A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership

by James Comey

  What surprised me most—and led me in the moment to realize Patrice was likely wrong about this being a waste of time—was the president’s view of the FBI job. It turns out he had a different conception of the FBI director than either I or most partisans assumed. He said, “I don’t want help from the FBI on policy. I need competence and independence. I need to sleep at night knowing the place is well run and the American people protected.” Contrary to my assumption, the fact that I was politically independent from him might actually have worked in my favor.

  I replied that I saw it the same way. The FBI should be independent and totally divorced from politics, which was what the ten-year term for a director was designed to ensure.

  After my meeting with President Obama, I called Patrice with the wise-ass comment, “Your faith in their poor judgment may be misplaced.” Feeling good about my conversation with Obama, I agreed to the nomination when it was offered. My family would stay in Connecticut for two years to wind up all the things they were involved in, but I fully intended to serve as director of the FBI through the year 2023. What, I wondered, could possibly interfere with that?

  * * *

  After deciding I was his choice, but before he announced the nomination, President Obama surprised me by inviting me back to the Oval Office. We sat in the same seats and were again joined by the White House counsel. The president opened the conversation by explaining, “Once you are director, we won’t be able to talk like this.” What he meant was that for over forty years, the leaders of our government had understood that a president and an FBI director must be at arm’s length. The FBI is often called upon to investigate cases that touch on the president’s senior aides and affect the course of his presidency. To be credible—both in reality and in perception—the FBI and its director cannot be close with the president. So one final time, President Obama and I had the kind of conversation two college classmates might. We discussed and debated hard issues that were not under the FBI director’s purview, like using drones to kill terrorists. I was struck by the way he could see and evaluate a variety of angles on a complicated issue. And I suppose he wanted to make one last assessment of me and the way I thought through problems before my nomination was a done deal.

  On the way out the door, I told Kathy Ruemmler how surprised I was by the interesting discussion, telling her, “I can’t believe someone with such a supple mind actually got elected president.”

  President Obama and I would never have another casual conversation.

  * * *

  Before I took the job, the FBI had had only six directors since 1935, when it was officially named as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Its first, the legendary J. Edgar Hoover, had led the organization for nearly fifty years (including its predecessor organization, the Bureau of Investigation) and built a culture around himself that profoundly shaped the Bureau and its agents. For decades, Hoover used an iron hand to drive the agency and strike fear in the hearts of political leaders. He had “personal files” on many of them, something he let them know. He dined and drank with presidents and senators, letting them use the FBI when it suited him, and frightening them with the FBI when that suited him.

  Inside the FBI, the director was the absolute center. His approach brought tremendous fame, attention, and power to the organization. It also created an environment in which the goal of most agents and supervisors in the FBI was to avoid being noticed by Mr. Hoover. Tell him what he wants to hear, then get on with your work. That mentality was hard to displace, even decades after Hoover’s death.

  Before I was sworn in as FBI director in 2013, I spent a week shadowing Bob Mueller. Bob, a former marine, was a bit old-school as director, not given to what he saw as touchy-feely stuff. In the grueling days immediately after September 11, 2001, for example, his wife had prodded Bob to be sure his people were holding up under the stress. Early the next morning, or so I was told, he dutifully telephoned key members of his staff—whose offices were all within a ten-second walk of his—asking, “How’re you doing?” When each offered the perfunctory reply of “Fine, sir,” he replied, “Good,” and hung up.

  Mueller was characteristically disciplined about preparing me to follow him as director. During the first morning of my week of shadowing, he explained that he had arranged for me to talk with the leaders of the FBI’s major divisions. I was to meet with them one-on-one, he said, and they would each brief me on their area’s challenges and opportunities. Then, Mueller explained, without a hint of a smile, he would meet with me after each of these sessions, “to tell you what’s really going on.” That comment rocked me. The FBI is an institution devoted to finding the truth. Why would the director need to tell me “what’s really going on” after each meeting? The assumption in Bob’s comment was that senior officials either weren’t aware of what was happening at the FBI or weren’t going to be truthful to me, their new boss, about it. My guess was the latter.

  Many people, in my experience, hesitate to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to their bosses—and for reasons that may make sense. I could hear the voices of jaded FBI veterans channeling a character in the movie The Departed: “What’s the upside to doing that? It can only hurt you. Bosses are like mushrooms; you keep ’em in the dark and feed ’em shit.” I admired Bob and marveled at the way he had transformed the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11, driving the organization to break down walls, overcome its heritage as solely a detective culture, and become a fully integrated member of the intelligence community. Bob had proven that it would be a mistake to break the FBI into a criminal investigative agency and a counterterrorism agency by making the FBI great at both. I was in awe of what he had done, but I also wanted to signal a more open style of leadership.

  I was officially sworn in as the seventh director of the FBI on September 4, 2013. After delays caused by a congressional budget fight—complete with a shutdown of the federal government for lack of funds—we held a public installation at FBI headquarters in October. President Obama was present at the ceremony, and I caught an early glimpse at what made him a compelling leader.

  Patrice and our kids were, of course, in attendance at the ceremony. My two older girls had brought their serious boyfriends along, and we all joined the president for a commemorative photo of the occasion. Remembering what he had learned about our group during the introductions, President Obama smiled for the first photo and then, gesturing toward the boyfriends, said, “Hey, why don’t we take another without the guys. You know, just in case.” He was playful as he said it, and he did it in a way that no one was offended. But I could tell he was also being thoughtful in a way few leaders are. What if things didn’t work out with one or the other of these guys? Would having them in a picture with the president ruin it for the Comeys forever? So Obama gestured the boyfriends out of the shot, to our great amusement. (I’m happy to report that one of the guys is now our son-in-law and the other soon will be.)

  Though it was a small moment, what struck me about President Obama’s remark is that it displayed a sense of humor, insight, and an ability to connect with an audience, which I would later come to appreciate in the president even more. These are all qualities that are indispensable in good leaders. A sense of humor in particular strikes me as an important indicator—or “tell”—about someone’s ego. Having a balance of confidence and humility is essential to effective leadership. Laughing in a genuine way requires a certain level of confidence, because we all look a little silly laughing; that makes us vulnerable, a state insecure people fear. And laughing is also frequently an appreciation of others, who have said something that is funny. That is, you didn’t say it, and by laughing you acknowledge the other, something else insecure people can’t do.

  President Bush had a good sense of humor, but often at other people’s expense. He teased people in a slightly edgy way, which seemed to betray some insecurity in his personality. His teasing was used as a way to ensure that the hierarchy in his relationship with others was understood, a
strange thing given that he was president of the United States, and it was a sure way to deter his people from challenging the leader’s reasoning.

  President Obama could laugh with others, and, as with President Bush, poke fun at himself in some circumstances, such as when Bush told fellow “C students” at a commencement address, “you, too, can be president of the United States.” Unlike Bush, though, I never saw a belittling edge to Obama’s humor, which in my view reflected his confidence.

  * * *

  The FBI director’s job is much broader than may be apparent from the outside, or as depicted in the movies, where most of the director’s work seems entirely focused on individual cases and capturing bad guys. The director is the CEO of an extraordinarily complex organization. Each day began very early, when the director’s protective detail would pick me up for the drive to work. Though I had a security detail of Deputy U.S. Marshals when I served as deputy attorney general during the Bush administration, my new team was made up of specially trained FBI special agents and was much larger and more intense, because the threat to the FBI director is greater.

  Like the U.S. Marshals who protected me as deputy attorney general, the special agents who watched over me and my family became family. Which is a good thing, because we tested them as only relatives can. Once we were in Iowa for a wedding on Patrice’s side. I went to bed while Patrice stayed up late playing cards with our kids and their cousins. As it typically was, my hotel room was alarmed in all kinds of ways, and all around me in the hotel were agents. And as they typically did, the agents gave me a device with a button to push in the event of dire emergency. I was afraid of this thing and always put it far away from me in a hotel room, so I didn’t accidentally touch it during the night. This night, I put it on a countertop in the outer room and went to sleep in the bedroom, far away from it.

  I didn’t tell Patrice I had put the button on the counter in the outer room, the exact place where she was changing quietly at 2:00 A.M. so as not to wake me. She must have put something on top of the button, because there was pounding on the door about five seconds later. She opened the door a crack to see the lead agent standing at an odd angle, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He was holding his arm so she couldn’t see his hand behind his back. He looked very tense.

  “Is everything all right, ma’am?”

  “Yes. I’m just getting ready for bed.”

  “Are you sure everything is all right, ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see the director, ma’am?”

  “He’s sleeping in the other room.”

  “Will you check on him, please?”

  Patrice walked to the bedroom door, saw me, and reported back. “I see him there sleeping. He’s fine.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Sorry to bother you.”

  What Patrice couldn’t see, but I learned the next morning, was that there were agents stacked down the wall on either side of the door, guns held low and behind their backs. She had touched the button. My bad.

  The FBI boasts a strong gun culture. Guns, in the hands of the good guys, were a regular feature of FBI life. In every staff meeting, 80 percent of the attendees had a gun on them. I eventually grew accustomed to seeing a pistol in an ankle holster when the deputy director crossed his legs during a meeting. After all, the deputy director is the senior special agent in the organization and is always armed, except when he goes to the White House. As director, I too was permitted to carry a gun, but I figured that would only complicate my life. Bob Mueller had seen it the same way. Besides, I was surrounded by armed people all day long. If I wasn’t safe in the hands of the FBI, then our country was really in trouble. Sean Joyce, who served as my first deputy director, became famous in the organization for hitting “reply all” when some bureaucrat within the Bureau sent an all-employee message instructing personnel to shelter in place or flee in the event of an “active shooter” in the workplace. Sean replied that any special agent who took that advice and hid or failed to run toward an active shooter would be fired.

  * * *

  On my morning drives to work, I would read in the back of the fully armored black Suburban, preparing myself for the first two meetings of the day. But before any meetings, I would sit at my desk and read more, starting with the applications the Department of Justice was submitting to the court for electronic surveillance in FBI national security cases. Each application must be personally approved by the director or, in his absence, the deputy director. I would review the inch-thick applications, pulling from a stack that, on many mornings, was a foot high. After reviewing and signing the applications, I would read my classified intelligence briefing, bringing me up to speed on intelligence relevant to the FBI’s missions to prevent terrorism and defeat foreign intelligence threats in the United States. Then I would read unclassified material relevant to our many other responsibilities. With that homework done, I was ready to meet my senior team, starting with the six to ten most senior people to discuss the most sensitive classified matters, followed by a meeting where more of the FBI’s leaders were admitted.

  I would ask the group questions and get their morning reports on subjects that covered the FBI’s span: personnel (including injuries to our agents), budget, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, weapons of mass destruction, cyber, criminal cases (including kidnapping, serial-killer, gang, and corruption cases), Hostage Rescue Team deployments, congressional affairs, press, legal, training, the FBI lab, international affairs, and on and on. Most days I would then go meet with the attorney general to brief her, or him, on the most important matters.

  During the Obama administration, I worked with two attorneys general—Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. They were each intelligent and personable lawyers and I liked them both. Holder was close to President Obama and his senior team, and very attentive to the policy and political implications of the department’s work. By the time I became director, his relationship with Republicans in Congress was toxic, with the Republican-led House of Representatives having voted to hold him in contempt for his failure to provide information to their satisfaction about an ATF gun-trafficking investigation on the southwest border, known as “Fast and Furious.” The feeling of contempt seemed to be mutual.

  Loretta Lynch was much quieter and new to Washington. She spoke little and when she did, frequently seemed tightly scripted. It always takes time to become comfortable in a high-profile job; I’m not sure Lynch’s brief tenure gave her that time. And where Holder had a close working relationship with his deputy attorney general, Lynch’s relationship with Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates seemed distant and strained. It was as if they and their staffs simply didn’t talk to each other.

  My days were consumed by both emergencies and the disciplined execution of priority programs. I was trying to transform the way the FBI approached leadership, cyber, diversity, and intelligence, among other things, which required regular CEO—or director—focus to drive them forward. And the FBI is also an international enterprise, with people in every state and more than eighty other countries. That meant I needed to travel to see, listen to, and speak to the people of the FBI.

  In my first fifteen months as director, I visited all fifty-six FBI offices in the United States and more than a dozen overseas. I went there to listen and learn about the people of the FBI. What are they like, what do they want, what do they need? I spent hours and hours meeting them and listening to them. The first thing that struck me was that two-thirds of the FBI’s employees are not gun-carrying special agents. They are an extraordinarily diverse array of talented people, from all walks of life, serving in the FBI as intelligence analysts, linguists, computer scientists, hostage negotiators, surveillance specialists, lab experts, victim specialists, bomb technicians, and in many other roles. The one-third who are special agents, especially the thousands who were drawn by love of country after 9/11 to service in the FBI, are similarly diverse: former cops and marines, but also former teachers, chemists, therapists, cle
rgy, accountants, software engineers, and professional athletes. Many of them look like TV special agents—tall, attractive men and women in business dress—but they come in all shapes and sizes, from crew cuts to ponytails, from ankle tattoos to hijabs, from six foot ten to four foot ten. What drives them all is a palpable sense of mission. They helped me rewrite the organization’s mission statement to match what was already written on their hearts: they exist to “protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

  I was amazed at the talent, but I was frightened by one trend. The special agent workforce since 9/11 had been growing steadily more white. When I became director, 83 percent of the special agents were non-Hispanic Caucasians. As I explained to the workforce, I had no problem with white people, but that trend is a serious threat to our effectiveness. In a country that is growing more diverse, which, in my view, is wonderful, if every agent looks like me, we are less effective. Eighty-three percent could become 100 percent very quickly, if the FBI became known as “that place where white people work.” I told the workforce that the challenge and the opportunity were captured in something one of my daughters said when I told her about our diversity crisis. “The problem, Dad, is that you are The Man. Who wants to work for The Man?”

  My daughter was right, but also wrong. Because if people knew what the men and women of the FBI are really like, and what the work is really like, they would want to be a part of it. Almost nobody leaves the FBI after becoming a special agent. Whether white or black, Latino or Asian, male or female, the annual turnover is about the same—0.5 percent. Once people experience the environment and the mission at the FBI, they become addicted to it and stay until retirement, despite being paid government salaries and working under incredible stress. Our challenge, I told the FBI, is to simply get out there and show more people of color and more women (that number had been stuck just below 20 percent for years) what the place is like and dare them to try to be part of it. It’s not rocket science, I said; the talent is out there. They just don’t know what they are missing. So we made it our passion to show them, and in just three years, the numbers started to change in a material way. During my third year at the FBI, a huge new-agent class at Quantico was 38 percent nonwhite. Our standards hadn’t changed; we were just doing a better job of showing people the life they could make by joining us, which is contagious in a positive way.