It doesn’t matter what wrongs a person has committed, so long as those wrongs hurt a Republican — particularly, President Donald Trump — that person will be rewarded.
Columbia University’s law school announced this week that fired FBI director James Comey will become a senior research scholar and distinguished fellow of the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia Law School starting in January 2021. Comey will be teaching a seminar called “Lawyers and Leaders,” the school announced.
“Comey’s experience represents a broadening of the Mark Initiative’s focus to include leadership of major public institutions, complementing existing offerings relating to corporations and law firms,” the announcement said.
The Hill reported that “Comey will take on a role as one of two ‘Leaders-in-Residence’ through the Mark Initiative’s Leader-in-Residence Program, which invites executives from government agencies, corporations and top law firms to teach classes at Columbia and share their professional experience with students through advising and engaging in other programing at the school.”
Comey has a history of high-profile, controversial decisions while in power. While there is currently an investigation into individuals who sought to bribe the White House in exchange for a pardon (there is no current information to suggest the White House was aware of the scheme), Comey back in the early 2000s took over an investigation into Clinton’s pardoning of Marc Rich, a trader whose wife donated more than $1 million to the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton’s senate campaign, and the Clinton Library foundation before the pardon. Comey found no illegality on Clinton’s part.
Comey also was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 election and gave a notorious press conference that twisted the law in order to avoid charging Hillary with a crime. During that press conference, Comey laid out extensive evidence of Hillary mishandling classified national security information, yet Comey refused to indict Hillary, deciding she needed to have “intent” in order to be indicted, something that was not required by the particular statute she violated.
Days before the 2016 election, Comey made the surprise move to reopen the investigation into Hillary’s emails, which many election experts suggested may have helped Trump win that election.
As FBI director in 2016, Comey oversaw the bureau’s Russia probe, which spied on the Trump campaign as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the election. Even though the FBI had no evidence to suggest the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to steal the election, the bureau continued to investigate, relying on unverified opposition research paid for by Hillary’s campaign. Comey is one of several FBI agents who is being sued by Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide who was spied on using dubious FISA warrants that violated numerous FBI procedures.
With this controversial history, Comey’s final act against Trump has earned him media praise, book deals, and speaking engagement — and now a college teaching position.