A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
by James B. Comey
View on GoodreadsJames Comey's memoir spanning his career — Mafia prosecution, the Stellar Wind hospital-bed confrontation with the Bush administration, FBI Director through 2017 — written after his firing by Trump and structured around the question of what institutional loyalty actually means.
Core ideas
- The "higher loyalty" framing is to the rule of law, not to any administration — the book's case is that Comey's controversial 2016 actions (the Clinton email letter, the press conferences) and his Trump-era posture both followed from the same principle.
- The Trump interactions — the awkward dinner, the "I need loyalty" demand, the Oval Office "I hope you can let this go" about Flynn — are reconstructed from contemporaneous notes Comey took specifically because he didn't trust the situation.
- The 2016 Clinton-email decisions are defended on the book's terms but acknowledged as having affected the election; the defense is procedural, not consequentialist.
Published2018
Pages290
ISBN9781250192455
ReadAug 2024
