Trump and Comey: Everyone's Favorite Frenemies

Trump and Comey were a breakup waiting to happen. That said, this is one of the more entertaining breakups I’ve ever seen.

I believe Ben Shapiro was spot on in his theory that Trump fired Comey out of frustration for not closing the Russian case, but I think the irritation runs deeper than that, partially due to Comey’s incompetence as well as questions of loyalty. These two have been engaged in a classic on-again/off-again relationship to rival Ross and Rachel of Friends (Hey, maybe Trump and Comey are just on a break!).

The obvious disputes surround the Hillary email debacle, which was chaos from day one. Comey investigated Hillary in July 2016 and of course exonerated her at the time, prompting cheers and jeers from respective sides of the aisle, including a tweet by then-candidate Trump decrying Comey’s actions as evidence of a rigged system.

On Comey’s end, this was clearly a botched deal. It would have been one thing to open and close the case due to lack of evidence, but to publicly announce that Hillary was extremely irresponsible with classified information yet would not be brought up on charges was a poor move, inviting criticism and accusations of bias.

Chalk one up for Comey’s incompetence. Relationship status with Trump: off.

Fast forward to late-October 2016 and the reopening of Hillary’s case based on evidence found in the Anthony Weiner investigation. This evidence certainly warranted further examination, but for Comey to publicly announce the FBI’s preliminary actions with no findings days before an election, insist that it had nothing to do with the election, and then rush through the process as quickly as possible in order to finish before the election (which it had nothing to do with) was poor judgment.

It seems Comey, like Trump, could learn a lesson in keeping his mouth shut.

But this time Trump and many others on the Right lauded Comey’s supposed heroism, saying that “it took guts” to do what he did. Comey’s actions affected the polls, but did it win Trump the election? I doubt it. Didn’t hurt him, though, so Trump was grateful.

Another strike against Comey. Relationship status: on.

By this measure alone, it should be clear that Trump’s view of Comey has little to do with doing his job well and centers more on doing his job the way Trump wants it done. Which brings us to our next point:

One week following the inauguration, President Trump hosted Comey for a one-on-one dinner in the White House. In what can only be described as an imitation of the scene where Palpatine reveals his Sith background to Anakin Skywalker, Trump allegedly asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him, to which Comey reportedly promised only honesty.

If that’s true, then this is both a scary move by the president and a bold, respectable statement from Comey. Worst. DTR. Ever.

Comey gets a thumbs-up for this one. Relationship status: it’s complicated.

Fewer than two months later, Trump delivered his now-famous allegation that the Obama administration had ordered illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign team and requested that Comey look into it, but Comey refused. Comey called the president “crazy” for these accusations, which, according to him, were “outside the realm of normal.”

Relationship status: in the doghouse.

Remember this moment. It’s pivotal.

Sadly, like Anakin, Comey failed to live up to his altruistic ultimatum, straying from the side of honesty. His credibility took another shot when it was found that he had lied about the extent of Huma Abedin’s involvement in the Clinton email scandal. First he had said that Abedin forward hundreds of thousands of emails containing classified information to her husband, Anthony Weiner. Comey later amended this to say that only some of the hundreds of thousands of emails she’d forwarded contained classified information, but even this was not enough. It was later found that Abedin had physically forwarded relatively few emails to Weiner’s computer and that the bulk of the hundreds of thousands had come from Abedin backing up the files on her husband’s hard drive.

To be clear, Abedin’s actions were still illegal and Comey’s spreading misinformation might not have been intentional. But as Director of the FBI, Comey had the responsibility to be impeccably accurate in his testimony. Those details mattered to the investigation, and Comey made himself look untrustworthy. And this is bad for Trump because he’s the one tweeting “Lock her up!” He needed this investigation to play out to Hillary’s guilt. A botched investigation would have serious consequences, and not the one’s Trump was after.

For those playing along at home, Comey now has -2 points (three down, one up). Relationship status: on the ropes.

Finally we get to the investigation into Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia during the election. With all of the context we’ve just addressed, we can see that Trump and Comey were already strained to say the least. This was a ticking time-bomb if ever there was one.

At this crucial juncture, Comey delivered neither honesty nor loyalty, persisting in his investigation despite testimony from James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence and Obama appointee, that there was no evidence to warrant further probing. The media are running with a story that Comey asked for more resources shortly before his termination, but Acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe insists that their resources are more than sufficient. Even if this was not the case, it is easy to see why Trump saw Comey’s actions as impractical and therefore personal.

This is where that pivotal moment of Comey’s refusal to investigate the wiretaps comes in. Say what you will about the wiretapping evidence or the Russian evidence, they are controversial cases. The Right sees the Russian story as a conspiracy theory, just as the Left sees the wiretapping claims as a conspiracy theory. Either one, both, or neither could be true, but these are both perceived as extremist positions by the opposing side.

With that in mind, look at this from Trump’s perspective. This is, after all, the tale of lost love. Comey all but laughed in hysteria at the idea of investigating an outlandish claim wherein Trump was the victim. But take an outlandish claim and make Trump the instigator and Comey jumped on that case and stuck with it to the point of irrationality.

This discrepancy seems genuinely unfair, especially if you’re Trump and know (hypothetically) that no Russian collusion occurred. This was a hurtful move, maybe even a betrayal as far as Trump was concerned, and it was, as we know, the final straw.

Relationship status: off.

In true teen drama fashion, Trump has behaved exactly like a spurned lover in his handling of Comey’s termination, which is hilarious except that he’s our president. He broke up with Comey through a letter that didn’t even get to Comey, who had to find out about his termination by seeing the announcement on T.V. This is the equivalent of finding out about your breakup because your girlfriend changed her relationship status to “single.”

As hilarious as this was, it is equally stupid. Trump is inviting criticism and suspicion of a coverup, but I don’t think he cares. He’s been through a lot lately, and he’s hurting, the poor dear.

We’ve seen in the past that Trump doesn’t know how to implement policy, such as not telling the Department of Homeland Security about the travel ban until after signing the executive order and celebrating the passing of the American Healthcare Act when it had only been approved by one branch of Congress. Trump had every right to fire Comey for incompetence, and Comey was incompetent, but Trump is lucky that he can’t be fired for the same.

And this had nothing to do with Comey’s incompetence. It was just the right love at the wrong time.

Trump took his heartache to another level by trolling the Left for their criticism of Comey’s dismissal. Starting with a retweet of Rosie O’Donnell’s cry for Comey’s firing in December, captioned, “We finally agree on something, Rosie,” Trump went full troll. He later posted a highlight reel of Leftist leaders expressing lack of confidence in and general disdain for Comey, calling for him to step down--the same one’s now berating Trump for following through.

This is brilliant. The second greatest political tactic is making your opponent look foolish. Foolish people have no credibility. The first, by the way, is to expose some sort of sexual debauchery. Trump, incidentally, has proven immune to both.

Anyway, this is the best (and maybe only) way to clean up the mess Trump made by firing Comey so hastily, so close to the Russian probe, and with such poor implementation.

But what can you do? Have some sympathy. The man just went through a bad breakup.

Now we’ll just have to see who he rebounds with!