`Lordy, I hope there are tapes.' How Comey has been at the center of some of DC's biggest dramas

Key quotes from and about former FBI Director James Comey illustrate who he is.Show Caption

WASHINGTON − James Comey is hard to miss.The 6-foot-8-inch former FBI director is used to standing out in rooms – and in history.From the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the 2016 election and the tempestuous Trump administrations, Comey has been at the center of some of the biggest dramas in Washington.Throughout his long career, he has acquired many detractors among Democrats and Republicans alike.But he has also been praised for his integrity.Comey is now back in the spotlight after being indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction, allegations leveled after a yearslong tumultuous relationship with President Donald Trump, who fired Comey for investigating his 2016 campaign's contacts with Russia.Here are key quotes from and about Comey that illustrate who he is.`Make something good from evil'Comey blinked back tears when talking to USA TODAY in 2018 about the loss of his infant son more than two decades earlier.He was sharing that personal story for the first time in his book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.”Comey said he did so because his son’s death from a treatable infection that a doctor and a hospital failed to diagnose “had such a huge impact on how I think of the obligations of a leader.”"I found that devastating,” he said. “My wife found that devastating. And then I watched her try to channel it into accomplishing something good. I learned from watching her. I couldn't believe what she did to try and spare other mothers that pain, and it shaped me as a leader."Patrice Comey launched a campaign to require doctors and hospitals to test for Group B streptococcus, a bacterial infection that can be treated with penicillin during delivery if detected toward the end of a pregnancy.The lesson, James Comey said, was to "make something good from evil, from pain, from loss."`A rarity in Washington'When President Barack Obama picked Comey in 2013 to head the FBI, he called Comey "a rarity in Washington," someone who didn't care about politics but was focused on getting the job done.Obama alluded to the former deputy attorney general's actions in one of the most dramatic moments of the George W. Bush administration.In 2004, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card tried to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was ill with acute pancreatitis, to reauthorize a warrantless eavesdropping program while in his hospital bed. Comey, who was Ashcroft's top deputy and acting attorney general at the time, learned of Gonzales and Card's plan and rushed to Ashcroft's hospital room, along with FBI Director Robert Mueller.Both threatened to resign if the White House renewed the program. As a result, it was not reauthorized."He was prepared to give up the job he loved, rather that be a part of something that he felt was fundamentally wrong," Obama said.`This is torture'At his 2013 confirmation hearing, Comey testified that though he formally approved of waterboarding while serving as a deputy attorney general, he has long believed the practice is torture and illegal."When I first learned about waterboarding ... my reaction was this is torture; it's still what I think," he said. "If I were FBI director, we would never have anything to do with that."A coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, had raised concerns about two 2004 Justice Department memorandums that approved the use of waterboarding, which Comey later wrote that he "concurred" with.Comey testified that he told Ashcroft, the attorney general, that the practice was wrong, but he added that the law on the matter was "very vague.""He told me he made my argument in full and that the principals were fully on board with the policies, and so my proposal was rejected," Comey said.`It makes me mildly nauseous'Comey staunchly defended his 2016 decision to publicly announce the reopening of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's private email server 11 days before the November election, telling a Senate panel it would have been the "death of the FBI as an institution in America" had he remained silent about possible new evidence.Still, Comey acknowledged the possible repercussions of such a move. "It makes me mildly nauseous that we would have had an impact on the election," Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017.Comey said he had no choice but to inform lawmakers about the investigation’s developments in late October after he learned thousands of Clinton emails had been recovered from a laptop used by former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, the husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. He recalled the decision as a personal struggle to either "conceal or speak'' about the rapidly unfolding developments so close to the election."We had to walk into a world of really bad,'' Comey said. "I could not see a door labeled 'No action needed.'"Trump's `silent circle of assent'Comey knows about the Mob. As a prosecutor, he helped dismantle the Gambino crime family.And in his first meeting with Trump − when briefing the president-elect at the beginning of 2017 – Comey was getting flashbacks.“I sat there thinking, Holy crap, they are trying to make each of us an “amica nostra”− friend of ours. To draw us in,” Comey wrote in his 2018 memoir. “As crazy as it sounds, I suddenly had the feeling that, in the blink of an eye, the president-elect was trying to make us all part of the same family and that Team Trump had made it a `thing of ours.’”Comey told USA TODAY in 2018 that the Mafia comparison struck him not because Trump “is out breaking legs or shaking down shopkeepers.” But he said the leadership culture is similar: "You are judged entirely by your fealty, your loyalty, to that boss."Trump, Comey wrote in his book, “pulls all those present into a silent circle of assent.”`Not able to effectively lead the bureau'Trump stunned the political world by firing Comey in 2017, agreeing with the Justice Department leadership's recommendation that the FBI director "was not able to effectively lead the bureau."Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had excoriated Comey for his handling of the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.But opponents saw the move as a blatant attempt to short-circuit the investigation into Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election.The firing triggered the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and a wider Justice Department investigation into the Republican's campaign contacts with Russia and Moscow's interference in the election.'Lordy, I hope there are tapes'In his first public comments after being fired by Trump in 2017, Comey painted a devasting portrait of the president while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee.Among the most stunning and consistent themes running throughout more than two hours of testimony was that Comey believed the president could not be trusted.“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said of a private meeting with Trump at which he testified the president urged him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.After Trump suggested in a social media post that there might be “tapes” of his conversations with Comey, the former FBI director said he moved to make aspects of his memos public by enlisting a friend to share the content of his own notes with a reporter.Comey said he hoped news reports would prompt the appointment of a special counsel. Indeed, the Justice Department appointed Mueller as special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation just one day after the existence of the memos was disclosed.`Cool shell formation'The FBI questioned the former head of the agency this year after his Instagram post about a collection of seashells that formed the numbers “8647.”“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey posted.Comey’s post was interpreted by some as saying to “86” – or, get rid of − No. 47. Trump is the 47th president.Comey took down the photo and said in a subsequent Instagram post that he was unaware the message could have been associated with violence.“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” Comey posted May 15. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”`We will not live on our knees'After being indicted on Sept. 25, Comey said his heart is “broken” for the Justice Department.“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way,” Comey said in the video clip shared on Instagram. “We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.”Comey referenced his daughter, Maurene, who was fired by Trump from the Manhattan federal prosecutorial office in July and has since sued the Trump administration.“Somebody that I love dearly recently said that ‘fear is the tool of a tyrant,’ and she's right, but I'm not afraid, and I hope you're not either,” Comey said. “I hope instead, you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does.”Contributing: Josh Meyer, Aysha Bagchi, Susan Page and Bart Jansen