Former FBI director James Comey resurfaced in the Trump-Russia drama on Monday: As a commentator.
Yesterday, special counsel Robert Mueller — who was appointed after Comey was fired by President Trump — delivered indictments against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Manafort’s business associate Rick Gates, and former Trump foreign-policy adviser George Papadopolous. In response, Comey tweeted a saying from the theologian who wrote the Serenity Prayer:
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr”
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr
— Reinhold Niebuhr (@FormerBu) October 30, 2017
Comey recently unmasked himself on the account @FormerBU. It had existed under the name “Reinhold Niebuhr” for several months. Although it had no profile picture and only a few cryptic posts, Ashley Feinberg of Gizmodo reported the account was Comey’s in March. This month, the former FBI director’s friend Benjamin Wittes confirmed it, after the account displayed a photo of a very tall man standing in the middle of an Iowa road, staring into the distance.
On Monday, Comey added his picture and the bio “Former FBI Director, current husband and father, writing and speaking about ethical leadership, wears running shoes to exercise, taller and funnier in person.”
Feinberg had reported that Comey wrote his college senior thesis on Niebuhr and televangelist Jerry Falwell. The Serenity Prayer, often recited in AA meetings, asks God to grant a person “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Comey’s firing in May precipitated Mueller’s appointment as special counsel, charged with investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s possible collusion.
On Monday, Manafort and Gates were charged with conspiracy to launder money, making false statements, conspiracy against the U.S. and failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
But most dramatically, it was revealed that Papadopolous, the former Trump campaign adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to FBI agents about his communications with Russians. It is the clearest evidence yet of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia.
