James Comey as Whistleblower
All whistleblowers have stories. They report how they came to observe and then
disclose suspected wrongdoing. Their narratives
explain honorable reasons for their actions and the dishonorable actions taken
against them by their organizations. James Comey, former FBI
Director, spins such a narrative in his book, A
Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership.
Comey begins with Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano who
flipped to tell Comey, then a US Assistant Attorney, about Mafia life. The “made men,” loyalty, and lies. We know where this is headed: Donald “The
Bully” Trump is going down, at least on paper.
Comey has worked for great leaders, he says. Like the grocery store owner who didn’t ball
him out for mistakes he made. His experiences
and personal study formed a philosophy: great leaders are decent, humble, kind
but tough, and transparent. They have
integrity. They listen and want to hear
the truth. They do not lie.
That philosophy has guided him. No matter how he felt, he tried to walk with
a bounce in his step, standing straight, and smiling at those he passed. He never cut in line.
He knew bullies, too.
In middle school, well before he had grown to 6’8”, he was bullied. In college he briefly joined in harassing a
fellow student. He regretted his
participation, though, and vowed not to surrender moral authority to the group
again.
He believes in balance: family is important to him. His wife is a great leader, he says. He had not supported Obama’s election, but he
grew to admire the man after Obama named him to lead the FBI in 2013.
Comey’s narrative sets us up to like and believe him. He has foibles but they are small and often amusing. We can wince in sympathy when he bangs his head
in a doorway while rushing for a meeting with President Bush and then tilts his
head to direct the flow of blood away from view.
Whistleblowers often relate appealing narratives. Cynthia Cooper[1]
came from a small town and was supported by religion, family, friends, and
staff on her way to becoming VP of Internal Audit at WorldCom. Then she blew the whistle on that fraud. I like to point to my
long, modestly successful career in finance and to helping turn
HomeFirst around before disclosing its misdeeds. We want to be seen as honorable; we want our
complaints to be heard.
With the stage set, Comey arrives at the controversial heart
of his story: his announcements about the Hillary Clinton emails. In July 2016, Comey
announced that the FBI had closed its investigation of Clinton’s possible
mishandling of confidential emails on her personal server. Deviating from usual FBI practice in such
announcements, Comey discussed at length the results of the investigation and
called Clinton extremely careless. On October
28, 11 days before the election, Comey announced the FBI had reopened its
investigation of Clinton. This announcement
was also out of line with the usual FBI practices concerning
investigations. Then, two days before Election
Day, Comey made another
announcement: the FBI found nothing to change its July decision.
He made three disclosures.
Three instances of Comey wanting to be transparent, truthful, protective
of the FBI and the country, and unwilling to grant moral authority to the group. He stood up for what he believed despite the
likely firestorm of opposition and criticism.
He is like other whistleblowers, including me, except he is big-time.
He recognizes other reasonable people might have handled
matters differently. He is nauseated by the
possibility he might have influenced the election, he says. He has been over those announcements hundreds
of times. He is convinced that if he had
to do it all again, he would act just as he did given the role he played and what
he knew at the time.
We whistleblowers are nearly all like that. We all have months and years to reconsider
what we did and why. We retell our stories
in legal filings, to friends and family, to ourselves, on silly blog posts. Nearly all of us conclude we did the right
thing. Often we categorize it as something
we had to do based on a higher loyalty, as Comey does. Most of us don’t get paid for our
retelling. We must settle for narratives
that justify our actions, explain how honorable we are, and demonstrate how our
lives are all of a piece with our brave undertaking.
On occasion, though, we see through our attempts at
self-justification. We admit we could
well have acted differently. We concede our
purity was fiction. When we do, we don’t
excuse those who did us wrong or those who failed to support us when we hurt. Lowering ourselves from a pedestal does not
raise the wrongdoers. It just clears away
the gases of our bloviating.
Once those fumes dissipate, though, a sadness remains. The purpose is gone. A career is done. We are alone to rehash our losses, our
embarrassment, and our final insignificance.
The evident emptiness of our actions is dismaying.
Even though I sympathize with Comey’s desire to re-inflate
himself, I can’t take his narrative seriously.
His attempt to rationalize his actions seems too transparent. But maybe not to him. The whistleblower industry is filled with
organizations and individuals who lionize the act of whistleblowing. I wonder whether I would feel better if I could
still hold myself up as Comey does. That possibility is gone for me.
[1] Cooper, Cynthia. Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of
a Corporate Whistleblower.
Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. 2008
