In his ABC interview last Sunday, former FBI chief James Comey boasted endlessly of his devotion to truth, which he said “has to be central to our lives.” Touting his role in bringing down Martha Stewart, he declared, “The truth matters in the criminal justice system.” But, when he was FBI boss from 2013 to 2017, his agency duped the American public whenever convenient.
In 2014, Comey declared that “We do use deception at times to catch crooks, but we are acting responsibly and legally.” His comment was spurred by revelations that an FBI agent had masqueraded as an Associated Press reporter and fabricated an AP story. The Associated Press complained that the FBI’s tactics undermined “the vital distinction between the government and the press," while the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press protested that the ruse “creates the appearance that it is not independent of the government.” But Comey declared the technique was “proper and appropriate,” allowing such scams to continue.
The AP charade was chump change compared to the FBI’s next media flim-flam. After a high-profile confrontation between federal agents and Nevadan ranchers in 2014, the FBI created a bogus independent film crew that spent almost a year hounding the Cliven Bundy family and their supporters, taping their comments to propel federal charges against them. The feds eventually arrested and prosecuted Bundy family members.
This past January, federal judge Gloria Navarro dismissed all charges, denouncing “flagrant” and “reckless” misconduct by federal prosecutors. The FBI was exposed for lying for more than three years regarding its deployment of sniper teams around the Bundys’ ranch prior to the Bundys summoning supporters to protect them.
The Justice Department inspector general last month exposed Comey’s arguably deceitful tactics regarding his campaign to outlaw private encryption, which he perennially portrayed as a grave peril to public safety. After a Muslim couple gunned down 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., the FBI invoked a 1789 law to sway a federal judge to order Apple to write anti-encryption software that would hand the FBI the keys to break into the terrorist’s iPhone (and all other iPhones).
