best served when an
investigation finds all relevant facts and illuminates the fullest
possible view of the truth.
I have no idea whether the special counsel will conclude that Mr. Trump
knowingly conspired with the Russians in connection with the 2016
election or that he obstructed justice with the required corrupt intent.
I also don’t care. I care only that the work be done, well and
completely. If it is, justice will have prevailed and core American
values will have been protected at a time when so much of our national
leadership has abandoned its commitment to truth and the rule of law.
I am rooting for a demonstration to the
world — and maybe most of all to our president and his enablers — that
the United States has a justice system that works because there are
people who believe in it and rise above personal interest and tribalism.
That system may reach conclusions they like or it may not, but the
apolitical administration of justice is the beating heart of this
country. I hope we all get to see that.
The
interests of justice will also be best served by maximum transparency
about the special counsel’s work. I don’t know all the considerations
that will go into deciding precisely what to say about the completion of
that work and when to say it. But because the Department of Justice is
guided first and always by the public interest, it should provide
details about finished investigations when the public needs to know
them, as it traditionally has.
I do
have one hope that I should confess. I hope that Mr. Trump is not
impeached and removed from office before the end of his term. I don’t
mean that Congress shouldn’t move ahead with the process of impeachment
governed by our Constitution, if Congress thinks the provable facts are
there. I just hope it doesn’t. Because if Mr. Trump were removed from
office by Congress, a significant portion of this country would see this
as a coup, and it would drive those people farther from the common
center of American life, more deeply fracturing our country.
Critics of Mr.
Trump should hope for something much harder to distort, or to nurse as a
grievance, than an impeachment. We need a resounding election result in
2020, where Americans of all stripes, divided as they may be about
important policy issues — immigration, guns, abortion, climate change,
regulation, taxes — take a moment from their busy lives to show that
they are united by something even more important: the belief that the
president of the United States cannot be a chronic liar who repeatedly
attacks the rule of law. Then we can get back to policy disagreements.
I just hope we are up to it.
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