“Director of the FBI” is not a role that traditionally screams “relatability.” James Comey is a man of high-stakes responsibilities, high-level security clearance, and high-minded rhetoric. But his dramatic testimony on Thursday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee made clear that Comey is not just the country’s (former) top law enforcement officer. He’s also every poor sap who’s ever had an epically bad boss and had to endure one agonizing conversation after another that he is powerless to escape. Comey, in other words, is Just Like Us. And Donald Trump, of course, is both the bad boss and the annoying acquaintance who just will not get off the freaking phone already.
Comey seems to have realized quickly that he was working for an untrustworthy loose cannon. “I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting,” he wrote. “Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward.” When you know HR can’t help you, all you can do is take notes. “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting,” Comey also said. “It led me to believe I’ve got to write it down.”
One of the most striking scenes Comey described was the meeting in which Trump badgered him to drop the investigation into disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Out of seeming desperation, Comey conceded Flynn was a “good guy” and said he would “see what [he] could do” about dropping the case. He described his response as a “slightly cowardly way” of telling Trump he would not drop the investigation. Who among us has not used this tactic as a way of saying “Not a chance in hell”? Variations include “Let me look into that,” “It’s possible,” and, a personal favorite, “I’ll ask my editor.”
Unfortunately for Comey, ignoring social cues serves Trump’s interests. “I need loyalty,” the president told him in one Marx Brothers–worthy exchange. “You will always get honesty from me,” Comey replied. “That’s what I want, honest loyalty,” Trump said. Comey finally relented. “I tried ‘honest’ first,” he testified on Thursday. “It got very awkward…I acceded to that as a way to end this awkwardness.”
Comey also had a deeply uncomfortable “gut feeling” about being alone with his superior, an experience that will be familiar to many working women. At one point, he testified, Trump invited him to a last-minute dinner that he assumed included others, but turned out to be a table set for two. “Two Navy stewards waited on us,” he wrote, “only entering the room to serve food and drinks.” His desperation not to be alone with Trump is palpable.
Why didn’t Comey simply tell President Trump that this kind of pressure was inappropriate? Here again, Comey’s account of his relationship with Trump is devastatingly real. “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have,” he told the committee on Thursday. “I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.”
There’s one way in which Comey is nothing at all like those of us who have been wronged by bad bosses and irritating acquaintances: He got to kvetch about his nemesis under oath with the whole nation watching. Thursday’s testimony, then, was the ultimate revenge fantasy for anyone who has ever been cornered at a party by an idiot or hung out to dry by an incompetent superior. (The analogy deepened in resonance during Sen. John McCain’s incoherent hectoring of Comey.) With a bit of luck, there will be more comeuppance in the future. “Lordy,” he said Thursday, “I hope there are tapes.” That’s as close as someone like James Comey gets to saying: “Receipts.”
