Comey Fights Back Against Charges

James Comey defends himself after indictment Former FBI Director James Comey released a defiant video. This was last week and apologies for just now getting to it, but I wanted to really dive into it more. It was a defiant video Thursday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice. According to CNN and the New York post, Comey, now 64 years old, could face up to five years in prison if convicted. Standing before the camera, Comey rejected the charges outright, calling them politically motivated. We will not live on our knees, he said. I'm not afraid. I hope you're not, either. The indictment stems from his 2020 congressional testimony regarding the FBI's Russia investigation. Legal experts note the case rests on disputed interpretations, and prosecutors inside the Justice Department had initially declined to bring charges. President Trump, however, celebrated on truth social media, calling Comey one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to and declaring that justice in America is finally being served. Comey is scheduled to be arraigned October 9th in Virginia. What's the real message here? I happen to agree with Donald Trump that James Comey is one of the worst human beings to ever be unleashed on our society. I do agree with that, but for different reasons. If it weren't for James Comey, Donald Trump would have never become president in the first term. It was Comey who put his thumb on things, trashed Hillary just a few days before the election in a very slimy way, and delivered the presidency to Trump. So I do agree with Trump. Comey is one of the worst human beings ever. But this, this charging of him is a complete, utter sham. Someone else who deserves potential billing as worst human being ever. Okay, let's dig a little deeper. I think you know who I'm talking about there. Let's look at what Comey actually did. Because as for those of you who don't know me, I am a communication skills expert consultant. I'm a media trainer, public speaking coach. So I do work with companies, politicians, others who are in a crisis. And I often recommend to people get out front, define the issue on your terms, speak, hold a press conference, or at least put out a video where people can see you giving your version of events. And a lot of people don't do it. They want to hide behind a press release written by a lawyer. So I give James Comey credit, even though I'm not a Comey fan. He should not be indicted on this sham issue. Let's take a look right now at what exactly he said. I'm going to show you the video, and together we can figure out what we think works and what doesn't work.

My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump.

Okay, what I like about this video, and I'm assuming because I've seen it in several different places, it really was only 57 seconds long. I, I like the fact that he didn't go on and on and on. He didn't put all sorts of explanatory things in. I like that. It's simple. It looks like he had his wife or an assistant just hold a cell phone in front. You can look right at his face. He's not trying to wow us with a big fancy office and American flags. I mean, it looks almost like a mug shot. But I think there's enough lighting on him and the microphone is fine. He gets right to it. He speaks clearly. He does not look or sound guilty. Doesn't mean you're not guilty. But he certainly is coming across defiant in literally the first five seconds. Let's watch more.

But we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not.

Couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. So he's coming across conversational now. I have no doubt that he scripted it. The stakes are pretty high, but he took the time to get comfortable with it. I, I'm willing to bet almost anything he rehearsed this, maybe he did several different takes, but he's coming across genuine conversational fluid. He sounds like he really means it.

Live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.

So this is powerful language, talking about, you know, living scared on your knees. Let me play it from the beginning because I've chopped it up a little bit and it can be hard to follow. Let me play a longer clip here. From the beginning.

My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. We will.

So he's painting himself as the hero. I mean, he says he knows there's cost to standing up to Donald Trump because he very famously was fired for Trump because he wouldn't just act like Trump's personal attorney. Famously, in the first term, Trump basically said, hey, you realize you're not working for me, right? And Comey is like, I don't think so. And he fired him. It was unprecedented for the President of the United States to fire an FBI director. They were. So there's been bipartisan agreement that they get 10 year terms. And you're not supposed to have the president meddling. But like any norm, any aspect of decency, any system that had been agreed to by both parties to try to make democracy a little fairer, Trump threw that out the window. So that's what he's referencing there, that he's been harassed, attacked by Trump repeatedly and punished for doing what he felt was the right thing to do. Now, I mentioned earlier, I don't agree with Comey on a number of things, but no serious person believes that he somehow has devoted his life to harming Trump. Trump's whole presidency is because of James Comey trying to pander to conservatives to make them feel good and get off his back by saying nasty things about the Hillary Clinton, which he should not have said. Let's watch more.

Not live on our knees, and you.

Should not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either. So he's, he's speaking to a wide swath of Americans now who, frankly, are living in fear. Certainly every Republican politician in America, you give them a shot of sodium pentathol, they'll tell you, yeah, I fear Trump. I don't want to say anything to have him criticize me. I don't want to end up with all the death threats. So a lot of people are living in fear in America today. Fear of if you cross dear Leader, the great orange one, the full force of United States government, legal officials, Department of Justice, the irs, everyone will come after you until they find that tail light out and can come after you. So he's saying he's very much a part of what so many Americans are fearing right now.

Shouldn't either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant.

Fear is the tool of the tyrant. Again, he's positioning this for exactly what it is. He's not saying, oh, I'm not guilty, and I didn't really lie. He's not defending, he is attacking, laying out his worldview, and it's exactly what you should do. Now, my advice to a lot of companies that are attacked by Trump is don't even mention it. But this is different. This is so high profile, there's no escaping it. His very freedom, his very life is on the line, and so he has to make a case. I do think he comes across well. If you didn't know anything about James Comey and you saw this person, you would think, wow, he seems credible, he seems knowledgeable. He's not overly emotional, he's not hysterical. He's not seeming like some crazy partisan extremist. I mean, he's the picture of kind of the sober, FBI, calm, rational person and a part of the establishment. Now, you can't tell him his picture, but this guy's a giant as well. He's like six, eight. This is literally and figuratively a big man around town in Washington, D.C. new York and other places. He's frankly the sort of person the Trump administration doesn't typically pick on. They like the, you know, the Lisa Cooks, Leticias. They like picking on the black women most. That usually is what gets them going. But tall, rich white men have not typically been the first people to be picked on by this administration, but now it's affecting everybody. Let's watch more of this video.

And she's right, but I'm not.

I'm not afraid. He's getting right to the emotion, and I think this is smart because we do live in a climate of extreme fear in the United States today because of the increasing authoritarianism emanating from Washington.

And I hope you're not either. I hope. Instead.

So he's coming back to talk about you, the American people. What he's trying to do, and I think he's doing it effectively, is saying, this isn't about me. This is about all of our American society crumbling, our entire rule of law crumbling. You should be scared. But I hope you're not living on bended knee. I hope you're able to continue. I'm going to. I hope you do as well. So he's really positioning himself as a leader and as a representative of, of tens of millions of Americans in the way they think and the way they perceive the current political reality that you.

Are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon.

So he's. He's talking about you. He's. He's not saying you should feel sorry for me. He's not saying, oh, I was quoted out of context. It wasn't really perjury. He's positioning this in much broader terms, which I think is smart. He's telling people, you still have a way of bringing our democracy back by voting. I think this may be, frankly, the only thing that does keep him out of prison is if the Congress is taken back by Democrats in 2026, you're not going to see this sort of brazen, contemptuous destruction of the rule of.

Law, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice.

He comes across very sincere there. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice now, even though I pick on him, and I think what he did in the 2016, 11 days before the election will go down in history as one of the worst acts anyone could have ever done, especially by someone in his position. I do think that he is a serious person who has a lifelong love for justice and the Department of Justice and the FBI. And he's coming across sincere here. He's coming across as sober, as calm, as factual, as highly credible.

I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I'm innocent, so let's have a try.

So he does state very clearly, I'm innocent. And he said it with his head tilt. Eyebrows went up. He seemed genuine. Now, of course, there are partisans out there who would say, oh, this guy's a complete crook. I would never believe him. Well, let me tell you, any person who tells you he's not credible, he would never believe him. Every one of them that I know believed him 100% in 2016 when he held a press conference to say that Hillary Clinton did horrible, bad things, but we're not going to indict her. She did these horrible things, reminding people a few days before the election that she was guilty of all these horrible things. But we're going to let it slide. Failing to talk about the fact that there was an active investigation going on to Donald Trump. Truly unprecedented, what he did there. But again, my point is he's credible. He comes across as credible. He was credible to people in 2016, and he's credible to a lot of people today as well.

And keep the faith.

So I said 57 seconds. It was only. I'm playing this from the Guardian now. Forgive me if he did say longer, but I think, in general, unless I'm missing it, it was a pretty brief video. And he didn't rush, he didn't overwhelm people with facts. He didn't go on and on, on with 29 bullet points proclaiming all the reasons why he's innocent. He said, I'm innocent, and he instantly recast this. As to the real problem in our society, which is we have an authoritarian is using and abusing our system of laws to punish critics, to punish anyone who will not do his bidding. And that is something, at least historically, most Americans would agree with. They would say, that's a horrible thing. We don't want presidents simply attacking enemies and using the Department of Justice to put people in prison because of criticism. There was, I have to state, was, you know, pretty universal agreement on that principle. Like a lot of things these days, it is under assault.