FBI Nominee James Comney's Revealing Testimony on Torture and the NSA
The Senate Judiciary Committee today questioned President Obama's nominee to replace Robert Mueller as the head of the FBI. James Comey, a deputy attorney general under President Bush, answered the senators' questions about both his record standing up to the use of torture and the current debate over NSA surveillance. His answers were often revealing.
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Comey first came to national attention when he testified before the Senate about his 2004 confrontation with White House aides at the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. That moment focused on Comey's (and Ashcroft's) objections to the government's secret surveillance systems. But, as we've noted, his commitment to other constitutional protections has wavered.
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On torture: Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont about his 2005 agreement that the CIA's use of torture techniques was legal, Comey replied, "When I first learned about waterboarding, when I became deputy attorney general, my reaction as a citizen and a leader was: this is torture. It's still what I think. To his great credit, Bob Mueller made sure the FBI had nothing to do with that business, and if I were FBI director it would never have anything to do with that."
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"I went to attorney general and said, 'This is wrong. This is awful. You have to go to the White House and force them to stare and this and answer the question.' I believe we should not be involved in this kind of stuff. … Now on the legal front, what I discovered with I became deputy attorney general, even though I as person, as a father, as a leader thought, 'that's torture, we shouldn't be doing that kind of thing,' I discovered that it's actually a much harder question to interpret this 1994 statute." To that end, he drafted new opinions on that statute.
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Later, questioned by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, Comey indicated that torture didn't stop at waterboarding. "I was concerned, Senator, that particularly in aggregation, the use of six-and-a-half days of sleep deprivation plus these other things" constituted inappropriate activity.
On surveillance of American citizens: "I don't think the Fourth Amendment, like your yogurt, has a date it expires on it."
On whistleblowers: "I think whistleblowers are also a critical element of a functioning democracy." And later: "Retaliation is just unacceptable."
On the prosecution of white-collar criminals: "You don't have people committing bank fraud high on crack or inflamed with passion."
On the free press: "The sometimes pain-in-the-neck press — they're a great pain-in-the-neck."
On serving in the government: "I've been gone from the government for almost eight years and I've missed it for every day of those eight years."
Barring some exceptional event, Comey will be confirmed by the full Senate when it votes on his nomination later this month.
