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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now is the novelist, James Comey. Wait, don't I mean the former FBI director, James Comey? Well, actually, yes, same person, but the novelist James Comey has his second murder mystery novel just out. Some of you may know the first one, Central Park West, selected as an Amazon Best Book of 2023. The new one called Westport takes place in Westport, Connecticut and New York City and elsewhere. The lead character is Nora Carlton, who left a job she loved at the US Attorney's Office in New York to become general counsel for a high-rolling Westport hedge fund. If you know Comey's bio, this might be sounding familiar.

James Comey will also talk to us about justice in America right now. On this day of closing arguments in the Trump hush money falsifying business records, election interference case, Comey has been following the trial and has also been having a lot to say about the prospects for the American justice system if Trump is reelected. We will also ask him to look back one more time on 2016 and the end of the Trump-Clinton campaign for which many Democrats hold him partly responsible for the way that turned out. Director Comey, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC today.

James Comey: Great. It's great to be with you, Brian. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: I'll bite on some book-related questions first and then we'll get to the real world. People may have only known you from your investigations of Hillary Clinton's email and then Trump firing you because you weren't loyal enough, that's how I'm saying it, I don't know if that's how you'd say it, and all of that. They may not know you were the US attorney for the Southern District of New York based in Manhattan, appointed by President George W. Bush and then later named FBI director by President Obama. Why in between those things did you go to work for a hedge fund in Connecticut?

James Comey: [chuckles] I left government in 2005 thinking I would never go back because I had been involved in some battles I thought made me never going to be an appointee again. I went to Lockheed Martin for five years as their general counsel and then got recruited by a hedge fund in Connecticut that made a pitch to me that I could be part of a leadership team trying to build an unusual culture based on truth and transparency. Given my experience to that point, it was attractive. My wife was up for it and we made the move.

Brian Lehrer: How much is your protagonist in both your novels, Nora Carlton, based on you?

James Comey: Some, it's based on me. People who know better than I have told me to write what you know. I've really taken inspiration from my lead character Nora, from my four daughters, especially my oldest, who's a federal prosecutor in Manhattan as we speak. It allowed me to close my eyes and picture my daughters and write that, which made it easy and a labor of love.

Brian Lehrer: Did they inform the voice of the character Nora Carlton at all? Because being a guy, writing a female lead character, did you consult with your daughters or other women at all on writing in Nora Carlton's voice, or how did you approach that?

James Comey: Oh, constantly. My wife is my partner in both. She's my idea person, but she edits me in near real-time on a Google Doc. Reads it and makes sure that my voice is the way I want it to be and staying on track. Then my kids are all involved in loving but brutal feedback that they give me off of my drafts once I finish the whole draft.

Brian Lehrer: The job of family. Loving but brutal feedback. By the way, I see you are originally from around here. Do I see right that you grew up in Allendale, New Jersey mostly, and your grandfather was the police chief of Yonkers?

James Comey: Yes, I was born in Yonkers and stayed there until middle school, then my family moved to the wilderness across the Hudson River in Bergen County, New Jersey. My grandfather was a career police officer, dropped out of school in the sixth grade to support his family, classic immigrant story, and then became a cop when he was old enough and did that for his career.

Brian Lehrer: Did you grow up always wanting to be in some kind of law enforcement?

James Comey: No, that's what's so strange. I guess none of us are reliable narrators about our lives, but I still think, I thought I wanted to be a doctor and I went to college to be pre-med. It was big in my family that you had to contribute. Even though we were middle class, it was drummed into us that we were very, very lucky. We had to try and give back, and I thought I'd be giving back in the healthcare profession.

Brian Lehrer: You are known, I think, as someone who has strived to do the right thing in circumstances where the right thing isn't always clear. That's reflected right in the first chapter of the book, which I read, where the character Nora is trying to balance the greed and immorality, if I can call it that, that she sees in the finance sector with some good they're doing for teachers and firefighters, pension funds, and things like that. Did you experience that kind of tension when you were in that position for the hedge fund?

James Comey: I did. In all of my private sector jobs, I ached a bit for the absence of the mission that I love so much about the Justice Department. I felt it at Lockheed Martin, I felt it in the hedge fund world, they're good people doing good work and you really can't talk to them about it because it seems obnoxious, but work with moral content, which teachers feel, firefighters feel, and people in government feel was something I noticed keenly when it was gone.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the real world. I can't ignore the elephant in the room of a piece of history here in Blue New York, because people, without even me giving out the phone number yet, or writing multiple text messages with various versions of the question that you know what it is. Like this one writes, this isn't even a question, listener writes, "I normally listen to the full show every day, but will be tuning out during the James Comey segment. It's highly plausible that his unprecedented reckless and controversial decision days before the 2016 election, however justified or however it was intended, launched the MAGA era." Of course, this person is referring to you reopening publicly the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails a week before the election, after you found more emails on an Anthony Wiener computer that came to light. Listener writes, "His pivotal role cannot be denied. I don't wish him ill yet have no interest in hearing from him ever again."

What do you say to that listener who, sometimes when people write things like that, they can't help themselves and they hang around and they listen anyway? What do you say to that person and some other people who are writing in with some similarly pointed comments?

James Comey: There's not much I can say. I hope that they've looked at it enough to realize that we were and are honest people trying to do the right thing in an impossible situation. I can't do much about it at this point, but to a lot of people I've spoken to, I've urged them, if this is really important to you, and it sounds like it is to that listener, dig into it, don't listen to me, but dig into it and ask yourself what you would've done in my position. There were only two choices and they both sucked. You'd have to tell me and tell yourself, why would you have chosen a different door? At the end of the day, all I can do is make sure people understand we did our absolute best in an impossible situation. We were not on anyone's team trying to help or hurt any candidate.

Brian Lehrer: Well, how hard a call was that to make? I don't think most of the people on the democratic side have paid attention and nevertheless think you did the wrong thing, thought you were on Trump's team, but thought it was an error in judgment. How hard a call was that to make? You didn't want to interfere in the presidential race, but you also felt the weight of the need for transparency in a high-stakes moment involving one of the candidates. Tell me if you think that's a fair characterization. Can you take us back into your thought processes then and how hard a decision that was to make whether to go public with that?

James Comey: Sure. It was a nightmare. I saw the nightmare the moment I walked in after having testified all summer long, along with the Attorney General in front of very hostile Republicans in Congress under oath. I had said over and over again, "We've looked at this in an honest way, there is nothing there. We have found what can be found, we've made a judgment, go away. There is no criminal case against Secretary Clinton. It's done, we're finished. The country can move on without us."

I walked into my conference room on the 27th of October and found out that that was not true. That for reasons that are difficult to explain, even now, we had found hundreds of thousands of emails on Anthony Wiener's laptop, Secretary Clinton's emails, and my team told me we can't finish reviewing them before the election and the result may change given the nature of the emails we've found. What do you do in that situation?

You want to have no impact on an election, but you have two choices. You can conceal, and that's the way I thought of it, that you know that people are relying on testimony that is false because you told everyone they could go away, you're done, it was finished. You know that's not true and not true in a way that may be hugely material, or you could inform the tribunals, the congressional committees before which you testified, "Hey, I have to modify my testimony. I don't know the significance of it, but I need to tell you that the story may not be complete yet." Which do you choose? Both may have an impact on an election.

One of my very best people was a woman named Tricia Anderson. She looked at me and said, "Should you consider that what you're about to do may help elect Donald Trump president of the United States?" It sucked the air out of the room. I looked at her and said, "Thank you. First of all, thank you for asking that question." The answer has to be, no, I can't consider how what I do will affect one candidate or the other. I can't, or the FBI's role as an independent force is gone. If I start making decisions based on who I think should be the next president, I have to make this decision based on our values, the principles that have guided us, our norms, our traditions, and so let's stare at that.

When we stared at it, honestly, the clear choice was they both were awful. But we can't let Congress and the American people rely on testimony we know to be inaccurate. I had to tell them in Congress that something had changed and then work like crazy to see if we couldn't investigate it in a reasonable period of time. It turned out my team was able to build a software program that allowed them to go through the hundreds of thousands before the election. When they came back to me three days before and said, "We've gone through it, we found lots of new things, we found classified things, but it doesn't change our judgment," I immediately told Congress that as well.

Brian Lehrer: That did come out.

James Comey: I get that other people might see it differently, but that was the thought process at the time. Honestly, through all the pain that's followed, I still think I would do the same thing, knowing what I knew then.

Brian Lehrer: You answered what was going to be my last question on the topic. If you had to do over again, would you do it differently? I guess you just said no.

James Comey: Oh, look, I would've tried to find another door so I could escape the entire thing. I also knew in that moment that people will never understand this decision because we're at a fork in a road and we're going to choose a road, and everybody else will be looking back down the road towards the fork. I get that, and I get the pain that people on the Clinton side, the Democratic side still feel. I wish I could do something about it, but I can't. Other than to say, if they care enough, dig into it, and then tell me what you think.

Brian Lehrer: Former FBI Director James Comey is my guest. He has a new novel called Westport, but we're also talking about the news, and as you just heard, talking about a little bit of history. We can take a few phone calls for him, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Let's talk about the news of today and the justice system. By today, I mean really today, closing arguments in the Trump trial going on right now. Have you followed it closely enough to have a prediction?

James Comey: I have, with the usual caveat that unless you've-- even if you've tried a case, and I've tried a lot and been in the courtroom, you can't confidently predict an outcome, but I've followed it enough to have a sense of it. My sense is that there's a very, very high likelihood of conviction, a lesser likelihood of a hung jury, and then almost no chance of an acquittal in my judgment.

Brian Lehrer: What difference do you think it will make either to the presidential race or to justice in America if it goes one way or another or another, and as you were just referring to, there are three. He could be acquitted, he could be convicted, or there could be a hung jury.

James Comey: I don't know politics well enough to answer the horse race part of it. I would hope it would be another brick in the load helping people understand that this man simply cannot be president. That when his former cabinet members say, this dude should never be anywhere near the Oval Office, that if you listen to those voices, you digest a guilty verdict and you watch January 6th videos, that should be enough to cure anyone of being a low information voter. I don't know what will happen.

I do hope it's a good civics lesson for America, no matter how it turns out, about what the rule of law looks like. I didn't expect this to be the case, and the only case will be tried before the election. This has shown the American people that no one's above the law. You can tell folks that I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose supporters. I don't know whether that's true or not, but you will be held accountable. This is what accountability looks like. The defendant has to sit there and shut up, represented by counsel. The jury is protected. The judge makes sure the evidence comes in, in a fair and ordered way. This is what the rule of law looks like no matter how it turns out. I think it's a good reminder for us. Really, to my mind, it's another A grade for our justice system, which has passed its stress test in the Trump era.

Brian Lehrer: You know that Trump talks openly about using the justice system to go after political enemies if he's reelected. How much do you think, knowing him, having worked for him for a little while, having been fired by him, how much do you think that's just talk, or how much damage are you afraid he might actually do to the independent justice system in America?

James Comey: You can't trust anything Donald Trump says, except his threats. His promises about infrastructure week or about what he's going to do about contraceptives or abortion, you can't trust any of that. When he makes a threat, he follows through because he thinks to do otherwise will undermine his strength or the perception of his strength. I take him at his word that he is going to be a retribution president and use the system of justice against America and against his enemies. You know he's going to do that if he gets in office because it's a threat and he follows through.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think he might do it? What are some scenarios that you might be having nightmares about, but might be worth saying out loud if, for no other reason, to try to prevent them by putting them on the public plate before they might happen?

James Comey: Most obviously, I think he will endeavor to stock the Justice Department with political appointees. He didn't have all-stars last time. He'll be bottom of the barrel. There's enough people in the bottom of our national barrel who will want the job and will do his bidding to direct the enforcement mechanism of the department, which includes the FBI, against the people he doesn't like. Maybe our courts will stand firm as they have and acquit those people or dismiss those cases, but in the meantime, lives will be ruined.

Then to share a real nightmare scenario with you, our courts can stand strong as they have and issue orders striking down all manner of actions by an amoral president and his bottom-of-the-barrel appointees, but the courts can't enforce their own orders. They rely on the executive branch to enforce their orders. If Donald Trump is elected again, the United States Marshals Service will be put through a test like it has never experienced since it was founded in 1789, because it's the marshals who execute on orders of the court, but the chief of the Marshals Service reports to the Attorney General who reports to the president. What will happen there is the stuff of nightmares. It's very, very likely we will find ourselves in a consensual crisis where an amoral president refuses to enforce the courts no matter how well they pass their stress test.

Brian Lehrer: Helen in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with James Comey. Hello, Helen.

Helen: Oh, hi. I'm so glad you took my call, Brian. I just wanted to say something to you personally, James Comey, that my only connection with you is a very important one and off the topic as such. I'm a member of the Pan Am 103 Families Organization. As you know, because you participated one year when you were in office, you were an invited speaker from the government to give a special talk to us on December 21st of whatever year that was.

Brian Lehrer: For people who don't know the reference, Helen, because it was a long time ago, that was a terrorist bombing that blew up a commercial airliner, correct?

Helen: Yes. It was 270 people died on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, sometimes known as the Lockerbie Bombing. The rest of the entire plane load of people, crew, and passengers all went down and all died. It was the first major attack, it was an act of war actually, against the United States because Pan Am's logo was a flag of the United States on the body of the plane.

Anyway, many many people came from high government office to talk to us, and your speech to us, I was editor of our newsletter those years, was the most eloquent. It was a prose poem. It was very meaningful. You talked about the winter solstice, you talked about memory, you talked about loss, you talked about grief, and you talked about our perseverance to see justice done. It was very, very moving, and it was very unlike any kind of political talk that we've received. I want to thank you personally for that gift you gave us that day.

Brian Lehrer: Helen, thank you for your call.

James Comey: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry for your loss. I remember that day vividly and that I could be a small part of it was one of the gifts of being in the FBI job, so thank you and I'm so, so sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Helen. Back to the news of the day, Trump complains that all these indictments against him are politically motivated. Do you buy it at any level?

James Comey: No, no, I don't. They talk about the weaponization of the Justice Department. Yes, they're weaponizing it against Republicans and Democrats today. The trials going on of Senator Robert Menendez in Manhattan as we speak, the Justice Department is showing the American people what it is, which is an institution committed to following the facts and applying the law. It's flawed because all of us as humans are flawed, but it's a good group of people trying to figure out what's right and just that description is a threat to everything Trump stands for, so he's got to try and burn it down.

Brian Lehrer: Are you concerned about the prospect of Trump-related violence if this judgment goes the wrong way for him in the Manhattan courtroom?

James Comey: Not on any large scale. I continue to be worried about individual threats to public officials and disturb people who might carry out those threats. I feel for the officials who get those, I know what that feels like, but I'm very concerned about that. I'm much less concerned about large-scale violence because I think a message was sent after January the 6th that you listen to Donald Trump, it will ruin your life. That his people are not jihadis looking to sacrifice themselves for the orange God. They're people with jobs, and families, and assets, and a lot of people listened to his lies and paid a very high price for that, as they should have for what happened on January the 6th, and that has sent a very important deterrence message. It's why there's no crowds in lower Manhattan. There aren't in Mar-a-Lago. There aren't going to be no matter who's elected the next president there's not going to be any large-scale violence. Everybody will be prepared for it, but I don't see it as a significant threat.

Brian Lehrer: I hope you're right. What about another January 6th if Trump loses? He's already laying the groundwork for his supporters to think there are only two possible scenarios, either he wins or he's had it stolen from him again.

James Comey: Sure. He'll say the same things, and some people will be fooled by it, trapped in his fog of lies, but I don't see a scenario where thousands of people do it again showing how old I am. The football will be pulled. It was pulled away the first time. It'll be pulled away the second time if you try to kick it, but you Peanuts fans, I don't see people being fooled in large numbers there.

I really do think it was important and still is that the Department of Justice pursues everyone who engaged in acts of violence or helped trash the Capitol. That's more than 1,000 people, and I know because I still talk to people doing the work now, this has really sent a message to people who might be tempted to do it again. The message is never again or your life will change in a way you don't want any part of.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think the Supreme Court will uphold that standard that you just laid out because it's before them explicitly?

James Comey: I do think-- well, yes, not to get too down in the weeds of the legal issues, but there is a chance that the Supreme Court will narrow the reach of a particular obstruction of justice statute that might have an effect on some of the cases. Again, I think the message that your life will be ruined if you engage in this conduct has been sent very strongly. I think the Supreme Court also has, as you know, a very important case to decide with respect to presidential immunity that I think will get very, very soon. I really don't think anything the court does is going to undermine the message that has been sent to people who might be tempted to act in a group on Donald Trump's behalf.

Brian Lehrer: One more call, and this is about a different moment in history than any that we've mentioned. Matt in Rockland County, you're on WNYC with James Comey.

Matt: Oh, hi, Brian. Thank you for having me. Mr. Comey, I just think that you have been so unfairly maligned by both the right and the left. You have always seemed to me a straight shooter, and I was hoping that you could perhaps give your personal account of this, the drama that unfolded around the Ashcroft hospital showdown. I think it speaks to your character, and I'd love to hear your firsthand account, please, of what happened.

James Comey: Sure. Is that okay, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and in brief because we're going to run out of time soon.

James Comey: Yes. That was one of the reasons I said that I didn't expect to go back to government because the fight we had over NSA surveillance and over torture, I thought that they hated me enough inside the Bush administration that I would never go back. There was a classified program that the president ordered every six weeks that involved the NSA engaging in domestic intelligence collection aimed at US persons, US citizens. When I became the number two at the Department of Justice, the lawyers who had been working on it told me it's unlawful that, in a variety of ways, we can't approve this any longer.

The Attorney General was the one who was going to have to say no, and he authorized me to work on it to fix it. Then he went into intensive care, very, very ill, and I became the acting Attorney General. I communicated the message that we cannot approve this as to form and legality, which is what the ask was of us every six weeks, and rather than change it the way we thought it had to be changed, they tried to go around me, and two White House officials went to visit the Attorney General at his intensive care bed. I got alerted to it in advance by his wife, and so I raced there and called then FBI Director Robert Mueller who raced there.

I got there before the White House guys did, and I asked the FBI to make sure I wasn't physically removed from the room, and I sat by his bed. He shocked me when they came in by leaning up from what I thought was a nearly unconscious state and blasting them, and then saying, "But none of that matters because I'm not the Attorney General," and he pointed to me as he fell back and he said, "There's the Attorney General." The two men didn't even look at me. They just turned and walked out.

Then I was going to resign as was Director Mueller because we couldn't be part of an administration that would do something the Justice Department found was unlawful, and that led to me having a one-on-one with President George W. Bush where I told him that I could not, in good conscience, sign off on this. Then Director Mueller met with him alone and told him that he ought to listen to me, and he did. He changed course, and we changed this program in a way that allowed the lawyers at the Department of Justice to approve it as to form and legality, and the crisis was averted. I thought that story would never be told, and some years later, it was told.

Brian Lehrer: James Comey, former FBI Director, former US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, meaning Manhattan, and now the author of his second crime novel, which is called Westport. Thank you very much for joining us.

James Comey: Thanks for having me, Brian.

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